(Zrl/. ^ / yu 
 
JOIETW WEILS W,E 
 
 
 ETTGHAVEI BY 
 
THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN WILSON, D.D. F.R.S. 
 
 FOR FIFTY YEAES PHILANTHROPIST AND SCHOLAR 
 IN THE EAST 
 
 BY GEOKGE SMITH, LL.D. 
 
 . 
 
 COMPANION OF THE ORDER OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE ; 
 
 FELLOW OF THE STATISTICAL SOCIETY; CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE 
 ORIENTALISCHES MUSEUM, VIENNA. 
 
 &vacrTa,Tii)<ra,vTS oSroi Kal vdd8e irdpeuriv 
 
 WITH PORTRAIT AND ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 LONDON 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 
 
 1878 
 
 The right of Translation is reserved 
 
- - 
 
 Printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh. 
 
Folume is Betrtcateti 
 
 TO THE OLD AND TO THE NEW: 
 
 TO 
 THE EIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 JOHN, LOED LAWEENCE, G.C.B., G.C.S.L, D.C.L., 
 
 LAST AND GREATEST OF THE CIVIL SERVANTS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY 
 AS HIS BROTHER HENRY WAS OF ITS SOLDIERS; 
 
 AND TO 
 
 CHAELES U. AITCHISON, C.S.I., LL.D., 
 
 CHIEF COMMISSIONER OF BRITISH BURMAH ; 
 
 FOREMOST IN EVERY SENSE OF THE COMPETITION CIVILIANS UNDER 
 THE CROWN. 
 
 
 513140 
 

PEEFACE. 
 
 WHEN, a year ago, I was asked by his son to go over the 
 voluminous papers and write the life of Dr. Wilson of Bom- 
 bay, I at once sacrificed other engagements to the duty. 
 As Editor of the Calcutta Review for some time before the 
 Mutiny of 1857, and as Editor of The Friend of India and 
 Correspondent of The Times for many years after it, I was 
 called to observe and occasionally to discuss the career of 
 the Philanthropist and Scholar of Western India. For forty- 
 seven years as a public man and a missionary he worked, 
 he wrote, he spoke, and in countless ways he joyfully toiled 
 for the people of India. While viceroys and governors, officials 
 and merchants, scholars and travellers, succeeded each other 
 and passed away all too rapidly, he remained a permanent 
 living force, a mediator between the natives and the govern- 
 ing class, an interpreter of the varied Asiatic races, creeds, 
 and longings, to their alien but benevolent rulers. Nor was 
 his work for his own countrymen less remarkable, in its degree, 
 than his life of self-sacrifice for Hindoos and Muhammadans, 
 Parsees and Jews, outcastes and aborigines, and his building 
 up of the indigenous Church of India. His influence main- 
 tained an English standard of morality and manners in 
 society, while he was the centre of a select group of ad- 
 ministrators, not confined to Bombay, like Sir Donald 
 M'Leod, to mention only the dead. As an Orientalist and 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 scholar, the power of his memory was only less remarkable 
 than the ardour of his industry; his linguistic instinct was 
 regulated by the philosophy with which his native country is 
 identified, and all were directed by the loftiest motive and 
 the purest passion that can inflame the breast. Wealth and 
 honours he put from him, save when he could make them also 
 ministers in the work of humanity. From Central India to 
 Central Africa, and from Cabul to Comorin, there are thousands 
 who call John Wilson blessed. His hundreds of educated 
 converts and catechumens are the seed of the Church of 
 Western India. Every missionary and student of India 
 Missions must sit at his feet. 
 
 From 1864, when I first visited Bombay, to his death at 
 the close of 1875, I learned to know the man as well as his 
 work. But he cannot be so well reproduced on the cold 
 page, for his own writings do not reflect the charm of his 
 talk, which delighted generations of friends, from Sir John 
 Malcolm to Lord Mayo and Lord Northbrook, Sir Bartle 
 Frere and Mr. Grant DufF. My aim is that this volume may 
 supply the materials, at least, from which his Country and 
 the Church Catholic, oriental scholars, and the princes and 
 educated natives of India, shall not only see what manner of 
 man he was but be stimulated by his rare example. I hope 
 also that the sketches of the other good and great men who 
 worked for a time by his side, may not be without interest ; 
 and that, still more, it may be seen how the British Govern- 
 ment is rising to the height of our national responsibility 
 for the good of the millions of Southern Asia, and of the 
 neighbouring Malay, Chinese, Tatar, Persian, Arab, Abys- 
 sinian, and Negro peoples. 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 This is an English book, and therefore, though it occa- 
 sionally treats purely scholarly questions, the English vowels 
 are used to transliterate oriental names and terms. Save in 
 occasional extracts which demand the preservation of the 
 original spelling, and in the name which I would fain have 
 printed " Boodhist," hardly an Asiatic word or phrase will be 
 found which is not so rendered as to be capable of correct 
 pronunciation, and of being easily understood. Scholars 
 who write for scholars only, do well to follow the Indian and 
 European vowel sounds. Scholars, officials, and all who 
 desire the English reader to be attracted to, instead of being 
 repelled from, the study of India and the East, will use 
 English as uniformly as ineradicable custom permits. 
 
 Besides the acknowledgments made in the course of the 
 narrative, I have to thank for their assistance his Excellency 
 Sir Richard Temple, Bart., who, as the present Governor of 
 Bombay, instructed the departments to supply copies of some 
 of Dr. Wilson's official correspondence ; Sir Alexander Grant, 
 Bart., Principal of the University of Edinburgh, who, as 
 Director of Public Instruction for some years, was closely 
 associated with Dr. Wilson ; the third Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeeb- 
 hoy, Bart.; the Revs. Dhunjeebhoy Nowrojee and R. 
 Stothert, M.A. ; Dr. Birdwood, C.S.I., and Dr. R. Rost, of 
 the India Office ; Hugh Miller, M.D., Esq. of Broomfield, 
 Helensburgh ; W. P. Jervis, Esq. of Turin ; Professors 
 Charteris and Eggeling ; and Professor Weber of Berlin, who 
 has communicated to me, through Mr. John Muir, D.C.L., 
 C.I.E., his very high estimate of the scientific pursuits of 
 Dr. Wilson as an Orientalist who subordinated scholarly repu- 
 tation to missionary ends. Only the long frontier war, and 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 the other cares of his office as Governor of Cape Colony, 
 have prevented his Excellency Sir Bartle Frere from con- 
 tributing reminiscences of his lifelong friend. 
 
 As this volume has passed through the press death has 
 removed these contemporaries and correspondents of Dr. 
 Wilson the Rev. John Cooper, his early . colleague ; Dr. 
 Lang, of Sydney ; M. Garcin de Tassy, of Paris ; Professor 
 Westergaard, of Copenhagen ; and Mr. George Thompson. 
 
 SERAMPORE HOUSE, MERCHISTON, 
 
 EDINBURGH, 19th October 1878. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 HOME SCHOOL UNIVERSITY VOYAGE TO BOMBAY . . 1 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 OLD BOMBAY AND ITS GOVERNORS TO 1829 . . . 35 
 
 CHAPTEK III. 
 
 ORGANISATION AND FIRST FRUIT OF THE MISSION . . 55 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 PUBLIC DISCUSSIONS WITH LEARNED HINDOOS AND MUHAM- 
 
 MADANS x" . . .97 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 TOURS TO NASIK ; TO JALNA AND ELORA ; TO GOA, KOLHA- 
 
 PORE, AND MAHABLESHWAR . . . . . .137 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 TOUR TO DAMAN, SURAT, BARODA, KATHIAWAR, KUTCH, DWARKA, 
 
 AND SOMNATH . . . . . . . .179 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 ZAND SCHOLARSHIP AND THE PARSEE CONTROVERSY 209 
 
xii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 PACK 
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF THE MISSION . .243 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 TOUES GAIRSOPPA FALLS RAJPOOTANA KATHIAWAR THE 
 
 SOMNATH GATES . . . .271 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ORIENTAL SCHOLARSHIP AND SCHOLARS . . 311 
 
 * 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 HOME BY ADEN, CAIRO, SINAI, PETRA, HEBRON, JERUSALEM, 
 
 DAMASCUS, CONSTANTINOPLE, AND PESTH . . .351 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE MISSIONARY SIDE OF 1843 . . .375 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 AMONG BOOKS SECOND MARRIAGE OVER EUROPE TO BOMBAY 407 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A NEW PERIOD TOUR IN SINDH THE BOMBAY SCHOOL OF 
 
 THE CATECHUMENS . . . . . . .429 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 LITERARY ACTIVITY THE ROCK-CUT TEMPLES . 461 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE MUTINY AND ITS GOOD FRUIT . 501 
 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Xlll 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE KRISHNA ORGIES DR. WILSON AMONG THE EDUCATED 
 
 NATIVES . 543 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 NEW BOMBAY DR. WILSON AMONG THE EUROPEANS DR. 
 
 LIVINGSTONE THE ABYSSINIAN EXPEDITION . 567 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 SECOND AND LAST VISIT HOME 
 
 597 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 BEST 
 
 611 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 DR. WILSON ON NATIVE RULE IN BARODA AND NATIVE OPINION 
 
 ON BRITISH RULE . 631 
 
 INDEX 
 
 639 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 DR. WILSON AS MODERATOR OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY Frontispiece. 
 MAP OF THE CITY OF BOMBAY . . . To face page 37 
 
 MAP OF THE LANDS AROUND THE INDIAN OCEAN IN- 
 FLUENCED BY DR. WILSON . . 
 
 THE GIRNAR ROCK AND SECOND EDICT OF ASOKA . 
 
 249 
 327 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 1804-1828. 
 HOME SCHOOL UNIVERSITY VOYAGE TO BOMBAY. 
 
 Lauder and Lauderdale The Border and the Men it has sent to India 
 The Wilsons of Lauder The Burgh Common and the Big Farms John 
 "Wilson, "The Priest" Memories of Waterloo Dr. James Fairbairn on 
 Schoolboy days and the Dawn of Evangelicalism John Wilson, Schoolmaster 
 and Tutor Early Indian and Bombay Influences The Arts Course at Edin- 
 burgh University The Theological Professors Rebellion of the Divinity 
 Students Founds the University Missionary Society Earliest Publications 
 Ordained The Bayne Sisters Marriage The Latest of the East India 
 Company's Passports First view of Cape Comorin and Western India 
 Arrives at Bombay. 
 
" Wisdom and Spirit of the Universe ! 
 Thou Soul, that art the eternity of thought 
 And giv'st to forms and images a breath 
 And everlasting motion, not in vain 
 By day or star-light thus from my first dawn 
 Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me 
 The passions that build up our human soul ; 
 Not with the mean and vulgar works of man ; 
 But with high objects, with enduring things, 
 With life and nature ; purifying thus 
 The elements of feeling and of thought, 
 And sanctifying by such discipline 
 Both pain and fear, until we recognise 
 A grandeur in the beatings of the heart." 
 
 WORDSWORTH in The Prelude. 
 
 "Audieram enim ego, adhuc puer, de vita eterna nobis promissa per 
 humilitatem Domini Dei nostri descendentis ad superbiam nostram ; et 
 signabar jam signo crucis Ejus, et condiebar Ejus sale, jam inde ab utero 
 matris mese quae multum speravit in Te." S. AUR. ATTGUSTINI Confessio. 
 
LIFE OF JOHN WILSON, D.D. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 AT a point some twenty-five miles to the south-east of the 
 city of Edinburgh, the three counties of Edinburgh, Berwick, 
 and Roxburgh meet. The spot is the summit of Lauder Hill, 
 which rises between the railway station of Stow and the 
 royal burgh of Lauder, chief of all the district of Lauder- 
 dale. As we stand on the ancient road, now grass-grown, 
 we survey perhaps the widest and most quietly beautiful 
 scene that the Scottish Border can present. From the 
 Lammermoor to the Cheviot Hills, with the rounded Eildons 
 sprouting at their base, the breadth of the two border 
 counties, the Merse or march of Berwick and the fells of 
 Roxburgh, are spread out before us. Distant Teviot and 
 near Tweed roll down to the North Sea, watering a land of 
 more historic renown than any other part of the too long 
 disunited Kingdom. Behind we have left Gala Water, with 
 its memories of legend and of song ; before us, half hidden 
 by the hill on which we stand, is the Leader which gives 
 its name to Lauderdale. For more than twenty miles the 
 stream flows on from the Lammermoors till it mingles its 
 waters with the Tweed below Melrose Abbey. Even Scot- 
 land presents few valleys so broad, so fertile, as this Lauder 
 dale throughout its long extent. Monk and warrior early 
 chose it for their own, from Dryburgh Abbey where Sir 
 Walter Scott lies, and Erceldoune or Earlston where Thomas 
 
4^ ^ LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1804. 
 
 the Bhymer sang his prophecies, to Thirlestane Castle where 
 the Maitlands of Lauderdale still pleasantly perpetuate a 
 house well known in Scottish history. Here it was, along 
 the great highway, from the marshalling-ground of the 
 Boroughmuir of Edinburgh to the fords of the Tweed and 
 the field of Flodden, that the Edwards led their invading 
 armies, and the Stewarts their avenging forces ; while noble 
 and yeoman on both sides the marches fought for their 
 own hand. Old Thirlestane, near whose ruins the Leader 
 now flows so gently, was long the tower from which " Mait- 
 land, with his auld grey beard," whom Gawan Douglas 
 thought worthy of a place in his allegory of the " Palace of 
 Honour," beat back the English. The ballad of "Auld 
 Maitland," as taken down from the lips of Jane Hogg, the 
 Ettrick Shepherd's mother, who had learned it from a blind 
 man of ninety, deserves all the enthusiasm Sir Walter Scott 
 expresses for it. But even finer to the son of the Border 
 is the more modern song of " Leader Haughs and Yarrow," 
 with its quaint poetic catalogue of names and places sweeter 
 to the natives of Lauderdale and Selkirk than those of Homer 
 or of Milton. The old minstrel sighs at the close for the 
 glory that is departed, for he wrote doubtless in the evil days 
 just after the duke built the present castle in 1674 
 
 " Sing Erlington and Cowdenknowes, 
 Where Humes had ance commanding ; 
 And Drygrange with the milk-white yowes 
 'Twixt Tweed and Leader standing : 
 The bird that flees through Redpath trees 
 And Gladswood banks ilk morrow, 
 May chaunt and sing sweet Leader Haughs 
 And bonnie howms of Yarrow. 
 
 " But minstrel Burne cannot assuage 
 His grief, while life endureth, 
 To see the changes of his age 
 Which fleeting time procureth ; 
 

 1804.] HIS BIRTH. 5 
 
 For mony a place stands in hard case, 
 Where blythe folk kend nae sorrow, 
 With Humes that dwelt on Leader-side 
 And Scotts that dwelt on Yarrow." 
 
 It was at Lauder, too, in the days of the Third James, 
 that Archibald Douglas "belled the cat," hanging before his 
 sovereign's eyes five of the low favourites who misled the 
 royal youth. Nor should it be overlooked that the minister of 
 Lauder, inducted in 1638, was James Guthrie, the Covenanter 
 whom Lauderdale martyred along with the Marquis of Argyll, 
 the Earl of Tweeddale alone pleading for the milder sentence 
 of banishment. But modern times have brought more peaceful 
 associations. Except, perhaps, the Highland Inverness-shire, 
 no part of Scotland has been so fruitful a nursery of heroes 
 for the civilisation, if not the conquest of our Indian Empire. 
 Tweedside and its many dales have, in the last century, sent 
 forth Kers and Elliots, Douglases and Eiddells, Scotts and 
 Walkers, Malcolms and Grays, Napiers and Murrays to the 
 noblest work any country has ever done for humanity. To a 
 governor-general like Lord Minto, a statesman like Sir John 
 Malcolm, a scholar and poet like Dr. Leyden, and an econo- 
 mist like James Wilson, we have now to add the Christian 
 missionary John Wilson. He was as great a scholar and 
 as benevolent a philanthropist as the best of them, or as all 
 of them together ; and he was a more potent force than they, 
 because he gave himself to the people of India for a life of 
 continuous service, covering nearly half a century, and because 
 that service was inspired and fed every hour by the highest of 
 all motives, the purest of all forms of self-sacrifice. 
 
 John Wilson was born in the Berwickshire burgh of 
 Lauder on the llth day of December 1804. He was the 
 eldest of seven children, four brothers and three sisters, most 
 of whom still survive. He came of a long-lived stock of small 
 proprietors and farmers who for two hundred years inhabited 
 
6 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1804. 
 
 the thatched, but now enlarged, house in the " Eow" of the town 
 in which he first saw the light. His great-grandfather reached 
 the age of ninety-eight, his grandfather lived to be eighty-eight, 
 his father and mother each died at eighty-two. Physically, he 
 thus inherited a constitution of singular elasticity and power 
 of endurance, under the frequent hardship of toilsome jour- 
 neys and malarious disease in the jungles of Western India, 
 before British railways, or even roads, had opened them up. 
 His father, Andrew Wilson, was for more than forty years 
 a councillor of the burgh, and was an elder in the parish 
 kirk. His mother, Janet Hunter, the eldest of a family of 
 thirteen most of whom lived to a good old age, was a woman 
 of great force of character. This, added to the kindly un- 
 selfishness which marked her eldest son also, caused her to 
 be in constant request by her neighbours in times of sickness 
 and trouble. Father and mother combined in their rearing 
 the economic conditions of the surrounding district. Lauder- 
 dale, to the east of the Leader, is a district of large 
 farms, yielding an average rental of a thousand a year and 
 upwards, even in those days, and worked in the very best 
 style of the grande culture. Of James Hunter, the leaseholder 
 of one of the most extensive of these, John Wilson's mother 
 was the eldest daughter. To the west of the stream lie the 
 town and its unusually wide commonage, covering at the 
 present time 1*700 acres, but doubtless larger a century ago. 
 The land is owned by the burgesses, and a very considerable 
 share of it had always been possessed by the Wilsons of the 
 "Eow." The old conditions are only now beginning to give 
 place to the same influences which have made the high farm- 
 ing of the Lothians and the Merse famous in the history 
 of agriculture. At last some of the "portioners" have 
 combined to work the common land by the steam plough on 
 a large scale. Yet, till this present year, the greater part of. 
 the burgh lands has been little more than fine pasture slopes, 
 

 1804.] HIS CHILDHOOD. 7 
 
 to which the cattle have been led daily, under a common 
 herdsman. Of such a stock, and out of the very heart of 
 farmer-life, sprang the thoughtful scholar, the unwearied 
 preacher, the distinguished philanthropist of Bombay. 
 
 No love had he, though the eldest of four sons, for the 
 doubly ancestral and honourable calling. From the womb 
 he had a higher vocation. Had he become the apostle of a 
 superstitious mysticism, like Gooroo Nanuk, the founder of 
 the Sikh dissent from Hindooism, the same stories might 
 have been told of the great Christian Gooroo. For Nanuk, 
 too, was the son of the chief " portioner " of the common of a 
 village near Lahore, and he failed to keep his father's 
 buffaloes from the cultivated fields. Nanuk never played 
 like other children, so that the Hindoos said, " Some god is 
 in him." On the second of Andrew Wilson's sons fell the 
 duty of helping in the farm, and of driving the cattle to the 
 nearest fair of St. Boswell's. From infancy John revealed 
 himself as meant for a very different lot. When a baby he 
 almost alarmed his mother by speaking before he could walk, 
 and with an intelligence unprecedented in the experience of 
 the neighbours. So the Mussulman villagers had said of 
 Nanuk, "A holy man of God has been born!" As he grew 
 up John Wilson was to his schoolfellows " the priest," by 
 which name he was always known among them. His early 
 developed tendencies brought him into trouble. On one 
 occasion the boy was found preaching from a hollow tree 
 behind Thirlestane Castle to the people who were sauntering 
 home on the Sacrament Sunday evening, and was chastised 
 for what seemed to his parents an offence. The secret of 
 his life was not one which mere heredity may explain, though 
 that too will find data in it. It is thus stated by himself in 
 a " diary of religious experience " which he began to write 
 on his twentieth birthday, but did not continue beyond his 
 departure for India : " When about the age of three years, I 
 
8 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1807. 
 
 was put to sleep in the same bed with my aged grandfather 
 by my father's side. He was the first person, if I remember 
 rightly, who communicated to me any knowledge about God 
 and my soul. I remember well the effect his instructions, by 
 the blessing of God, produced upon my mind : the impressions 
 which were then conveyed to me have never been wholly re- 
 moved from me. I can never forget the fervour with which 
 he engaged in his evening private devotions, and the feeling 
 with which at such times he repeated the twenty-third Psalm, 
 especially the concluding verse 
 
 ' Goodness and mercy all my life 
 
 Shall surely follow me, 
 And in God's house for evermore 
 My dwelling-place shall "be.' 
 
 " I was very early under conviction of sin, and I trust that 
 the Lord at an early period of my life took a saving dealing 
 with my soul. When about the age of four years I was sent 
 to a school in Lauder taught by Mr. George Murray, where I 
 continued about the space of one year. I then went to the parish 
 school taught by Mr. Alexander Paterson, where, under Mr. 
 Paterson's instructions, I made remarkable progress." It was 
 an early and it became a fruitful consecration ; even as that 
 of the prophet of Naioth and the statesman of Eamah. 
 
 John Wilson proved to be as fortunate in his teacher and 
 in his companions as in his early home life. A new spirit 
 in truth was abroad over the land, which had long lain under 
 the spell of what is called "moderatism" in Scotland. It 
 was the beginning, too, of that fifty years' period of peace and 
 reform, in State as well as Church, which the crowning 
 victory of Waterloo seemed to introduce. Dr. Wilson used 
 to tell how, when he was little more than ten years old, the 
 Edinburgh coach came to Lauder adorned with boughs, and 
 one who had gone to the place where it stopped, to hear the 
 news, rushed down the Eow shouting " We've just annihilated 
 
1808.] MEMORIES OF HIS SCHOOLBOY DAYS. 9 
 
 them." In both Lander and Stow there happened to be evan- 
 gelical preachers in the parish churches, Mr. Cosens and Dr. 
 Cormack, while the " Burgher " or seceding congregations 
 were everywhere ministered to by earnest men, to whom 
 many of the surrounding families were driven by the old 
 "moderates." The coming of Mr. Paterson to the parish 
 school at this time was an event of importance. It affected 
 at once the spiritual condition of the whole district, and 
 speedily brought within the reach of evangelical teaching all 
 the hopeful youth of the surrounding country. The survivor 
 of that band, the venerable Dr. Fairbairn of Newhaven, has 
 thus written out the memories of these days : 
 
 " John Wilson was one of a group of boys who received 
 their early education at the parish school of Lauder, and 
 most of whom proceeded together to the University of 
 Edinburgh. I have them all in my mind's eye, in the 
 flower of their boyhood, as fresh as yesterday John and 
 Peter Purves, George Paterson, George Douglas, James and 
 David Kunciman, John Paterson, John Wilson, William 
 Eomanes, Patrick Fairbairn, Alexander Murray, James 
 Haswell, Alexander Jamieson, Eobert Lees, Thomas Simpson, 
 William Broomfield, William Dove, and others. Most of 
 them ran a successful career in life, and some of them 
 attained great eminence. Here they are distinct, but oh ! 
 how distant for with one exception they have all passed 
 within the veil, and I alone am left to tell their story. 
 
 " I have the most distinct recollection of the characters of 
 all my school-fellows, and not least of John Wilson. He was 
 a modest, devout, affectionate, and gentle boy, always ready 
 to take part with the weakest, and never in a quarrel or a 
 scrape. He was, I think, the most diligent and persevering 
 student in the school, and I can readily understand how he 
 attained to such acquirements and success. He was also 
 eminently truthful and sincere. There was one of our 
 number (James Runciman) whom our teacher always charac- 
 
10 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1815. 
 
 terised as the 'boy who never told a lie,' and he used to 
 associate John Wilson with him in this honourable dis- 
 tinction. I remember in one of the intervals of our school 
 day, a band of us started ' up the burn ' for fishing and other 
 diversions. Seduced by the summer sunlight (oh how bright 
 it was in those days !) we heeded not the lapse of time, till 
 the school hour had passed. Then came a conference to 
 determine what we would say for ourselves, and various pro- 
 posals, savouring, I fear, of diplomacy, were made. But the 
 discussion was cut short by John Wilson saying, in a tone 
 unusually energetic for him, ' I tell you what we will tell 
 the truth,' and the truth he told aye, and continued to tell 
 it till his dying day. 
 
 " I well remember also a very bright and calm summer 
 Sabbath day. As the people went along the road to church, 
 there was a question in every mouth ' Will they be fechtin 
 on sic a day as this ? ' After sermon there was a fellowship- 
 meeting in the session-house of the Burgher -meeting-house, 
 into which my friend John and I contrived to get admission. 
 Again the question went round, ' Will they be fechtin' ? ' and 
 the inquiry tinged all the services with unusual solemnity. 
 A venerable white-headed elder, Saunders Downie, the tailor 
 who has passed long since into the fellowship of the four-and- 
 twenty Elders that sit around the Throne delivered himself 
 to this effect: 'Surely,' he said in his godly simplicity, 
 ' surely they'll let the blessed Sabbath ower afore they fecht.' 
 Whether they were ' fechtin', ' or whether they let the blessed 
 Sabbath over before doing so, you will judge when I say that 
 that Sabbath day was the 18th of June 1815. Then came a 
 week of anxiety ; groups of people stood all the day at the 
 head of the town, in the expectation of hearing the booming 
 of the guns of the distant castle of Edinburgh announcing a 
 victory. At last came the full accounts of the great battle, 
 which filled every mouth and heart for many a long day. I 
 recollect we were both much impressed with all this, and had 
 
1818.] THE DAWN OF A NEW TIME. 11 
 
 our minds opened for the first time to the fact that there was 
 a wide world beyond the limits of our little valley, and that 
 it was a world in which much evil abounded, and which stood 
 in great need of improvement. 
 
 " Then came a movement on behalf of the first of the evan- 
 gelistic schemes which succeeded in penetrating to that part of 
 the country. This was the Bible Society ; and I recollect a 
 sermon being preached on its behalf in the Burgher meeting- 
 house by the Eev. Dr. Waugh of London, at which my friend 
 and I were present. The matter and manner of the preacher 
 were both deeply impressive ; and I rather think that, if the 
 seeds of the evangelistic spirit were not that night sown for 
 the first time in John Wilson's mind, they were, to say the 
 least of it, very copiously and effectually watered. After that 
 we went to the University of Edinburgh, and we arrived there 
 just at the time when evangelical religion began to reassert 
 its power in this country. The old Gospel, which had been 
 " by Cameron thundered and by Eenwick poured," now flowed 
 forth in the sweet stream of Henry Grey's pathetic eloquence, 
 or was uttered from the pulpit of St. George's by the mighty 
 voice of Andrew Thomson. Some of us were not very sure 
 about it at first. Coming as we did from the country of Thomas 
 Boston, there was something new to us in the methods ot 
 these great preachers. One of our number indeed, and he not 
 the least earnest among us, never quite overcame his scruples. 
 He held it all to be ' sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal/ 
 and declared that he could only find ' the root of the matter ' 
 in the Secession meeting-house in the Potterrow, then minis- 
 tered to by the Eev. Mr. Simpson. I must say this incident 
 has taught me a great lesson of caution in judging of new 
 religious movements. We soon discovered, however, that a 
 new-born day of light and truth had at last broken out in this 
 country ; and this discovery was fully made to us by the 
 coming of Dr. Eobert Gordon to Edinburgh. That was an 
 
12 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1818. 
 
 era in our spiritual history never to be forgotten. We were 
 all carried captive by the mighty spell of his eloquence. 
 John Wilson attached himself to the ministry of Dr. Gordon, 
 and you know the great power which it exercised over his 
 mind and history. All my recollections of my beloved school- 
 fellow are such as to harmonise with his after-life. Truly in 
 his case ' the child was father of the man.' " 
 
 In his fourteenth year John Wilson went to Edinburgh 
 University, to begin that eight years' course of linguistic, philo- 
 sophical, and theological studies by which the Scottish 
 Churches still wisely produce a well-trained and often cultured 
 ministry. Two Border youths, from the not very distant 
 Annandale, had, after similar home and school training, 
 matriculated at the University at the same age, and had not 
 long passed out of it when the Lauder boy first entered his 
 name in that fragment of the old building which occupied 
 the quadrangle until the present library was completed. 
 These were Edward Irving and Thomas Carlyle. Very fresh 
 traditions of the former still circulated among his juniors, 
 while the latter had just returned from his mathematical 
 teachership in Kirkcaldy to write for Brewster's Encyclopaedia. 
 Both had been heroes in Sir John Leslie's class, where Wilson 
 succeeded them in reputation in due time. We cannot say 
 that the picture, in the autobiography which Carlyle wrote in 
 1831 as "Sartor Eesartus," of "the University where I was 
 educated," and the "eleven hundred Christian striplings" 
 turned loose into its " small ill-chosen library," is altogether 
 a caricature of the facts. At any rate, Carlyle admits that 
 there were some eleven of that number who were eager to 
 learn, and Wilson was one of them in his time, as Irving and 
 Carlyle had been in theirs. Like them, too, Wilson took to 
 teaching. At the close of the first session, the lad conducted 
 the school of Horndean on the Tweed, laying thus early the 
 foundation of that educational experience by which, as Yer- 
 
1820.] TUTOR AND PUPILS. 13 
 
 nacular Missionary, Principal of an English College, and 
 Vice-Chancellor of the University, he was afterwards to 
 revolutionise society in Western India. One of his sisters 
 still tells how the boy of fifteen prepared to resist a midnight 
 attempt to rob him of the school fees on the first occasion 
 on which he had gained the hard-earned money. At the close 
 of the second college session, the Eev. Dr. Cormack, of the 
 neighbouring village of Stow, made the successful student 
 tutor to his son and nephews, a duty which he discharged in 
 a manner to endear him to the parents of both almost up to 
 the time of his departure for India. Dr. Cormack, when 
 himself tutor in the family of the Eoses of Kilravock, had 
 married one of the daughters, and her brother, Colonel Eose, 
 had sent home his sons to be educated in the manse at Stow. 
 When Colonel, afterwards Sir John, Eose, himself returned 
 to his family estate in the Highlands, he tried to induce John 
 Wilson to settle in his family there for some time, and to 
 accompany his boys to Holland, so highly did he appreciate 
 the tutor's services. The youths were happy who had such 
 a guide, himself still young. Even now it is almost pathetic 
 to read the letters which they wrote to him during his 
 absence at college and in India, and carefully treasured by 
 him among his most precious papers. One of the lads is now 
 Sir John Eose Cormack, a well-known physician in Paris. 
 The other two went to India in their day, where their old 
 friend met them sometimes, and where they won a name for 
 courage and ability in the Sikh wars. 
 
 A tour which, in the autumn of 1824, the tutor made to 
 the North with his pupils, called forth a series of letters to his 
 home in which we find such entries as these. At Kingussie he 
 visited the periodical fair : " All the people were very merry. 
 They were mostly all dressed in the Highland dress, and, 
 speaking Gaelic, they appeared quite comical. I have laughed 
 this whole fortnight at them." The letters show the same 
 
14 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1824. 
 
 detailed power of observation and genial humour which 
 marked his Indian tours, and made him the most delightful 
 companion on such occasions. In 1827 he reports, " I have 
 been obliged to buy a pair of silver spectacles for myself:" 
 thus early did study begin to tell on him. 
 
 To this residence for four years, with college intervals, in 
 Dr. Cormack's family, we must trace the determination, which 
 he early formed, to give his life to the people of India. 
 When afterwards bidding farewell to Dr. Brown, the minister 
 of Langton, he expressed regret that he had to sail before the 
 annual meeting of the Berwickshire Bible Society, for, he said, 
 " My wish was to have stated publicly that it was the reading 
 of your annual reports that first awakened me to the import- 
 ance of Missions, and led me to resolve to devote myself to 
 the foreign field." 1 But it was the Eose and Cormack influence 
 which directed that resolve to the East, at a time when 
 Scotland had not a missionary there. The first surprise of 
 the young tutor of sixteen, when he began his duties in the 
 manse of Stow, was caused by the Hindostanee which alone 
 the Kose boys spoke, like so many Anglo-Indian children 
 fresh from the influence of native servants. That was one of 
 the first languages he was to master when he began work in 
 Bombay, in order by voice and pen to influence the Muhamma- 
 dans and all who used what is a mere lingua franca. He was 
 more or less in an Indian atmosphere, as each irregular mail 
 in those days brought news of Maratha wars and Pindaree 
 raids, of the triumphs of Lord Hastings, of the political 
 exploits of Malcolm, the yeoman's son of the not distant 
 Burnfoot, and of Governor Munro, the Glasgow boy. But 
 more living to the youth than all that was the personal 
 friendship of General Walker, who often drove into Stow 
 
 1 I take this from notes of Dr. Wilson's student life supplied by Dr. 
 Brown's son, the Rev. Thomas Brown, the accomplished minister of the Dean 
 Church in Edinburgh. 
 
 
1824.] FIRST BOMBAY INFLUENCES. 15 
 
 from Bowland, his seat on the Gala Water. As political 
 officer in charge of the great Native State of Baroda, with 
 Kathiawar and Kutch, he had won for himself a name as a 
 philanthropist and administrator, by carrying on the work of 
 the old Governor, Jonathan Duncan, for the prevention of 
 female infanticide among the Jadeja Eajpoots. When re- 
 visiting Kathiawar in 1809, before bidding it a final farewell, 
 General Walker had enjoyed the sweet reward of seeing not 
 a few of the children whom he had preserved, and of hearing 
 one infant voice lisping to him in the Goojaratee tongue 
 " Walker Sahib saved me." The entrancing story of humanity 
 became familiar to Wilson in his youth, for in 1819, at the 
 very time of his' intercourse with the lad, the retired officer 
 was engaged in a correspondence with the Court of Directors, 
 in which he urged them to keep up the preventive system that 
 had effected so much, but was being neglected by a new 
 generation of officials. The only result was the General's 
 appointment as Governor of St. Helena, the small population 
 of which he sought to benefit with the same kindly wisdom 
 that he had shown in north Bombay. That work was not 
 unknown in the country-side, for the minister of Stow had 
 been its historian. But it was reserved for the young tutor 
 himself to complete it, alike by stirring up the Bombay Govern- 
 ment, and by writing the "History of the Suppression of 
 Infanticide in Western India " in 1855, and again in 1875. 
 Thus to the influences of home and of school, of companions 
 and of minister, there was added, at the time when he was 
 most susceptible of such impressions, the subtle power of the 
 society of men like Cormack and Walker, who drew him 
 unconsciously to the work prepared for. him in the then far 
 off and shadowy East. 
 
 In the second of the four years of his theological studies, 
 or in his twentieth year, Wilson became more closely identi- 
 fied with Edinburgh in both its university life and its literary 
 
16 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1824. 
 
 and ecclesiastical coteries. He had taken full advantage of 
 the Arts course, for among the professors of that faculty were 
 able teachers and accomplished savans. Pillans, unjustly 
 satirised by Byron, had been transferred from the rector's 
 chair in the High School of Edinburgh, which Dr. Adam had 
 made illustrious, and which his successor had not dimmed at 
 least, to the professorship of Humanity or Latin, taking with 
 him his " dux," John Brown Patterson, the most promising 
 student of his day, who became warmly attached to Wilson. 
 Inscriptions on missionary churches and university founda- 
 tion stones in the East prove that Wilson retained to the 
 last all the graceful Latinity which he acquired at Lauder 
 and Edinburgh. We may pass over the Greek professor, 
 but the students found ample atonement in the Moral 
 Philosophy class of Professor Wilson, whose whirlwind of 
 rhetoric twenty-one Tory and eleven Whig patrons of the 
 chair had preferred to the massive erudition and the philoso- 
 phical power of him who became our modern Aristotle 
 Sir William Hamilton. Had the Lauder student come under 
 the spell of one who did not become professor of Metaphysics 
 for some years afterwards, even he must have gained a more 
 analytic and expository power in those investigations of the 
 hoary philosophies of Yedist and Buddhist, Zoroastrian and 
 Soofee, by which he did much to shake the grim idolatries 
 and subtle pantheism of southern and western Asia. But he 
 enjoyed what was of equal value for such a purpose at that 
 time, the physical researches of Sir John Leslie, Play fair's 
 successor in the chair of Natural Philosophy. There he stood 
 in the front rank, a significant fact, for it is through the clay 
 of the physical error worked up with the iron of speculative 
 falsehood in the systems of the East, that they are first to 
 be shaken and shattered. What of mathematical principles, 
 physical law, and the natural sciences John Wilson then mas- 
 tered, he developed and applied all through his conflicts with 
 
1824.] THE CLOSE OF A DREARY TIME. 17 
 
 the defenders of the Oriental faiths, and in his discourses and 
 writings, as the first scholar of "Western India. In geology, 
 in botany, in the more recondite region of archaeology, he 
 kept pace with the most recent researches, to which, in his 
 own province, he largely contributed. Nature came second 
 only to the divine Word, and worked harmoniously along 
 with it in his whole missionary career. 
 
 The same cannot be asserted of the Theological Faculty of 
 the University of Edinburgh at that period. It was the dreary 
 time, just before, in 1828 too late for Wilson Thomas 
 Chalmers was transferred from St. Andrews, where he had 
 brought to the birth of a more spiritual and intellectual life 
 men like Eobert Nesbit, soon to precede Wilson to Bombay ; 
 and Alexander Duff, William S. Mackay, and David Ewart, 
 destined to follow him, but to Calcutta. The divinity Pro- 
 fessors were also parish ministers, who droned through their 
 lectures as through their sermons, while their hearers slept 
 or attended to their own private affairs. The pamphlets of 
 these days, on Sir John Leslie's case for instance, make strange 
 revelations of academic ineptitude and ecclesiastical incompe- 
 tence, to those who care to rake among them. But for the 
 dawn of the Evangelical party in the pulpits of Gordon in the 
 New North Church, Andrew Thomson in St. George's, and 
 Henry Grey, and of Thomas M'Crie, outside of the kirk, the 
 men of the next generation would have been worse than their 
 fathers. John Wilson, unlike him who was afterwards Prin- 
 cipal Cunningham, had taken with him to the Divinity Hall 
 the living power which had first moved his childish heart, 
 when, awestruck, he had seen it visibly in his grandfather's 
 evening prayers. Now, on llth December 1824, on entering 
 his twenty-first year, he began that "review of the Lord's 
 gracious dealings with my soul," already referred to. 
 
 " This day I have completed my twentieth year, God teach 
 me to improve the fleeting moments of my existence. As 
 
 c 
 
18 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1324. 
 
 bought with a price, even with the precious blood of Christ, 
 may I devote myself wholly soul, body, and spirit to declare 
 and show forth thy glory to my sinful brethren of mankind." 
 About this time he seems to have formally signed a " solemn 
 profession, dedication, and engagement" of himself to God. 
 The time-stained paper is without date, and is headed, in 
 pencil of a much later year evidently, " Form, I think, taken 
 from Willison." With it are two similar deeds of holiest con- 
 secration, in which, on 1st January 1759, and again at Elgin 
 on llth May 1785, an ancestor of his first wife, James Hay, 
 son of the Eev. Dr. James Hay, vowed himself to the Lord. 
 In both cases each page, and in some instances paragraph, is 
 signed by the covenanting person. All through his life of 
 three score and ten, openly, as in those most private papers 
 which mark his energising in soul, we see how John Wilson 
 kept the covenant thus made in the fervour of a first love, and 
 the comparative innocence of an early freedom from the power 
 of the world. At college as at school, of full age as when a 
 child among his companions, he is still " the priest " in the 
 highest sense the priest unto God. From his Journal at 
 this time we take these further extracts. He is in the Stow 
 Manse, in that first year of his theological studies, which 
 the loose regulations of those days allowed students to spend 
 out of college if they wrote the necessary exercises. His 
 heart is set on missionary work, it will be observed. He writes 
 to a friend at this time, " The Memoirs of David Brainerd 
 and Henry Martyn give me particular pleasure " : 
 
 " Tuesday, 14th December 1824. This day was cheered by 
 the hope that I had more success in teaching than usual. 
 Read part of the life of the Eev. David Brainerd. What an 
 example of the power of divine truth ! How many his trials ! 
 how great his labours ! Lord, fill my soul with a lowly 
 opinion of myself, and sanctify and prepare rne for the same 
 work hi which he was engaged." 
 
1825.] SEAKCHINGS OF HEART. 19 
 
 " Thursday, 16th. The servants in the manse asked me 
 to permit them to come into my room to join with me in 
 evening prayers. Gave them permission, with the hope that 
 they might derive, by the blessing of God, some benefit from 
 this. Bead in the Greek Testament, in the evening, an ac- 
 count of the fall of Babylon." 
 
 " Friday, 24:th. This day had some very edifying conver- 
 sation with Alexander Kelly, shepherd to the burgh of Lauder. 
 Admired his knowledge and the soundness of his views of 
 divine truth. Had some sweet communion in evening 
 prayer." 
 
 " Saturday, 25A. This day sent a copy of my tract to my 
 former pupil, Master John N. Bose, and a letter on the im- 
 portance of religion. In the evening an order arrived from 
 General Walker, governor of St. Helena, for Mr. Cormack to 
 purchase on his account five guineas' worth of books for the 
 congregational library." 
 
 " Tuesday, 28th. Bejoiced to hear of the great progress of 
 divine truth from the Monthly Extracts of the Correspondence 
 of the British and Foreign Bible Society. What astonishing 
 effects have, by the blessing of the spirit of God, been produced 
 by the simple reading of the Word of God ! Moral miracles 
 are daily attesting the truth of Christianity." 
 
 " Friday, 31st. This day brings another year to a close. 
 Can I dare to appear before the Lord and ask him to deal 
 with me according to my doings in the year which is past ? 
 No ; my conscience itself condemns me. It tells me that in 
 myself I am poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked. It 
 reminds me that much of the year which is ready to depart 
 was spent in the service of Satan ; in the cherishing of my 
 lusts; in the gratification of my evil nature, and in seeking 
 my own destruction." 
 
 " Thursday, 6th January 1825. Bead part of Cecil's 
 Remains. Felt unhappy in the afternoon from not having 
 
20 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1825. 
 
 had much communion with God during the course of the day. 
 May I always feel unhappy when I do not set the Lord con- 
 tinually before me. May I ever seek to enjoy the light of his 
 countenance, for when he causes this to shine upon me I am 
 rich and comfortable. If I had every earthly comfort at my 
 command they could do nothing to cheer my mind and sup- 
 port my soul. May I hunger and thirst after righteousness, 
 and be filled with the good things of the kingdom of God." 
 
 "From the *7th to the 13th January. In a very sinful 
 frame of mind. Lord, look upon me in the face of Christ 
 Jesus." 
 
 " Wednesday, 26th. This day the quarterly meeting of 
 the Stow Auxiliary Bible Society was held ; few present. In 
 collecting for this institution on some preceding days, found 
 most people generally approving of the objects of the Bible 
 Society, but often not disposed to assist it by any of that sub- 
 stance which they have received as talents to be accounted 
 for to the Lord, the giver of every good and perfect gift. I 
 remember, however, that an aged woman said to me that she 
 would rather in some measure starve her body than not con- 
 tribute something to the glorious cause of circulating the word 
 of God upon earth." 
 
 "Friday, 28th. Commenced reading the Epistle to the 
 Eomans in the Greek Testament. How dreadful is the 
 condition of those whom the Lord gives up to the following of 
 their own natural propensities ! How awful are those feelings 
 which the human mind in its depravity loves to entertain ! 
 May my soul be thoroughly washed from all iniquity." 
 
 " Monday and Tuesday, 1st and 2d February. Delighted 
 with good news from near and far countries. Kead with great 
 pleasure the London Missionary Chronicle and Scottish Mission- 
 ary Register. The Lord is doing great things at home and 
 abroad." 
 
 "Saturday, 6th. This day visited my dear parents and 
 
1825.] DEDICATES HIMSELF TO MISSIONARY WORK. 21 
 
 friends at Lander. Mentioned to them my intention of soon 
 offering myself as a missionary candidate to the Scottish Mis- 
 sionary Society, and oh ! what a burst of affection did I wit- 
 ness from my dear mother. Never will I forget what occurred 
 this evening. She told me that at present she thought the 
 trial of parting with me, if I should leave her, would be more 
 hard to bear than my death. When I saw her in her tears 
 I cried unto God that he would send comfort to her mind, and 
 that he would make this affair issue in his glory and our good. 
 I entreated my mother to leave the matter to the Lord's dis- 
 posal ; and I told her that I would not think of leaving her if 
 the Lord should not make my way plain for me, but that at 
 present I thought it my duty to offer my services to the 
 Society. She then embraced me and seemed more calm. My 
 father said little to us on the subject, but seemed to be in deep 
 thought. In the course of the evening the words ' he that 
 saveth his life shall lose it/ and 'he that loveth father or 
 mother more than me is not worthy of me/ came home to my 
 mind, and kept me from making any promise of drawing back" 
 in my resolutions to preach the gospel, by the grace of God, 
 to the heathen world. Lord, do thou, who hast the hearts 
 of all men in thy hands, and who turnest them according to 
 thy pleasure, grant that my parents, with faith in thy word 
 and promises, may joyfully commit rne in all things to thy 
 disposal, and may I willingly obey thy will in all things, for 
 Christ's sake, Amen." 
 
 With this record of a scene often repeated since, when the 
 best and bravest of our youth have gone forth to an Indian 
 career, the Journal closes for that year. When Eobert Nesbit 
 had determined to do the same, he could not tell his mother, 
 but asked Wilson to break the tidings for him. Wilson lost 
 no time in offering himself to the directors of the Scottish 
 Missionary Society in the twenty-first year of his age. At 
 the beginning of his second divinity session in November he was 
 
22 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1826. 
 
 formally received into the seminary, as it was called, at 18 St. 
 John Street, He became an inmate of the family of the Rev. 
 W. Brown, M.D., the Secretary, and there spent the three suc- 
 ceeding years till his departure for India. At College he 
 went through the regular course of study and examination for 
 the ministry of the Church of Scotland. His Journal records 
 his reading, his intercourse with his fellows, his self-abasement 
 in the sight of God and of his own conscience, and his breath- 
 ings after a more perfect communion with the Father in the 
 Son. The Professor who influenced him most was Principal 
 Lee l at a later date, and also Dr. Brunton, who taught 
 Hebrew, and with whom, as Convener of the Foreign 
 Mission Committee for many years afterwards, he corre- 
 sponded by every mail. Dr. Meiklejohn pretended to teach 
 Church History with an efficiency which has been measured 
 by his habit of yawning when praying in public. As to the 
 Professor of Systematic Theology, let this transcript from a 
 venerable yellow scrap of torn paper, marked in red ink more 
 than once by Dr. Wilson with the word " keep," tell what he 
 was: 
 
 "EDINBURGH COLLEGE, Monday, 27th November 1826. 
 
 " At a general meeting of the theological students attending the 
 University, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted : 
 1st. That a deputation should be appointed to wait on the Rev. Dr. 
 William Eitchie, S.S.T.P., to inform him, with the greatest tenderness 
 and respect, that, on account of the weakness of his voice, his lectures 
 when read by him are quite inaudible by the students, and to request 
 of him to take into consideration the propriety of appointing a substi- 
 tute. 2d. That Messrs. James Anderson and L. H. Irving should form 
 the deputation, and report the result of their visit to a general meeting, 
 to be held to-morrow at 2 o'clock P.M. JOHN WILSON, Chairman" 
 
 1 Writing to a friend in December 1827, Wilson says : "Dr. Lee pro- 
 ceeds admirably in the Hall. Sound in the faith ; entertaining aji ardent 
 affection for preaching sermons, and enlightened in his judgment ; by close 
 study, extensive reading, and accurate thinking, he is well qualified to fill the 
 chair of Bollock and of Leighton." 
 
1826.] REBELLION OF THE DIVINITY STUDENTS. 23 
 
 " Minutes of a General Meeting of the Theological Students attend- 
 ing the University of Edinburgh, called in order to receive the report 
 of the deputation appointed to wait on the Rev. Dr. Win. Ritchie. 
 
 " LADY TESTER'S CHURCH, Edinburgh, 28/t November 1826. 
 
 " Mr. William Cunningham having been called to the chair, and 
 the minutes of the former meeting having been read and approved of, 
 the deputation appointed to wait on the Rev. Dr. Ritchie stated that, 
 having transmitted to him the minutes of the former meeting enclosed 
 in a most respectful letter, the Rev. Dr. intimated to them his decided 
 refusal to listen to any such application. The students having con- 
 sidered and approved of the conduct of the deputation, resolved (duobus 
 contradicentibus) that it was not competent for them to proceed to any 
 ulterior measures at present, except simply to lay before the Town 
 Council and the Presbytery of Edinburgh the minutes of both meetings, 
 and directed the Secretary accordingly to transmit copies of both to the 
 Right Hon. the Lord Provost and the Reverend the Moderator of the 
 Presbytery. (Signed) I WM. CUNNINGHAM, Chairman." 
 
 Thus strangely were associated the future grave, judi- 
 cious, and academic Vice-Chancellor of the. University of 
 Bombay, and the erudite Principal of the New College, both 
 to be Moderators of the General Assembly in their time. And 
 the work they did, or tried to do, is one which it had been 
 well for more university faculties and colleges than that of 
 theology in the University of Edinburgh, then and since, if 
 there were students wise enough to repeat, in the interests of 
 common honesty and sound scholarship. Scotland and its 
 academic institutions, national and non-national, have always 
 been too poor to pension the old, or quietly get rid of the in- 
 competent teachers, with whom the abuses of patronage or of 
 popular election have saddled successive generations of stu- 
 dents. But the story is not at an end, though we have to go 
 elsewhere for the close. A fellow-student in the Arts' classes, 
 Mr. D. Eisdaile, who was afterwards professor in the Govern- 
 ment College at Poona, thus writes : " Dr. Eitchie had been 
 for a few sessions in a state of dotage, quite unable to keep 
 
24 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1826. 
 
 order in the class very deaf and very blind, but clinging hard 
 to his professorship. The attendance had been for two or 
 three years a mockery and a delusion, and the doctor's lectur- 
 ing an absurdity not listened to, not even heard. The only 
 circumstance impressed on my memory is, hearing Dr. Wilson 
 tell me that, when the body of students presented their request 
 to the old man in his house in Argyle Square that he would 
 give up, when he saw John Wilson among them, he remon- 
 strated with him, saying ' I never thought, Mr. Wilson, that 
 you would have appeared in the ranks of my enemies.' In 
 the early part of his college career I do not think he had many 
 friends and acquaintances in Edinburgh, so that his attach- 
 ment was the warmer to one like myself, to whom he could 
 speak freely and reveal his inmost thoughts. I was accord- 
 ingly made the depository of his dealings with the Press in 
 that fourth year of his college course, when he printed a ser- 
 mon on Missions, in which I helped him by taking a number 
 of copies. I recollect wondering at this early display of his 
 penchant for putting his thoughts in print, which pervaded 
 his whole life, and of which the world has reaped the benefit." 
 With all his gentleness, and often all the more effectually 
 because of his almost sensitively chivalrous bearing, John 
 Wilson was the enemy of incompetence and idleness, which 
 injured his Master's work. In the previous session he had 
 shown his terrible earnestness by founding " The Edinburgh 
 Association of Theological Students in aid of the Diffusion of 
 Christian Knowledge." In 1825, under the date Thursday, 
 22d December, this remark occurs in his journal " This has 
 been one of the happiest days of my life. About three weeks 
 ago I proposed to Mr. John T. Brown that we should make 
 some exertions for the purpose of instituting an association of 
 the theological students for aiding the diffusion of the Gospel. 
 This object, by the blessing of God, to whose name be the 
 praise, we were enabled to accomplish this day." Divided 
 
1826.] FOUNDS THE STUDENTS' MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION. 25" 
 
 into two by the Disruption of the Established Church in 
 1843, that Association has ever since been the fruitful nursery 
 of missionaries, alike in the University and in the New Col- 
 lege of Edinburgh. Of the 120 regular students in the Faculty 
 of Theology at that time, more than sixty became members. 
 Wilson was the secretary, as he had been the founder, and 
 read the first essay. Mr. Thomas Pitcairn, afterwards clerk 
 of the General Assembly of the Established and then the 
 Free Church, was first president, with John J. Bonar, subse- 
 quently of Greenock, and David Eunciman of Glasgow, as 
 vice-presidents. The committee were John G. Lorimer, John 
 B. Patterson, A. Matheson, G. Galloway, J. Dunlop, J. Gar- 
 diner, Gilbert Laing, and William Cunningham, with John T. 
 Brown as treasurer. The name of David Thorburn appears 
 as seconding the motion which called the Association into 
 existence. For the first three years Wilson was its life. 
 When he left it for India the members sent forth their foun- 
 der with prayers and benedictions, and a gift of memorial 
 volumes. For years after he continued to correspond with it 
 as a means of stimulating young theologians to give them- 
 selves to India. When he paid his farewell visit to Scot- 
 land in 1870 his delight was to address not only the New 
 College Society, but the old Association in the old rooms 
 in the University. He organised a library ; he began a cor- 
 respondence with the great missionary societies then in exist- 
 ence, that the students might be fed with the latest intelligence 
 from foreign lands ; and he kept up a series of circular letters 
 with the corresponding students' societies of St. Andrews, 
 Glasgow, and Aberdeen; Belfast; and Princeton in the United 
 States ; the careful drafts l of which testify to the zeal with 
 which the youth of twenty-one worked. 
 
 1 His letters to Princeton are still of interest as vivid and accurate pictures 
 of the religious and ecclesiastical condition of Scotland more than half a cen- 
 tury ago : " Our country has been long celebrated for its religious privileges, 
 
26 LIFE OF JOHN WILSOX. [1827. 
 
 A fine spirit of catholicity marks all the communica- 
 tions of the secretary, and in some instances he bursts out 
 with a protest against the creation of new agencies to com- 
 pete unnecessarily with those already at work Even at this 
 time he seems to have awoke to the absurdity and the waste 
 involved in so many ecclesiastical divisions, as he afterwards 
 did more painfully when in the front of heathenism. His 
 statistics have a curious interest for Scotland now, when the 
 seven sections of presbyterianism have been so far amalga- 
 mated into three, and the number of ministers has been 
 doubled in proportion to the increase of population, although 
 the missionary spirit has made comparatively less progress. 
 
 Privately, John Wilson by pen and voice was ever point- 
 ing the abler of his student companions to the mission field, 
 for his ideal was high. His communications from Eobert 
 Nesbit both strengthened his own determination and enabled 
 him to combat the fears of his fellows, whose mothers held 
 
 and at present the light of the Lord is shining in the midst of us. There are 
 many ministers who labour for the good of the souls of our people, and there 
 are many schools for instruction open to all. 
 
 Denomination. Number of Ministers. 
 
 Established Church . . . . .1191 
 
 Reformed Presbyterians . . . . . 18 
 
 United Associate Synod . . . . . 308 
 
 Relief Synod ...... 85 
 
 Associate Synod . . . . . . 12 
 
 Original Burgher Associate Synod ... 32 
 
 Constitutional Presbytery . . . . 10 
 
 Episcopalian Communion . . . . 78 
 
 Congregationalists ..... 79 
 
 Baptists ....... about 20 
 
 1833 
 
 The labours of these ministers are aided by the exertions of parochial 
 schools in every district of the country, and by various religious societies. The 
 Society whose exertions have, by the blessing of God, proved most beneficial 
 to Scotland is "The Society in Scotland (incorporated by royal charter) for 
 Propagating Christian Knowledge." It was instituted in 1701, and an Act 
 of recommendation in its favour having been issued by the General Assembly, 
 contributions to a large amount were soon raised for its support. The means 
 which it uses for the promotion of its design are the establishment of schools 
 
1828.] JOHN ELIOT HIS IDEAL. 27 
 
 them back. He published, chiefly for such, an essay on the 
 motives and encouragements to active missionary exertions. 
 He prepared, and issued in 1828 anonymously, a little work 
 now rarely met with, but which did good service in its day, 
 The Life of John Eliot, the Apostle of the Indians. In 
 that he traced the work of the Puritan Fathers in New 
 England, in their propagation of Christianity among the Eed 
 Indians. Very characteristic of his own future policy is his 
 quotation of Eliot's words : " There is need of learning in 
 ministers who preach to Indians much more than to 
 Englishmen and gracious Christians, for these had sundry 
 philosophical questions, which some knowledge of the arts 
 must help to give answers to, and without which these would 
 not have been satisfied. Worse than Indian ignorance hath 
 blinded their eyes that renounce learning as an enemy to the 
 gospel." All Eliot's scholarship and devotion to the master- 
 ing of the native dialects are carefully noted, no less than the 
 humility of the man who protested against the application to 
 
 and the maintenance of catechists and missionaries. The quantity of good, 
 both temporal and spiritual, resulting from its labours it is impossible to cal- 
 culate. It has been the means of communicating the principles of education 
 and religious knowledge to hundreds of thousands in our Highlands and Islands. 
 For the last thirty years the average number of scholars attending its schools 
 has been 15,000. At present it employs 12 missionaries and 16 catechists. 
 Since the year 1767 it has printed and distributed upwards of 50,000 copies 
 of the sacred Scriptures. Important and beneficial as the exertions of this 
 Society have proved to the population of our Highlands, they have not been 
 adequate to the wants of our northern countrymen, and the knowledge of this 
 fact led to the formation of the Gaelic School Society, in the year 1811, whose 
 fundamental principle is that it is essential for every man to read the word of 
 God in his own tongue. This Society confines its attention chiefly to the 
 establishment and support of circulatory schools, and its success has been very 
 great. In the report for 1825 it is stated that the total number of schools 
 maintained through the year was 83, and the total number of scholars 4674. 
 Since the commencement of the Society the number of books it has circulated 
 in the Highlands and Islands may be estimated at about 100,000. Of this 
 number about 50,000 were copies of the Bible, New Testament, and Psalm 
 Books. The inhabitants, of themselves, encouraged by the success of the 
 Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge and the Gaelic School Society, 
 founded another education society at Inverness in the year 1818." 
 
28 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1828. 
 
 himself of the pre-eminent title of " The Indian Evangelist." 
 The missionary student could not have set before himself a 
 better ideal of the kind than that of the acute Cambridge 
 scholar, whose eighty-six years of self-sacrifice Cotton Mather 
 has chronicled. When, towards the close of his university 
 studies in March 1828, John Wilson received the farewell 
 eulogies of the students, as expressed by Pitcairn and Cun- 
 ningham, John Brown Patterson and David Thorburn, of whom 
 the last alone survives, his reply was an address which rang 
 with new appeals to the friends of his youth, based on the 
 words just quoted, and on this prediction of the same writer, 
 in his "Essays To Do Good," a century before "North 
 Britain will be distinguished by irradiations from heaven 
 upon it of such a tendency (to propagate Christianity). There 
 will be found a set of excellent men in that reformed and 
 renowned Church of Scotland, with whom the most refined 
 and extensive essays to do good will become so natural that 
 the whole world will fare the better for them." We who 
 look back on history may see the anticipation partially 
 fulfilled in the movement which gave Wilson, Duff, and 
 their colleagues to India, Morrison to China, and Livingstone 
 and Moffat to Africa. These are the words which the young 
 Wilson left behind him as his legacy to the students of the 
 University of Edinburgh how have they met them ? 
 
 " ' The work of preaching the gospel in foreign lands is 
 attended with trials, dangers, and sacrifices ! ' Have we for- 
 gotten ! where is now the promise of Christ, ' Lo ! I am with 
 you alway, even unto the end of the world ' ? How is that 
 hundred-fold to be obtained and enjoyed which is promised 
 to those who forsake houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, 
 or mother, for Christ's sake? Where is faith in the opera- 
 tions of the Spirit of God, which can view the difficulties of 
 the Christian warfare as calculated to render the consolations 
 of the gospel precious to the soul in every circumstance ? 
 
1828.] FAREWELL APPEAL TO HIS FELLOW-STUDENTS. 29 
 
 Is it probable that dependence on the grace of God will not 
 be exercised by the Christian when he must feel that vain is 
 the help of man, that success must be the result of the divine 
 application of the word, and that he is in a great measure 
 deprived of those sources of earthly enjoyment which, from 
 the corruption of human nature, are frequently made the 
 occasions of sin ? 
 
 " ' The work of missions is difficult.' But time is short. 
 Soon shall we be freed from all our toils, and anxieties, and 
 griefs, and disappointments ; and if we suffer with Christ we 
 shall also reign with Him. ' The work of missions is attended 
 with difficulties, trials, and dangers!' Spirits of Eliot and 
 Brainerd, Martyn, and Fisk, and Hall, do you regret that for 
 the promotion of its interests you left the lands of your 
 fathers and your youth, and laboured and died in a foreign 
 clime ? No ; you declared that, when engaged in it you were 
 happy ; that, when you reviewed your labours in connection 
 with it, you were ashamed that you had not devoted yourself 
 to its interests with more zeal and self-denial; and that, 
 when entering the dark valley of the shadow of death you 
 ' saw no trials, no sacrifices, nothing but sins and mercies.' 
 Since you joined the glorious band of witnesses to the truth 
 you have seen and felt more of its importance, and your 
 testimony respecting it is, that eternity can only sufficiently 
 reveal its character. You feel that is the glory of the song of 
 Moses and the Lamb, that it is sung by people of every 
 kindred and country and tongue and nation ; and if you were 
 permitted again to visit this world you would fly, like the 
 angel of the Apocalypse, to preach the gospel to all that 
 dwell on the face of the earth. In sincerity and humility of 
 soul let us say, ' Thy vows are upon us, God, we will render 
 praises unto Thee.' " 
 
 The young evangelist had a right to use such language, 
 for had he not given himself ? These were days when India, 
 
30 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1828. 
 
 little known still in the land that rules it, was less known 
 than it had been in the previous generation which had seen 
 Warren Hastings impeached, and burghs bought and sold by 
 Anglo-Indian Nawabs. The dawn of knowledge and zeal 
 was not to rise for five years yet, with the Charter which 
 really opened India in 1833. Then such an incident as the 
 following wa only too truly typical : Dr. Wilson had been 
 meanwhile licensed to preach by his native Presbytery of 
 Lauder ; and, after some difficulty caused by the adherence 
 of the " moderates " to a routine which did not contemplate 
 missions to non-Christian lands, he had been ordained on " a 
 request in his own name, and in the name of the directors of 
 the Scottish Missionary Society. During the first summer 
 after receiving license he paid two visits to the Manse at 
 Langton. On the first occasion he delivered an impressive 
 discourse on Paul's address at Mars' Hill. During the 
 evening of that Sabbath the medical attendant came to see 
 some member of the family, and after the visit joined the 
 others in the drawing-room. The subject of Missions to India 
 was introduced, and as the doctor had been in the East he 
 took part, expressing strongly the opinion that it was utterly 
 hopeless to attempt to convert the natives of India to Chris- 
 tianity. " I remember," writes Mr. Brown, " the flush which 
 came on Dr. Wilson's face when he eagerly took up the 
 question, replying to the objections which had been advanced, 
 and dwelling on the power of the Gospel to enlighten those 
 that were in darkness. The doctor soon changed the subject." 
 At a tune when medical missions were unknown, and 
 eight years before David Livingstone had turned from cotton- 
 spinning to be a licentiate of the Faculty of Physicians in 
 Glasgow, with the frustrated hope of becoming a missionary 
 in China, John Wilson would not consider his preparation 
 for India complete until he had studied medicine. He had 
 taken a high place in the classes of Physical and Xatural 
 
1828.] ORDAINED AND MARRIED. 31 
 
 Science. In 1827-8 he passed through classes for Anatomy, 
 Surgery, and the Practice of Physic. Many a time afterwards, 
 in the jungles of Western India and the ghauts or ravines of 
 its hills, did he find his knowledge of the art of healing a 
 blessing to the wild tribes and simple peasantry. Much of 
 his own endurance is to be ascribed to such knowledge, 
 although in Bombay itself physicians in and out of the service 
 were ever his most attached friends. 
 
 But one qualification seemed still wanting to make the youth 
 of twenty-three, whom, just half a century ago, on Midsummer's 
 Day 1828, by the imposition of hands, the Presbytery did 
 solemnly ordain and set apart to the office of the holy ministry, 
 a fully-equipped missionary. So new was the whole subject of 
 Christianising foreign lands at that time, that every instance of 
 a Protestant evangelist going forth raised the question whether 
 he ought to be married. On this ecclesiastical authorities 
 were divided. The Scottish Missionary Society had assigned 
 India as the country of his labours, a fact thus recorded in his 
 Journal : " Lord, Thou hast graciously heard my prayers 
 in this respect. Do thou prepare me for preaching Christ 
 crucified with love and with power ; do Thou provide for me, 
 if agreeable to Thy will, a suitable partner of my lot ; one 
 who will well encourage me and labour with me in Thy work. 
 Do Thou, in Thy good time, convey me in safety to the place 
 of my destination; do Thou open up for me a wide and 
 effectual door of utterance; do Thou preserve my life for 
 usefulness; and do Thou make me successful in winning 
 souls to Christ." " I rejoice when I think," he wrote to a 
 friend, " that I shall live, and labour, and die in India." On 
 the 18th December 1827, he had written to his father and 
 mother : " Dr. Brown intends to prepare the articles which I 
 am to take with me to India. He asked me to-night if I 
 intended to marry ; but I was not able to give him an answer. 
 If I could get a suitable partner now I would have no hesita- 
 
32 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1828. 
 
 tion in marrying ; but it is a matter of extreme difficulty to 
 find a young lady with the piety, zeal, talents, and education 
 which the work I have in view requires." He was soon after 
 introduced to the family of the Eev. Kenneth Bayne of 
 Greenock, who, on their father's death, had settled in 22 
 Comely Bank, a northern suburb of Edinburgh. The last 
 entry in his Journal records the triumphant joy of one of 
 the daughters in the prospect of death. Two more of the 
 sisters met with a sad death by drowning, several years after- 
 wards, and another survived him a short time. The other 
 three formed a remarkable group of accomplished, cultivated, 
 and zealous women, who gave their lives for India, as the 
 pioneers of female education. Margaret, the eldest, had 
 added to the ordinary teaching a course of study in the uni- 
 versity city of Aberdeen. She proved equally facile in the 
 exposition of the faiths of the East, in the mastery of the 
 languages of Western India, in the organisation of native 
 female schools, and in the writing of graceful verse, while she 
 was ever the gentle wife and the fond mother, during the 
 too brief six years of her life in Bombay. When she con- 
 sented to share the then dreaded toils of an Indian evangel- 
 ist's life with John Wilson, she at once doubled his efficiency. 
 In the simple Scottish fashion the newly ordained mis- 
 sionary was married to Margaret Bayne, by her minister Dr. 
 Andrew Thomson, of St. George's, on the 12th August 1828. 
 These were busy months for both, with the prospect of a Cape 
 voyage, and the probability of life-long farewells. Incessant 
 preaching and missionary addresses kept him ever about his 
 Father's business. To this day the few old folks who remember 
 it tell, with tears in their eyes, of his farewell sermon in the 
 quaint pulpit of the cruciform kirk of Lauder. 1 The bailies 
 
 1 Here that other great missionary, in the sense of being the warmest 
 and broadest friend foreign missions have had at home, Dr. Norman Macleod, 
 used to preach for his brother afterwards. In the adjoining manse he wrote 
 his Wee Dame. We shall meet him with Wilson in Bombay. 
 
1828.] LATEST OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY'S PASSPORTS. 33 
 
 and council of the royal burgh, conferred on the lad all the 
 honours they had to bestow, by giving him, on formal parch- 
 ment, " the haill immunities and privileges of a burgess royal 
 and freeman." On the 30th August the missionary and his 
 wife sailed from the ancient port of Newhaven, on that 
 heavenly quest on which no knight of poetic creation or fabled 
 purity ever entered with more self-sacrificing ardour. A 
 thick haze hid Edinburgh from their sight.. After some days 
 in London, and Portsmouth from which the " Sesostris " East 
 Indiaman sailed, as was usual then, there remained only the 
 very significant duty of presenting to the captain the Com- 
 pany's permission to sail. We give the letter of* the Court of 
 Directors in full, as one of the last relics of that Indian 
 bureaucracy which Wilson was to do so much to change, till 
 he saw it almost disappear. 
 
 "EAST INDIA HOUSE, 27th June 1828. 
 
 " SIR I have laid before the Court of Directors of the East India 
 Company your letter requesting, on behalf of the Scottish Missionary 
 Society, that the Reverend John "Wilson may be allowed to proceed as 
 a missionary to Bombay, accompanied by the young lady to whom he 
 proposes being married before he leaves England. In reply, I am 
 commanded to acquaint you that the Court have resolved to comply 
 with your request, so far as regards Mr. Wilson, upon the usual terms 
 and conditions ; and that, when the necessary engagement has been 
 entered into, an order will be granted for his reception on board the 
 ship on which his passage may have been taken. I am further to 
 inform you, that when Mr. "Wilson shall be married the Court will be 
 prepared to take into consideration any application which, he may 
 prefer for permission for his wife to accompany him. I am,. Sir, your 
 most obedient humble servant, J. DART, Secretary. 
 
 " Eeverend WILLIAM BROWN." 
 
 The long voyage of five months was not made shorter by 
 the fact that the captain was uncongenial and arbitrary, and 
 the majority of the passengers had no sympathy with the 
 missionary and his wife or their object. But even there the 
 consistent and kindly devotion of both bore fruit. Opposition 
 
 D 
 
34 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1829. 
 
 nearly disappeared among the passengers ; the sailors, whom 
 he influenced for good, treated Mr. Wilson very tenderly amid 
 the high frolic of these days in crossing the line. The attempt 
 of a piratical vessel to attack the ship, and a storm off Table 
 Bay, further relieved the monotony of a Cape passage. Suffi- 
 cient time was spent at Cape Town then, and till the 
 Mutiny of 1857 led to a change in the furlough rules, a 
 favourite sanitarium for Anglo-Indians to enable Mr. and 
 Mrs. Wilson to see a little of its society, and to visit not only 
 Constantia, of wine-growing fame, but the Moravian settle- 
 ment of Groenenkloof, forty miles in the interior. After coast- 
 ing Ceylon Wilson obtained his first view of India : 
 
 "On the 1st of February Cape Comorin, the most southern point 
 of India, appeared in sight, and my feelings were consequently of a 
 very solemn nature. When I reflected on the present situation of the 
 country, and on my prospects connected with it, I was constrained to 
 resort to the throne of grace. My dear Margaret and I united in the 
 prayer that God might prepare us for all the trials of life, and support 
 us under them ; that He might ever lift on us the light of His 
 gracious and reconciled countenance ; that He might impart to us the 
 views, feelings, dispositions, and purposes which are suitable to the 
 sacred work which we have in view ; that He might enable us to pay 
 the vows which we have made ; that He might grant us much success 
 in the work of converting sinners ; and that He might impart to us 
 the rewards of grace which are promised to those who turn many to 
 righteousness. The character of the day (Sabbath) was suited to our 
 exercises, and we had great reason to thank God for the felicity which 
 we experienced. The sentiments of our hearts were not expressed in 
 the plaintive language of the Psalmist, ' How shall we sing the Lord's 
 song in a strange land,' but in that of the joyful resolution, f From the 
 end of the earth will I cry unto Thee, when my heart is overwhelmed.' 
 We continued for thirteen days sailing along the coasts of Malabar, 
 Canara, and the Konkan. The country is very mountainous, but in 
 its appearance very unlike my native Scotland. The towns have a 
 wretched appearance, but they are very populous. We arrived in 
 Bombay on the evening of the 14th of this month, and next morning 
 the Rev. Mr. Laurie, one of the ministers of the Scotch Church, came 
 with a boat to take us on shore." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 OLD BOMBAY AND ITS GOVERISTOES TO 1829. 
 
 The Tyre and Alexandria of the Far East Early History of Bombay 
 Cromwell, Charles II., and the East India Company The first Governors 
 A Free City and Asylum for the Oppressed Jonathan Duncan Mountstuart 
 Elphinstone Sir John Malcolm Cotton and the Cotton Duties India and 
 the Bombay Presidency Statistics in 1829 The Day of Small Things in 
 Education First Protestant Missionaries in Bombay English Society in 
 Western India Testimony of James Forbes John Wilson's First Impres- 
 sions of Bombay. 
 
" Jamque ascendebant collem, qui plurimus urbi 
 Imminet adversasque aspectat desuper arces. 
 Miratur molem vEneas, magalia quondam ; 
 Miratur portas, strepitumque et strata viarum. 
 Instant ardentes Tyrii : pars ducere muros 
 Molirique arcem, et manibus subvolvere saxa ; 
 Pars optare locum tecto, et concludere sulco ; 
 Jura magistratusque legunt, sanctumque senatum ; 
 Hie portus alii effodiunt ; hie alta theatris 
 Fundamenta locant alii, immanesque columnas 
 Kupibus excidunt, scenis decora alta futuris : 
 Qualis apes sestate nova per florea rura 
 
 Exercet sub sole labor." 
 
 VIRGIL. TJie 
 
 " Yes, I will sing, although the hope be vain 
 To tell their glories in a worthy strain, 
 Whose holy fame in earliest life was won, 
 Who toiled unresting till the task was done. 
 Far as the distant seas all owned their sway ; 
 High as the heaven none checked their lofty way. 
 Constant in worship, prompt at Duty's call, 
 Swift to reward the good, the bad appal, 
 They gathered wealth, but gathered to bestow, 
 And ruled their words that all their truth might know. 
 In glory's quest they risked their noble lives ; 
 For love and children, married gentle wives. 
 On holy lore in cEildhood's days intent, 
 In love and joy their youthful prime they spent, 
 As hermits, mused, in life's declining day, 
 Then in Devotion dreamed their souls away. 
 Come, hear my song, ye just, whose bosoms glow 
 With Virtue's flame, and good from evil know. 
 As fire assays the purity of gold, 
 Judge ye the merit of these Chiefs of old. " 
 
 KALIDASA'S Raghuvansa, by Ralph T. H. Griffith. 
 
Cooper- S-HodaoriIii:h,IaiidorL 
 
1829.] THE MODERN TYRE. 37 
 
 CHAPTEK II. 
 
 BOMBAY, with the marvellous progress of which, as city and 
 province, Wilson was to he identified during the next forty- 
 seven years, has a history that finds its true parallels in the 
 Mediterranean emporia of Tyre and Alexandria. Like the 
 Phoenician " Rock " of Baal, which Hiram enlarged and 
 adorned, the island of the goddess Mumbai or Mahima, " the 
 Great Mother," was originally one of a series of rocks which 
 the British Government has connected into a long peninsula, 
 with an area of 18 square miles. Like the greater port which 
 Alexander created to take the place of Tyre, and called hy his 
 own name, Bombay carries in its ships the commerce of the 
 Mediterranean, opened to it by the Suez Canal, but it bears 
 that also of the vaster Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf. 
 Although it can boast of no river like the Mle, by which alone 
 Alexandria now exists, Bombay possesses a natural harbour, 
 peerless alike in "West and East, such as all the capital and the 
 engineering of modern science can never create for the land 
 of Egypt. Instead of the " low " sands which gave Canaan 
 its name, and the muddy flats of the Mle delta, Bombay pre- 
 sents ridge after ridge intersecting noble bays, and hill upon 
 hill, rising up into the guardian range of the Western Ghauts. 
 From their giant defiles and green terraces fed by the periodic 
 rains, the whole tableland of the Indian Peninsula gently 
 slopes eastward to the Bay of Bengal, seamed by mighty 
 rivers, and covered by countless forts and villages, the homes 
 of a toiling population of millions. On one fourth, and that 
 the most fertile fourth, of the two centuries of Bombay's 
 
38 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1829. 
 
 history, John Wilson, more than any other single influence, 
 has left his mark for ever. 
 
 From the Periplus, and from Marco Polo, we learn the 
 commercial prosperity and ecclesiastical activity, in the ear- 
 liest times, of the kingdoms of Broach, Callian, and Tanna, 
 on the mainland and around Bombay. But, as an island, 
 Bombay was too exposed to the pirates who, from Abyssinia, 
 Arabia and India alike, scoured these Eastern seas, to be 
 other than neglected. Even the Portuguese despised it, 
 although, as a naval power, they early made a settlement 
 there, seeing that it lay between their possessions in the 
 Persian Gulf and their capital of Goa. But they still held 
 it against the East India Company, whose agents, exposed to 
 all the exactions of a Mussulman governor in the factory at 
 Surat, coveted a position where their ships could make them 
 more independent. Twice they made ineffectual attempts to 
 take the place, and, in 1654, when Cromwell had given 
 England a vigorous foreign policy, the Directors represented 
 to him the advantage of asking the Portuguese to cede both 
 Bombay and Bassein. But although the Protector had exacted 
 a heavy indemnity for all Prince Eupert had done to injure 
 English commerce, he took hard cash rather than apparently 
 useless jungle. And, although he beheaded the Portuguese 
 ambassador's brother for murder on the very day that the 
 treaty was signed, there is no evidence that he took any more 
 interest in the distant and infant settlements in India than 
 was involved in his general project for a Protestant Council 
 or Propaganda all over the world. It was left to Charles II., 
 in 1661, to add Bombay to the British Empire as part of the 
 Infanta Catherines dowry; and to present it to the East India 
 Company in 1668, when the first governor, Sir Gervase Lucas, 
 who had guarded his father in the flight from Naseby, had 
 failed to prove its value to the Crown. Eor an annual rent of 
 "10 in gold" the island was made over to Mr. Goody er 
 
1829.] FOUNDATION OF BOMBAY. 39 
 
 deputed, with Streynsham Master and others, by Sir George 
 Oxenden,the President of Surat " in free and common soccage 
 as of the manor of East Greenwich," along with all the Crown 
 property upon it, cash to the amount of 4879 : 7 : 6, and such 
 political powers as were necessary for its defence and govern- 
 ment. Among the commissioners to whom the management 
 of the infant settlement fell on Oxenden's death, is found the 
 name of one Sterling, a Scottish minister, and thus, in some 
 sense, the only predecessor of John Wilson. With the suc- 
 cession of Gerald Aungier, as President of Surat and Governor 
 of the island in 1667, the history of Bombay may be said to 
 have really begun. It is a happy circumstance that the be- 
 ginning is associated with the names of the few good men 
 who were servants of the Company, in a generation which was 
 only less licentious than that of the Stewarts at home, if the 
 temptations of exile be considered. Oxenden, Aungier and 
 Streynsham Master were the three Governors of high character 
 and Christian aims, who, at Surat, Bombay and Madras, 
 sought to purify Anglo-Indian society and to evangelise the 
 natives around. 
 
 Bombay, which grew to be a city of 250,000 inhabitants 
 when Wilson landed in 1829, and contained 650,000 before 
 he passed away, began two centuries ago with 600 landowners, 
 who were formed into a militia, 100 Brahmans and Hindoos of 
 the trading caste who paid an exemption tax, and the Com- 
 pany's first European regiment of 285 men, of whom only 93 
 were English. The whole population was little above 5000. A 
 fort was built and mounted with twenty-one guns, and five 
 small redoubts capped the principal eminences around. To 
 attract Hindoo weavers and traders of the Bunya caste, and 
 to mark the new regime as the opposite of the intolerant zeal 
 of the Portuguese, notice was given all along the coast, from 
 Diu to Goa, that no one would be compelled to profess Chris- 
 tianity, and that no Christian or Muhammadan would be 
 
40 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1829. 
 
 allowed to trespass within the inclosures of the Hindoo 
 traders for the purpose of killing the cow or any animal, while 
 the Hindoos would enjoy facilities for burning their dead and 
 observing their festivals. Forced labour was prohibited, for 
 no one was to be compelled to carry a burden. Docks were 
 to be made ; manufactures were to be free of tax for a time, 
 and thereafter, when exported, to pay not more than three and a 
 half per cent. The import duties were two and a half per cent 
 with a few exceptions. Transit and market duties of nine per 
 cent, that indirect tax on food and clothing which the people of 
 India in their simplicity prefer to all other imposts, supplied 
 the chief revenue for the fortifications and administration. And 
 it was needed, for " the flats," which still pollute Bombay be- 
 tween the two ridges, were the fertile seed-bed of cholera and 
 fever, till in 1684 the first of the many and still continued 
 attempts at drainage were made. The result of the first twenty 
 years of the Company's administration was that Bombay super- 
 seded Surat. One half of all the Company's shipping loaded 
 at London direct for the island, where there was, moreover, 
 no Nawab to squeeze half of the profits. The revenues had 
 increased threefold. The population consisted of 60,000, of 
 whom a considerable number were Portuguese, and the " Cooly 
 Christians," or native fishermen, whom they had baptised as 
 Eoman Catholics. In and around the fort the town stretched 
 for a mile of low thatched houses, chiefly with the pearl of 
 shells for glass in their windows. The Portuguese could show 
 the only church. On Malabar Hill, where Wilson was to die 
 in "The Cliff" associated by all classes with his name, there 
 was a Parsee tomb. The island of Elephanta was known not 
 so much for the Cave Temples which he described, as for the 
 carving of an elephant which gave the place its name, but 
 has long since disappeared. At Salsette and Bandora the 
 Portuguese held sway yet a little longer. From Tanna to 
 Bassein their rich Dons revelled in spacious country seats, 
 
1829.] BOMBAY A FREE CITY OF REFUGE. 41 
 
 fortified and terraced. The Hidalgos of Bassein reproduced 
 their capital of Lisbon, with Franciscan convents, Jesuit col- 
 leges, and rich libraries, all of which they carefully guarded, 
 allowing none but Christians to sleep in the town. 1 
 
 The tolerant and liberal policy of the English government 
 of Bombay soon caused all that, and much more, to be 
 absorbed in their free city, and to contribute to the growth of 
 the western portion of the new empire. If to some the tolera- 
 tion promised by Aungier, and amplified by the able though 
 reckless Sir John Child, seemed to go too far, till it became 
 virtual intolerance because indifference towards the faith of 
 the ruling power, the growing public opinion of England 
 corrected that in time. For the next century the British 
 island became the asylum not only of the oppressed peoples 
 of the Indian continent, during the anarchy from the death 
 of Aurungzeb to the triumph of the two brothers Wellesley 
 and Wellington, but of persecuted communities of western 
 and central Asia, like the Parsees and Jews, as well as of 
 slave-ridden Abyssinia and Africa. Made one of the three 
 old Presidencies in 1*708, under a later Oxenden, and sub- 
 ordinated to Calcutta as the seat of the Governor-General in 
 1773, Bombay had the good fortune to be governed by Jona- 
 than Duncan for sixteen years at the beginning of this 
 century. 
 
 What this Forfarshire lad, going out to India at sixteen, 
 like Malcolm afterwards, had done for the peace and pros- 
 perity, the education and progress of Benares, and the four 
 millions around it, he did for Bombay at a most critical time. 
 Not less than Lord William Bentinck does he deserve the 
 marble monument which covers his dust in the Bombay 
 Cathedral, where the figure of Justice is seen inscribing on 
 his urn these words, " He was a good man and a just," while 
 
 1 See that already rare work, The English in Western India, by Philip 
 Anderson, A.M., chaplain, Bombay. 1854. 
 
42 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1829. 
 
 two children support a scroll, on which is written, " Infanticide 
 abolished in Benares and Kattywar." Between the thirty- 
 nine years of his uninterrupted service for the people of 
 India, which closed in 1811, and the forty-seven years of 
 John Wilson's not dissimilar labours in the same cause, 
 which began in 1829, there occurred the administrations, after 
 Sir Evan Nepean, of the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone and 
 Sir John Malcolm, both of the same great school. Since the 
 negotiations of the Peshwa Eaghoba, in 1*775, with the Com- 
 pany who sought to add Bassein and Salsette to Bombay and 
 so make it the entrepot of the India and China Seas, the pro- 
 vince of Bombay had grown territorially as the power of the 
 plundering Marathas waned from internal dissensions and the 
 British arms. The first part of India to become British, the 
 Western Presidency had been the last to grow into dimensions 
 worthy of a separate government in direct communication 
 with the home authorities, though in imperial matters con- 
 trolled by the Governor -General from Calcutta. Bombay 
 Tiad long been in a deficit of a million sterling a year or more. 
 But the final extinction of the Maratha Powers by Lord Hast- 
 ings in 1822 enabled Bombay to extend right into Central 
 India and down into the southern Maratha country, while 
 Poona became the second or inland capital of the Presidency. 
 The two men who did most to bring this about, and to settle 
 the condition of India south of the Yindhyas territorially as 
 it now is, were Mountstuart Elphinstone and John Malcolm. 
 What they thus made Bombay Wilson found it, and that it 
 continued to be all through his life, with the addition of 
 Sindh, to the north, in 1843, and of an exchange of a county 
 with Madras in the south. Lord Dalhousie, and afterwards 
 Lord Canning, would have added the fertile cotton-fields of 
 Berar to it in 1861, but for the mismanagement of the Eesident 
 at Hyderabad, and that is still a cause of irritation between 
 the Government of India and the Nizam. 'The change seems 
 
1829.] MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE. 43 
 
 at hand, by which, if Sindh is transferred to the Punjab Pro- 
 vince, the old Maratha principality of the Bhonslas, known 
 as the Central Provinces around Nagpore, will be united 
 administratively to Bombay. 
 
 Mountstuart Elphinstone had no warmer admirer than 
 "Wilson, who wrote a valuable sketch of his life for the 
 local Asiatic Society. A younger son of the eleventh Lord 
 Elphinstone, and an Edinburgh High School boy, he went out 
 to India as a " writer " with his cousin John Adam, who was 
 afterwards interim Governor-General. Having miraculously 
 escaped the 1799 massacre at Benares, he was made assistant 
 to the British Eesident at Poona, then the Peshwa's court. 
 He rode by the Duke of Wellington's side at the victory of 
 Assye, as his interpreter, and was told by the then Colonel 
 Wellesley that he had mistaken his calling, for he was 
 certainly born a soldier. Subsequently, after a mission to 
 Cabul, on his way from Calcutta to Poona to become Eesident 
 he made the friendship of Henry Martyn. The battle of 
 Kirkee in 1817 punished the Peshwa's latest attempt at 
 treachery, and it became Elphinstone's work to make that 
 brilliant settlement of the ceded territories which has been 
 the source of all the happiness of the people since. His 
 report of 1819 stands in the first rank of Indian state papers, 
 and that is saying much. When, after that, he discovered the 
 plot of certain Maratha Brahmans to murder all the English 
 in Poona and Satara, the man who was beloved by the mass 
 of the natives for his kindly geniality saved the public peace 
 by executing the ringleaders. His prompt firmness astounded 
 Sir Evan Nepean, whom he afterwards succeeded as Governor, 
 into advising him that he should ask for an act of indemnity. 
 The reply was characteristic of his whole career "Punish 
 me if I have done wrong ; if I have done right I need no act 
 of indemnity." The eight years' administration of this good 
 man, and great scholar and statesman, were so marked by 
 
44 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1829. 
 
 wisdom and success, following a previously brilliant career, 
 that on his retiring to his native country he had the unique 
 honour of being twice offered the position of Governor-General. 
 What he did for oriental learning and education, and how his 
 nephew afterwards governed Bombay, and became Wilson's 
 friend in the more trying times of 1857, we shall see. 
 
 Sir John Malcolm, too, had his embassage to Persia, and 
 his victory in battle Mahidpore; while it fell to him to 
 complete that settlement of Central India in 1818 with 
 Bajee Eao, which the adopted son, Nana Dhoondopunt, 
 tried vainly to upset in 1857. Malcolm's generosity on that 
 occasion has been much questioned, but it had Elphinstone's 
 approval. His distinguished services of forty years were re- 
 warded by his being made Elphinstone's successor as 
 Governor of Bombay in 1827. In the ship in which he 
 returned to take up the appointment was a young cadet, now 
 Sir Henry Rawlinson, whose ability he directed to the study of 
 oriental literature. He had been Governor for little more than 
 a year when he first received, at his daily public breakfast at 
 Parell, the young Scottish missionary from his own Border 
 land. Even better than his predecessor, Malcolm knew 
 how to influence the natives, by whom he was worshipped. 
 He continued the administrative system as he found it, writ- 
 ing to a friend " The only difference between Mountstuart 
 and me is that I have Mullagatawny at tiffin, which comes of 
 my experience at Madras." The Governor was in the thick 
 of that collision with the Supreme Court, forced on him by 
 Sir John Peter Grant's attempt to exercise jurisdiction all 
 over the Presidency as in Sir Elijah Impey's days in Calcutta. 
 He had just returned from one of those tours through the 
 native States, which the Governor, like Elphinstone before 
 him and the missionary after him, considered "of primal 
 importance " for the well-being of the people. The decision 
 of the President of the Board of Control at home, then Lord 
 
1829.] GOVERNORS OF BOMBAY. 45 
 
 Ellenborough, was about to result in the resignation of the im- 
 petuous judge. Such was Bombay, politically and territorially 
 when, in the closing weeks of the cold season of 1828-9, John 
 Wilson and his wife landed from the "Sesostris,"East Indiaman. 1 
 Economically the year 1829 was marked by the first serious 
 attempt on the part of the Directors at home, and the Govern- 
 ment on the spot, to extend the cultivation and improve the fibre 
 of the cotton of Western India, which was to prove so important 
 a factor alike in the prosperity and the adversity of Bombay 
 in the coming years. In that review of his three years' admi- 
 nistration to 1st December 1830, which Sir John Malcolm 
 wrote for his successors, and published to influence the dis- 
 cussions on the Charter of 1833, under the title of The 
 Government of India, this significant sentence occurs : " A 
 cotton mill has been established in Bengal with the object of 
 underselling the printed goods and yarns sent from England ; 
 
 1 Our readers will find it useful to refer to this list of the Governors of 
 Bombay just before and during Dr. Wilson's work there 
 
 Governor. Years. 
 
 Jonathan Duncan ........ 1795 
 
 Sir Evan Nepean, Bart 1812 
 
 The Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone 1819 
 
 Sir John Malcolm, K.C.B . 1827 
 
 Earl of Clare . . . 1831 
 
 Sir Kobert Grant 1835 
 
 Sir James Rivett-Carnac, Bart. 1839 
 
 Sir George Arthur, Bart 1842 
 
 Sir George Russell Clerk 1847 
 
 Viscount Falkland 1848 
 
 Lord Elphinstone, G.C.B 1855 
 
 Sir George Russell Clerk (2d time) 1860 
 
 Sir Bartle Frere, Bart 1862 
 
 Sir Seymour Fitzgerald ....... 1867 
 
 Sir Philip Wodehouse 1872 
 
 Sir Richard Temple, Bart. 1877 
 
 Sir "W. H. Macnaghten was massacred in 1841 when about to leave Cabul 
 to join his appointment as Governor of Bombay. The Honourable Messrs. George 
 Brown in 1811 ; John Romer in 1831 ; James Parish in 1838 ; G. W. Ander- 
 son in 1841 ; and L. R. Reid in 1846, were senior members of council, who 
 acted for a short time as interim Governors. 
 
46 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1829. 
 
 but there are, in my opinion, causes which, for a long period, 
 must operate against the success of such an establishment." 
 The period has not proved to be so long as the conservative 
 experience of the Governor led him to believe. In this 
 respect Bombay soon shot ahead of Bengal, which afterwards 
 found a richer trade in jute and tea. But the withdrawal of 
 the last restriction on trade was, when Wilson landed, about to 
 co-operate with a consolidated administration to make Bombay 
 the seat of an enriching commerce, of which its varied native 
 communities obtained a larger share than elsewhere. A 
 society composed of Hindoo, Parsee, Jewish, and even Mu- 
 hammadan merchant princes, was being brought to the birth, 
 side by side with the great Scottish houses, at the head of 
 which was Sir Charles Forbes. And the man had come to lift 
 them all to a higher level ; to purify them all, in differing 
 degrees, by the loftiest ideal. 
 
 At this time our Indian Empire was just one third of its 
 present magnitude, but its native army was 186,000 strong, a 
 fourth more than since the Mutiny. Including St. Helena, 
 the area was 514,238 square miles, the population 89J 
 millions, and the gross revenue 21,695,207. The whole was 
 administered in 88 counties by 1083 British civil officers, and 
 defended by 37,428 white troops. Of the three Presidencies 
 the Western was by far the smallest, but its geographical 
 position gave it an advantage as the centre of action from Cape 
 Comorin to the head of the Persian Gulf, and from Central 
 India to Central Africa. Its area was 65,000 square miles, 
 not much more than that of England and Wales. Its popu- 
 lation was 6J millions in ten counties, and its gross annual 
 revenue 2J millions sterling. The whole province was 
 garrisoned by 7728 white troops and 32,508 sepoys, under 
 its own Commander-in- Chief ; and it had a Marine or Navy, 
 famous in its day and too rashly abolished long after, which 
 was manned by 542 Europeans and 618 natives. 
 
1829.] FIRST EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN BOMBAY. 47 
 
 Notwithstanding the enlightened action and tolerant 
 encouragement of Mountstuart Elphinstone and Malcolm, 
 public instruction and Christian education were still in the 
 day of small things in Bombay, although it was in some 
 respects more advanced than Bengal which soon distanced it 
 for a time. In the Presidency, as in Madras and Calcutta, 
 a charity school had been, in 1718, forced into existence by 
 the very vices of the English residents and the conditions of 
 a then unhealthy climate. Legitimate orphans and illegiti- 
 mate children, white and coloured, had to be cared for, 
 and were fairly well trained by public benevolence, for the 
 Company gave no assistance till 1807. In the Charter of 
 1813, which Charles Grant and Wilberforce had partially 
 succeeded in making half as liberal as that granted by 
 William III. in 1698, Parliament gave India not only its first 
 Protestant bishop, archdeacons, and Presbyterian chaplains, 
 but a department of public instruction bound to spend at 
 least a lakh of rupees a year, or 10,000, on the improvement 
 of literature, and the promotion of a knowledge of the sciences 
 among the people. In 1815 the Bombay Native Education 
 Society was formed, and opened schools in Bombay, Tanna, 
 and Broach, with the aid of a Government grant. Imme- 
 diately after Mountstuart Elphinstone's appointment as Gover- 
 nor it extended its operations to supplying a vernacular and 
 school-book literature. It recommended the adoption of the 
 Lancasterian method of teaching, then popular in England, 
 and it continued the useful work till 1840, when it became in 
 name, what it had always been in fact, the public Board of 
 Education. Since it failed to provide for the Southern Kon- 
 kan, or coast districts, Major Jervis, E.E., who became an 
 earnest coadjutor of Wilson, established a similar society for 
 that purpose in 1823, but that was affiliated with the origi- 
 nal body. When Poona became British, Mr. Chaplin, the 
 Commissioner in the Deccan, established a Sanscrit college 
 
48 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1829. 
 
 there, which failed from the vicious Oriental system on which 
 it was conducted, in spite of its enjoyment of the Dukshina 
 or charity fund of Ks. 35,000 a year, established by 
 the Peshwas for the Brahmans' education. 1 The Society's 
 central school in Bombay was more successful, and is still the 
 principal Government High School. When Mountstuart 
 Elphinstone left Bombay in 1827, the native gentlemen sub- 
 scribed, as a memorial of him, 21,600, from the interest of 
 which professorships were to be established " to be held by 
 gentlemen from Great Britain, until the happy period arrived 
 when natives shall be fully competent to hold them." But 
 no such professors arrived till 1835, when they held, in the 
 Town Hall, classes which have since grown into the Elphin- 
 stone College. In that year, out of a population of more than 
 a quarter of a million in the Island of Bombay only 1026 were 
 at school ; in the rest of the province the scholars numbered 
 1864 in the Maratha, and 2128 in the Goojaratee-speaking 
 
 1 When, in 1842, presiding at the annual examination of the General 
 Assembly's English school at Poona, Dr. "Wilson thus pictured the days of 
 Brahmanical supremacy and bigotry in the capital of the Peshwas. The 
 italics and capital letters are his : " Twenty-five years ago, when the Brah- 
 mans constituted the soul, at this place, of the Maratha Government, the 
 most powerful which had been formed in India since its conquest by the 
 Mussulmans which it was the first to impair and to limit few persons could 
 have imagined the existence and progress of a Christian seminary such as that 
 which the Church of Scotland has been honoured to found in the capital of the 
 Dekhan. Even after the conquest of the province by the British, we find the 
 Commissioner, Mr. Chaplin, when instituting the Poona College, with the 
 concurrence of the Bombay Government, sacrificing every sound educational 
 principle to his apprehension of the non-concurrence of the people with the 
 measures which he thought it might be desirable ultimately to adopt. ' The 
 Commissioner states ' it is mentioned in the interesting Eeport of the Board 
 of Education just published ' that in order to secure as far as possible the 
 popularity of the establishment with the Hindu community, he had proposed 
 the appointment of teachers in all their branches of learning, although MANY 
 OF THEM WERE PERHAPS WORSE THAN USELESS. ' He adds [after a consider- 
 able interval] ' that he had not yet taken any measures towards the introduction 
 of ANY branches of European science : but he had endeavoured to direct the 
 attention of the College principally to such part of their own Shashtras as are 
 not only more useful in themselves, but will best prepare their minds for a 
 
1829.] A VICIOUS OEIENTALISM IN GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS. 49 
 
 districts, or 5018 in all. In the four years ending 1830, just 
 before and after Wilson's arrival, the Bombay Government 
 remarked, " with alarm," that although it had fixed its annual 
 grant to public instruction at 2000 it had spent 20,192 in 
 that period. So apathetic were the natives that they had 
 subscribed only 471, while the few Europeans had given 
 818 for the same purpose. Truly the system of a vicious 
 Orientalism was breaking down, as opposed to that of which 
 Wilson was to prove the apostle the communication of West- 
 ern truth on Western methods through the Oriental tongues 
 so as to elevate learned and native alike. In their report of 
 1828-29 the Native Education Society had remarked, but 
 without the facts to support the statement, " We venture to 
 say that in no part of the globe have such wide and effectual 
 advantages spread so quickly from means at first apparently 
 circumscribed, and in the face of so many and great difficul- 
 ties." l In truth, in Bombay as in Calcutta and the rest of 
 
 gradual reception of more valuable instructions at a future time.' In the 
 establishment which he actually formed and supported, we find the polytheis- 
 tic Vedas and pantheistic Yedanta occupying a most prominent place ; every 
 native excluded from the walls of the seminary as is actually the case in the 
 present day -who could not lay claims to the holiness and dignity of the 
 Brahmanhood ; a dead and imaginary sacred language, the Sanscrit, chosen 
 as the sole medium of communicating instruction ; heathen rights and cere- 
 monies tolerated and enjoined by the College authorities, and paid for by the 
 Christian Government, and our own judges and magistrates scowled at and 
 insulted, when they ventured to visit the tabooed enclosure ; and endless 
 bickerings and quarrels among both the professors and students. In fact, 
 we find so many gross and glaring evils in it, that the Eevenue and Judicial 
 Commissioners and Agent for Sirdars, with the Collector, recommend its 
 ' abolition ; ' and Government say, in reply to their representations, that ' the 
 Institution had failed of* its object, that it had fulfilled no purpose but that 
 of perpetuating prejudices and false systems of opinion ; and that unless it 
 could be reformed [as it now to a great extent happily is through the wise 
 measures ably and zealously carried into effect by its European Superintendent, 
 Captain Candy] it had better be abolished.' " 
 
 1 These statistics are taken from a confidential Report on "Education in 
 British India prior to 1854, and in 1870-71," made by the Home Department 
 to the Government of India in 1872. The Report should be written up to the 
 present year and published. 
 
50 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1829. 
 
 India, education was languishing or being directed to the most 
 evil ends, as long before pointed out by James Mill in one of 
 the Leadenhall Street despatches to the Governor-General, for 
 want of those reforms which the coming Charter of 1833 en- 
 abled the government under men like Lord William Bentinck 
 and Macaulay, and guided by missionary-statesmen like Alex- 
 ander Duff and John Wilson, to direct, with incalculable 
 results both social and spiritual. The almost exclusively 
 Orientalising policy of the Government previous to 1835, left 
 Bombay a tabula rasa on which Wilson soon learned to engrave 
 characters of light and life that were never to be obliterated. 
 
 Nor had the few missionaries then in Western India an- 
 ticipated him. Self-sacrificing to an extent for which, save 
 from their great successor, they have rarely got credit, they 
 were lost in the jungle of circumstances. The American 
 missionaries were the first Protestants to take up the work 
 which, in the early Christian centuries, the Nestorians had 
 begun at the ancient port of Kalliana, the neighbouring 
 Callian, which was long the seat of a Persian bishop. In 
 1813, Dr. Coke sailed for Bombay with the same Major 
 Jervis, E.E., who did so much for the Konkan. His succes- 
 sors, for he died at sea, began that work of primary import- 
 ance in every mission, an improved edition of the New Tes- 
 tament in the vernacular Marathee, for which Mr. Wilson 
 expressed his gratitude soon after his arrival. But when, at 
 a later period, one of their annual reports ignorantly repre- 
 sented the Americans as having been the first to evangelise 
 the Marathas, he felt constrained to publish this statement of 
 the facts. 
 
 "The American missionaries first came to Bombay in 
 1813 ; but the whole of the New Testament in Marathee had 
 been published by the Serampore missionaries in 1811. Dr. 
 Robert Drummond published his grammar and glossary of the 
 Goojaratee and Marathee languages at the Bombay Courier 
 
1829.] THE EARLIEST MISSIONARIES IN WESTERN INDIA. 51 
 
 press in 1808. Dr. Carey published his Marathee grammar 
 and dictionary at Serampore in 1810. All these helps were 
 enjoyed by the American missionaries ; and though they are 
 by no means so important as those which are now accessible 
 to all students and missionaries, we would be guilty of ingra- 
 titude to those who furnished them were we to overlook them. 
 Suum cuique tribue should ever be our motto. The Eomish 
 Church we know to be very corrupted; but I have seen works 
 composed by its missionaries about two hundred years ago, 
 which could 'give the Marathas the least idea of the true 
 character of God as revealed in the Scripture.' It is too 
 much when the labours of the Eomish missionaries are con- 
 sidered, to affirm that ' not a tree in this forest had been felled' 
 till the American missionaries came to this country. There 
 have been some pious Eoman Catholics in Europe, and why 
 may there not have been some amongst the eight generations 
 of the 300,000 in the Marathee country? The Serampore 
 missionaries admitted several Marathas to their communion 
 before 1813." 
 
 The first American missionaries had their own romance, 
 like all pioneers. They were driven from Calcutta by the 
 Government in 1812, and told they might settle in Mauritius. 
 Judson happily was sent to Burma by Dr. Carey. Messrs. 
 Hall and Nott took ship to Bombay. Thence the good but 
 weak Sir Evan Nepean, who had been shocked by Elphin- 
 stone's firmness in the Poona plot, warned them off; but an 
 appeal to his Christian principle led him to temporise until 
 Charles Grant and the Charter of the next year restrained the 
 Company. In 1 81 5 the London Missionary Society repeated at 
 Surat, and afterwards in Belgaum, an effort to found a mission 
 which in 1807 had failed in the island of Bombay. In 1820, the 
 Church Missionary Society began in Western India that work 
 which in time bore good fruit for Africa also. In 1822 the 
 increase of British territory, caused by the extinction of the 
 
52 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1829. 
 
 Maratha power, induced the Scottish Missionary Society, 
 which since 1796 had been working in West Africa, to send 
 as its first missionary to Bombay the Rev. Donald Mitchell, 
 a son of the manse, who, when a lieutenant of infantry at 
 Surat, had been led to enter the Church of Scotland. 
 He was followed by the Eevs. John Cooper ; James 
 Mitchell; Alexander Crawford, whose health soon failed; 
 John Stevenson, who became a chaplain ; and, finally, Robert 
 Nesbit, fellow student of Dr. Duff at St. Andrews University 
 under Chalmers, and Wilson's early friend. "Desperately 
 afraid of offending the Brahmans," as a high official expressed 
 it, 1 the authorities would not allow the early Scottish mis- 
 sionaries to settle in Poona, which had too recently become 
 British, as they desired. Had not a native distributor of 
 American tracts just before been seized, by order, and 
 escorted to the low land at the foot of the Ghauts ? So there, 
 on the fertile strip of jungly coast, in the very heart of the 
 widow-burning, self-righteous, intellectually able and proud 
 Maratha Brahmans, the Scottish evangelists began their work 
 of sheer necessity, for they considered that Bombay was 
 already cared for by the American and English missions. The 
 Governors, Elphinstone and Malcolm, however, although they 
 would not allow the good men to be martyred in Poona, as 
 they supposed, with all the possible political complications, 
 subscribed liberally to their funds, a thing which no Gover- 
 nor-General dared do till forty years after, when John Law- 
 rence ruled from Calcutta. In Hurnee and Bankote, from sixty 
 to eighty miles down the coast from Bombay, these mission- 
 aries had preached in Marathee and opened or inspected 
 primary schools, with small results. So terrible was the social 
 sacrifice involved in the profession and communion of Chris- 
 tianity that the first Hindoo convert, in 1823, some weeks 
 
 1 See Memoir of f.ie Rev. Robert Ncsbit, by the Rev. Dr. Murray Mitchell. 
 
 1858. 
 
1829.] ENGLISH SOCIETY IN BOMBAY. 53 
 
 after his baptism, rushed from the Lord's Table when Mr. Hall 
 was about to break the bread, exclaiming, " No, I will not 
 break caste yet." Long before this the good James Forbes, 
 father of the Countess de Montalembert, had given it as his 
 experience of Anglo-Indians at all the settlements of Bombay, 
 from Ahmedabad to Anjengo, and dating from 1766, "that 
 the character of the English in India is an honour .to the 
 country. In private life they are generous, kind, and hospit- 
 able ; in their public situations, when called forth to arduous 
 enterprise, they conduct themselves with skill and magnani- 
 mity ; and, whether presiding at the helm of the political and 
 commercial department, or spreading the glory of the British 
 arms, with courage, moderation, and clemency, the annals of 
 Hindostan will transmit to future ages names dear to fame 
 and deserving the applause of Europe. . . . With all the 
 milder virtues belonging to their sex, my amiable country- 
 women are entitled to their full share of applause. This is 
 no fulsome panegyric ; it is a tribute of truth and affection to 
 those worthy characters with whom I so long associated, and 
 will be confirmed by all who resided in India." * Mr. Forbes 
 finally left India in 1784, when only thirty-five years of age, 
 but after eighteen years' experience. 
 
 The successive Governors had given an improved tone to 
 Anglo-Indian society, and the few missionaries and chaplains 
 had drawn around them some of the officials both in the 
 Council and in the ordinary ranks of the civil and military 
 services. But the squabbles in the Supreme Court, and 
 the reminiscences of a Journalist, 2 who has published his 
 memoirs recently, show that here also the new missionary had 
 a field prepared for him, which it became his special privilege 
 to develope and adorn with all the purity of a Christian ideal 
 and all the grace of a cultured gentleman. What in this way 
 
 1 Oriental Memoirs (1834), vol. i. page 98. 
 
 2 The Memoirs of a Journalist, by J. H. Stocqueler. Bombay, 1873. 
 
54 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1829. 
 
 he did, unobtrusively and almost unconsciously, in Bombay 
 for forty years, will hardly be understood without a glance at 
 this picture of the Island in 1830, as drawn by the editor of 
 the Bombay Courier : 
 
 "The opportunity of leaving Bombay was not to be regretted. 
 ' Society ' on that pretty little island had a very good opinion of itself, 
 but it was in reality a very tame affair. It chiefly consisted of foolish 
 burra sahibs (great folk) who gave dinners, and chota sahibs (little folk) 
 who ate them. The dinners were in execrable taste, considering the 
 climate. . . . But the food for the palate was scarcely so flavour- 
 less as the conversation. Nothing could be more vapid than the talk 
 of the guests, excepting when some piece of scandal affecting a lady's 
 reputation or a gentleman's official integrity gave momentary piquancy 
 to the dialogue. Dancing could hardly be enjoyed with the ther- 
 mometer perpetually ranging between 80 and 100 Fahrenheit, and 
 only one spinster to six married women available for the big- wigs who 
 were yet to be caged. A quiet tiffin with a barrister or two, or an 
 officer of the Eoyal Staff who could converse on English affairs, and a 
 game of billiards at the old hotel or one of the regimental messes, 
 were about the only resources, next to one's books, available to men at 
 the Presidency endowed with a trifling share of scholarship and the 
 thinking faculty." 
 
 Such was Bombay, the city and the province, when John 
 Wilson thus wrote to the household at Lauder his first impres- 
 sions of the former : 
 
 "Everything in the appearance of Bombay and the character of 
 the people differs from what is seen at home. Figure to yourselves a 
 clear sky, a burning sun, a parched soil, gigantic shrubs, numerous 
 palm trees, a populous city with inhabitants belonging to every country 
 under heaven, crowded and dirty streets, thousands of Hindoos, 
 Muhammadans, Parsees, Buddhists, Jews, and Portuguese ; perpetual 
 marriage processions, barbarous music, etc., etc. ; and you will have 
 some idea of what I observe at present. In Bombay there are many 
 heathen temples, Muhammadan mosques, and Jewish synagogues, 
 several Roman Catholic chapels, one Presbyterian Church, one 
 Episcopal Church, and one Mission Church belonging to the Americans. 
 I preached in the Scotch Church on the first Sabbath after my arrival, 
 and in the Mission Church on Sabbath last." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 1829-1836. 
 ORGANISATION AND FIRST FRUIT OF THE MISSION. 
 
 The Languages of the People If necessary for Officials much mere for 
 Missionaries Foundation of Wilson's Oriental Scholarship Masters Marathee 
 so as to preach his first Sermon in six Months Tentative efforts at Hurnee 
 First visit to a Hindoo House and Discussion with a Parsee Prohibition of 
 Suttee : Letter to Lord William Bentinck " Plan of Operations in the Island 
 of Bombay" His first European Friends Establishes the Oriental Chris- 
 tian Spectator Census of Bombay Wilson and Duff Presbyterian Constitu- 
 tion of a Native Church Transferred from the Scottish Missionary Society to 
 the General Assembly Progress of the Mission to 1836 Letters to Mr. J. 
 Jordan Wilson, and beginning of the Ten Years' Conflict. 
 
" A good man was ther of religioun, 
 
 And was a poure PERSOUN of a toun ; 
 
 But riche he was of holy thought and werk. 
 
 He was also a lerned man, a clerk 
 
 That Cristes gospel trewely wolde preche ; 
 
 His parischens devoutly wolde he teche. 
 
 Benigne he was, and wonder diligent, 
 
 And in adversite ful pacient ; 
 
 And such he was i-proved ofte sithes. 
 
 Ful loth were him to curse for his tythes. 
 
 But rather wolde he yeven out of dowte, 
 
 Unto his poure parisschens aboute, 
 
 Of his offrynge, and eek of his substaunce. 
 
 He cowde in litel thing han suffisaunce. 
 
 "Wyd was his parische, and houses fer asonder, 
 
 But he ne lafte not for reyne ne thonder, 
 
 In siknesse nor in meschief to visite 
 
 The ferreste in his parissche, moche and lite, 
 
 Uppon his feet, and in his hond a staf. 
 
 This noble ensample to his scheep he yaf, 
 
 That first he wroughte, and afterward he taughte, 
 
 Out of the gospel he tho wordes caughte, 
 
 And this figure he addede eek therto, 
 
 That if gold ruste, what schal yren doo ? 
 
 And though he holy were, and vertuous, 
 He was to sinful man nought despitous, 
 Ne of his speche daungerous ne digne, 
 But in his teching discret and benigne. 
 To drawe folk to heven by fairness e 
 By good ensample, this was his busynesse : 
 But it were eny persone obstinat, 
 What so he were, of high or lowe estat, 
 Him wold he snybbe scharply for the nones. 
 A bettre preest, I trowe, there nowher non is. 
 He waytede after no pompe and reverence, 
 Ne makede him a spiced conscience, 
 But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve, 
 He taughte, but first he folwede it himselve." 
 
 CHAUCER. The Prologue. 
 
1829.] CLASSICAL AND VERNACULAR LANGUAGES OF INDIA. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 IF a knowledge of the language of the people, vernacular and, 
 where possible, classical also, is the indispensable qualification 
 of every official, so that it is carefully provided for by the 
 competitive examinations in England and by the profes- 
 sional tests in the four great groups of Provinces in India, how 
 much more is it required by the foreign missionary. The 
 assistant-magistrate, even the district officer, who rules a 
 million of people in one of the 200 counties of the Indian 
 Empire ; the judge who, outside of the three English cities, 
 hears cases and writes his decisions in the prevailing language 
 of the province, may be content with a merely official use of 
 the Marathee or Goojaratee, the Tamul or Teloogoo, the 
 Hindee or Hindostanee, the Bengalee or Oorya, to say nothing 
 of the Persian and the Sanscrit which enrich all the thirty 
 languages of our Indian subjects. There is no conscientious 
 civil or military officer, however, who will not value his lin- 
 guistic knowledge for the highest social as well as political 
 ends, in kindly intercourse with all classes ; and there is no 
 one of scholarly tastes who will be content without some 
 acquaintance with the learned languages of the East, whether 
 Aryan or Semitic. But as the heart of a people is reached 
 through its mother-tongue, and all that is best worth knowing 
 about a country is to be found in its dialects and literature, 
 the Christian missionary and scholar, above all officials, will 
 master the vernacular as his most precious instrument, and 
 the classical language that feeds it as his most useful store- 
 house of information and illustration, argument and authority. 
 
58 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1829. 
 
 The Scottish, like the American missionaries who first worked 
 in Western India, were pre-eminent in such studies, follow- 
 ing an example fortunately set them and all subsequent 
 preachers and teachers in the East, by the Baptist " cobbler" 
 and most versatile orientalist of his day, William Carey. Mr. 
 Wilson's student friend especially, Eobert ISTesbit, who had 
 preceded him to India by sixteen months, was already a fluent 
 speaker of that Marathee, of which he became so remarkable 
 a preacher and writer that the natives could not trace even a 
 foreign accent in his pronunciation and use of its idioms. From 
 the first to the last day of his India life Wilson was of opinion 
 that a year or longer should be allowed to every young mis- 
 sionary to acquire the vernacular of his province. He himself 
 had brought to India a more than professional familiarity with 
 Latin and Greek ; he knew French for literary purposes ; and 
 he carried farther than his old professor and now friend, Dr. 
 Brunton, the study of Hebrew. He had not been a month in 
 Bombay when he and his most apt pupil, his wife, left it for 
 the comparative seclusion of, first Bankote and then Hurnee, 
 that they might, aided by their brethren and in the midst 
 of the country people, thoroughly learn Marathee, to begin 
 with. 
 
 In the eight months of the first hot and rainy seasons, from 
 April to November, Mr. Wilson laid the foundation of his 
 Orientalism with a rapidity, a thoroughness, and a breadth, 
 due alike to his overmastering motive, his previous training, 
 and his Mezzofanti-like memory. He himself tells, in the 
 letters and journals of the time, how he set to work after a 
 fashion that may well form the model of every worker in India 
 in whatever position. We find Nesbit thus writing to him at 
 the close of that six months' fruitful apprenticeship : " I am 
 accused of injuring your health by making you study Marathee 
 and talk with me at night . . . Will the exhortation to take 
 good care of your health now make any amends ? Get up at 
 
1829.] PREACHES FIRST MARATHEE SERMON IN SIX MONTHS. 59 
 
 six, by all means ; and, that you may be able to do so, go to 
 bed at ten." Mr. Wilson thus addressed his directors in 
 Edinburgh : 
 
 " As a year has passed away since I commenced my studies of the 
 native languages, it is now my duty to give you a brief account of my 
 progress. By referring to my journals I find that it was on the 18th 
 of August, being five months after my arrival in India, that I began to 
 hold consultations with the Hindoos, and on the 27th of September 
 when I preached my first sermon. When I was in the Konkan I gene- 
 rally devoted about nine hours to the study of Marathee. Since I 
 commenced my labours in Bombay I devote, according to my ability, 
 all the intervals from active missionary duty which I enjoy. I may 
 mention five hours daily as the average in which I am thus engaged. 
 During the first two months of my studies I pursued, as far as is prac- 
 ticable, the Hainiltonian system. Mr. Nesbit during that time kindly 
 furnished me with the English of my lessons. I afterwards principally 
 depended on my pundit, who had only a knowledge of Marathee, and 
 on the literary helps whicli I could obtain. The books which I used 
 were translations from the English made by the Native Education 
 Society, native stories, the translation of the Scriptures, mission tracts, 
 and an account of the Hindoo religion written by a Brahman in my 
 employment, in reply to queries which I addressed to him. I kept a 
 writer for four months who furnished me with lists of words under the 
 different principles of association which I could think of. I devoted 
 about an hour daily to consideration on the religion, manners, and 
 customs of the Hindoos, which I regulated according to Mr. Ward's 
 account. 
 
 " In Bombay I have some facilities for study which I did not 
 enjoy in the Konkan. These principally consist in my being able to 
 get all difficulties readily and satisfactorily solved, and in my being 
 favoured with the sheets of Captain Molesworth's and Mr. Candy's 
 Dictionary as they pass through the press. For the last three months 
 I have devoted the hour between seven and eight in the morning to 
 the reading of Hebrew with the points. I am very desirous, for the 
 sake of usefulness among the Jews here, and other important reasons, to 
 attain to greater proficiency in this ancient language. My teacher, who 
 is a rabbi, is an excellent scholar. He is well acquainted with Mr. 
 Wolff, whom he has frequently seen in Jerusalem ; and he declares, 
 even among his countrymen, that the Messiah has already appeared. I 
 am not without hopes of his being a converted man. I expect in a 
 
60 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1829. 
 
 short time to be able to commence the study of Hindostanee, a 
 language which will enable me to communicate the truths of the 
 Gospel to many natives in Bombay to whom at present I cannot find 
 access." 
 
 Of Captain Molesworth, brother of Lord Molesworth, and 
 his great dictionary, we shall hear more. At Bankote, sixty- 
 eight miles south of Bombay, Mr. Wilson took his seat in the 
 missionary council. On the first Sabbath after his arrival he 
 witnessed the baptism of the second Hindoo convert of the 
 mission, and administered the sacrament to " the children 
 of the East and West seated together at the same table." 
 At Hurnee he thus describes his tentative missionary efforts, 
 after his acquisition of Marathee, in the opening passage 
 of the Journal, which he again continued to write for a few 
 weeks. The interest of the passage lies chiefly in the con- 
 trast it presents to his Bombay experience. Mr. Cooper, who 
 is referred to, died in 1868 in Edinburgh, after long service 
 as a United Presbyterian minister in the Midlothian village 
 of Fala. 
 
 "November 1st, 1829. Sabbath. I preached to the natives in the 
 afternoon on the distinguishing characteristics of the children of 
 God. The man whom I met on Friday did not attend the Marathee 
 services. 
 
 " 2d. I preached to the beggars in the morning, and united with 
 Mr. Cooper in addressing the natives in the afternoon. 
 
 " 3d. I addressed the natives in the morning. 
 
 " 4th, 5th. I addressed the servants in the morning, and united 
 with Mr. Cooper in preaching to the natives in the afternoon. 
 
 " 6th. I addressed the natives in the morning. 
 
 " 7th. I addressed the natives, and made preparations for the 
 approaching Sabbath. 
 
 " 8th. Sabbath. I preached to the Europeans on " The carnal 
 mind is enmity against God." A lady who heard my discourse ap- 
 peared to be a good deal affected by it. I observed her in tears. May 
 God unfold to her the knowledge of her state by nature and practice, 
 and lead her to embrace the truth as it is in Jesus. 
 
 " 9th. I examined the bazaar school, and preached to the beggars 
 
1829.] EARLY WORK IN THE SOUTHERN KONKAN. 61 
 
 in the morning and forenoon. Messrs. Nesbit and Taylor of Belgaura 
 arrived from Bombay, where they had been attending a meeting of the 
 Bombay Missionary Union. Mr. Taylor, who is a highly respected and 
 honoured servant of the Redeemer, communicated some very interest- 
 ing intelligence to us respecting the spread of the Gospel. He men- 
 tioned that he had baptized four criminals lately, who, previously to 
 their death, afforded him a reason to hope that they had been renewed 
 in the spirit of their minds ; and showed us a very interesting letter 
 respecting the proceedings of the Baptist Mission in Burma, Dr. 
 Judson baptized ten individuals during the first three months of this 
 year. 
 
 " Wth. I spent most of the day with Mr. Taylor. He left us in 
 the evening. 
 
 "\\tli. Along with Mrs. Wilson I removed from Hurnee to 
 Dhapoolie, in the hope that, as stated to us by Dr. Stewart our host, a 
 change of air would be beneficial to our health. 
 
 " 1 2th. I spent this day principally in intercourse with the Euro- 
 peans at this military station. 
 
 " 13^/i. I visited in the morning the schools of Dhapoolie and 
 Jilgaum. In the first of these I found twenty-four boys and one girl. 
 Few of them could read. The teacher, like too many of those supported 
 by the Scottish Missionary Society, appears to confine his chief atten- 
 tion to writing and arithmetic, which are taught according to a very 
 careless system. In the second I found fourteen boys. A proper pro- 
 portion of them were able to read. In the course of the day I preached 
 to the natives, and distributed a considerable number of tracts. 
 
 " 1 4th. I travelled between Dhapoolie and Hurnee. 
 
 " 1 5th. I preached in the forenoon and evening to the Europeans, 
 and in the afternoon to the natives. The English services were 
 attended by several of the officers from Dhapoolie and the commander 
 of the Konkan Division of the Army." 
 
 So the work of preaching, examining, and teaching goes on 
 daily, all the month, till his removal to Bombay. We have, 
 in what follows, the beginning of those tours, and discourses 
 with natives of all classes, which gave Mr. Wilson at orice his 
 extraordinary influence and his vast stores of information 
 regarding the people of the country. 
 
 " 18th November. I left Hurnee early in the morning, and, 
 along with W. M. Webb, Esq., rode to Punch-nuddee. 
 
62 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1829. 
 
 " The country through which we passed is very beautiful. The 
 scenery is variegated, and it is distinguished by numerous hills and 
 valleys which are covered with trees and jungle shrubs, and which 
 present a verdure very delightful to the eye. We arrived at Punch- 
 nuddee at half-past 8 o'clock. As our porters had not come up, we 
 found at first no place on which to repose ourselves. We procured, 
 however, some bunches of straw which we spread in the veranda of the 
 temple in which we intended to sleep during the night, and which 
 served as couches. I spent the most of the day in addressing the 
 natives who came to the temple, in preaching in the village, and in 
 distributing tracts. I had the fullest discussion with a Brahman, who 
 stayed with me for about three hours, on the subject of religion I have 
 yet enjoyed or witnessed. The following is an outline of part of our 
 conversation : 
 
 7. ' Do you make inquiries on the subject of religion ?' 
 
 B. ' Why should we make inquiries respecting religion ?' 
 
 /. ' When a man comes into the world his mind is filled with evil, 
 and his face is turned towards hell. If he follow his evil inclinations, 
 and make no inquiry about the way to heaven, he will meet with 
 destruction.' 
 
 B. ' Yes. When man is born there is nothing in his mind but 
 lust, wrath, selfish affection, etc. Wisdom must be obtained.' 
 
 I. ' Do you know the message which we declare in this country ?' 
 
 B. ' I know a little about it.' 
 
 I. ' Our declaration is that all men need a Saviour.' [A simple 
 statement of Christian truth followed.] 
 
 B. ' Your religion is good ; but other religions are good. Those 
 who walk according to them will be saved.' 
 
 /. l The Christian religion is the only religion established and 
 approved by God. Men, instead of " making merit," make sin. The 
 Christian religion is the only religion which offers a righteousness to 
 man. Men are naturally unholy and unprepared to meet God ; the 
 Christian religion alone affords a provision for the purification of man, 
 and for his preparation for heaven.' 
 
 B. l The Hindoo religion is a good religion.' 
 
 /. ' Tell me everything which you can say in its favour, and I will 
 not interrupt you. I will then tell you something about Christianity, 
 and you will not interrupt me. On what grounds do you believe that 
 the Hindoo religion is of divine origin V 
 
 B. (after much hesitation). ' I will give you an illustration.' 
 
 I. ' First give me a proof, and then give me an illustration. ' 
 
1829.] FIKST DISCUSSION WITH A BRAHMAN. 63 
 
 B. 'The Hindoo Shastres are written in Sanscrit. Sanscrit is 
 the language of God. The Hindoo Shastres are therefore from God.' 
 
 /. ' Your proof has no weight. Sanscrit is not even the original 
 language of mankind. In Sanscrit many false stories have been 
 written, and many may be written. Have you no other proof to 
 offer ?' 
 
 B. ( No other.' 
 
 I. ' The evidences of Christianity are of two kinds, external and 
 internal.' (Here a summary of them was given.) 
 
 B. i God has endowed you with a great understanding ; but our 
 Shastres are proved by their prophecies as well as yours.' 
 
 I. ' Mention some of your prophecies which are like ours in their 
 announcement and fulfilment.' 
 
 B. ' I do not remember any at present.' 
 
 7. * I exhort you, believe in Christ.' 
 
 B. ' Your story is true ; but, as I am a part of God, I know that I 
 will be absorbed in the divine essence.' 
 
 J. ' You are not a part of God. God is perfectly holy ; you are 
 sinful. God is infinitely wise ; you are limited in knowledge and 
 understanding. Do you ever suffer mental affliction ?' 
 
 B. <Ido.' 
 
 /. ' If your mind is a part of God, why does God afflict himself 1 ' 
 (No answer.) 
 
 I. ' Your spirit will go to God after death, and be judged by God. 
 If you believe in the Saviour you will go to heaven ; if you do not 
 believe you will go to hell.' 
 
 " This person returned to me late in the evening. I gave him 
 some accounts of the contents of the Bible ; and informed him that the 
 chief story of the Old Testament was that the Saviour will come, and 
 the chief story of the New was that the Saviour has come. One of the 
 passages of the Bible which Mr. Webb and I read was Isaiah, 47th 
 chapter. In the circumstances in which we were placed we felt its 
 remarks on idol-worship with a power which we had never formerly 
 experienced." 
 
 " 29th November. Sabbath. I commenced my ministry 
 among the natives of Bombay by preaching to about twenty 
 individuals in Mr. Laurie's house. 
 
 "30th. I wrote out the scrawl copy of a plan of the 
 operations which I intend to pursue in Bombay. 
 
64 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1829. 
 
 " 1st December. I purchased some furniture, made some 
 fruitless inquiries about a house, and took farewell of the 
 Eev. Mr. Graves previously to his departure to Ceylon for the. 
 benefit of his health. This learned, pious, and laborious mis- 
 sionary has been one of the greatest supporters of the cause 
 on this side of India. His second edition of the Maratha 
 New Testament, which he has just now completed, is a work of 
 uncommon merit. It is distinguished by fidelity, great critical 
 knowledge, and high attainment in the native language. 
 
 " 2d. I preached to a company of the natives on Colaba. 
 
 " 3d. I paid the usual respects to the Governor, who has 
 welcomed me to Bombay in the kindest manner, and break- 
 fasted with him ; and, along with two of the members of the 
 corresponding committee, looked at several empty houses. 
 
 " 4th, 5th. I spent these days in the purchase of furni- 
 ture, and other similar business. 
 
 " 6th. Sabbath. I preached to the congregation of the 
 Scotch Church in the forenoon ; and to twenty-four natives 
 in the afternoon. 
 
 " *7th. I wrote an advertisement of a short religious 
 Magazine, which is intended principally to contain a record of 
 the progress of the Gospel ; and consulted with E. T. Webb, 
 Esq., who, along with myself, Mr. Stone of the American 
 Mission, and E. C. Money, Esq., a member of the correspond- 
 ing committee, is to be one of the conductors of it, about some 
 matters connected with it. 
 
 " 13th. Sabbath. I addressed twenty- two natives at Mr. 
 Laurie's house. 
 
 " 13th,~14:th. I engaged with Mr. Laurie in examining 
 and transcribing the accompts of the Mission, and in pre- 
 paring communications for the directors. 
 
 " 15th. I visited the house which has been taken for me ; 
 conversed with Narayan, who was baptized by Mr. Stevenson, 
 and made arrangements concerning the Mission. In the 
 
1829.] SUPPKESSION OF SUTTEE. 65 
 
 evening I heard the delightful intelligence that an order for 
 the abolishment of Suttees throughout India had been passed 
 by the Governor -General in Council. On account of this 
 measure every Christian must rejoice (1.) According to a 
 moderate computation it will save three thousand lives 
 annually. (2.) It will tend greatly to the improvement of the 
 moral feelings of the Hindoos. What can be more shocking 
 than the scenes which are witnessed at the funeral pile ? 
 Connected with them there is the violation of every principle 
 of humanity, and the exhibition of the most sinful cupidity 
 the motive by which relations are commonly excited to the 
 encouragement of the horrid deed. (3.) Its tendency will be 
 that of opening the eyes of the Hindoos to the enormities of 
 their religion. It is a testimony from the Government which 
 was greatly needed; and the absence of which, combined with 
 other circumstances, has, I have found, been viewed as an 
 encouragement. When it has been for some time put in 
 force, it will permit the Hindoos, with greater coolness and 
 with less prejudice, to contemplate their Shastres, than at 
 present when they see their most revolting recommendations 
 reduced to practice. The Christian public are undoubtedly 
 bound to return public thanks to Almighty God for the 
 favour which in this respect He has shown to His cause." 
 
 The Bombay Missionary Union, consisting of the London, 
 Scottish, and American missionaries in Surat, Belgaum, the 
 Konkan, Poona, and Bombay, afterwards addressed a formal 
 resolution to Lord William Bentinck, accompanied by this 
 letter from Mr. Wilson, as the secretary " This resolution is 
 a faint expression of the feelings of those who formed it. It 
 was dictated by the most fervent gratitude, for the measure 
 will immortalise the name of him who carried it into effect, 
 and which will be fraught with unspeakable blessings to the 
 inhabitants of India till the latest generation. The mission- 
 aries in the Bombay Presidency have already observed a day 
 
66 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1829. 
 
 of special thanksgiving to God for the abolition of Suttees, 
 and they now beseech Him to shower down His best blessings 
 on the head of your lordship, whom He has honoured to be 
 the instrument of communicating an unspeakable blessing to 
 this benighted land." This was the first-fruit of the deter- 
 mination of the noblest of all the Governors-General, who had 
 been but a year in office, to put down with one hand all such 
 crimes against humanity, while with the other he removed 
 the obstacles to the progress of education worthy of the name. 
 For a quarter of a century had the men of Serampore been 
 vainly attacking the English Government's toleration and even 
 encouragement of Suttee. When the new regulation prohi- 
 biting it reached Carey, as he was going into his pulpit on 
 Sunday morning, he gave perhaps the most pregnant illustra- 
 tion of the teaching of the " Lord of the Sabbath," by at once 
 sending for his pundit and completing the translation into 
 Bengalee before night. So Mr. Marshman, his successor in 
 the office of Bengalee translator, tells the story. It was a 
 happy augury for Wilson's work that the news of this first 
 blow at the crimes sanctioned by Brahmanism and that 
 directed according to the teaching of the purest toleration 
 should meet him as he began his career of philanthropy 
 in Bombay. It was long till Suttee was abolished in the 
 feudatory States, where he met with the horror more than 
 once. But since the Mutiny no Chief, however powerful, has 
 gone unpunished by the government of India who has even 
 connived at a barbarity which the freed conscience of all 
 India soon learned to condemn. No man, no poor drugged 
 widow who may yet never have been a wife, dare light the 
 Suttee's pyre with impunity in the most remote jungle of a 
 native State, from still Brahman-ridden Travancore to the most 
 fanatical hamlet of the deserts of Eajpootana. 
 
 In June 1830 we find Mr. Wilson writing thus to Dr. 
 Cormack of Stow : " We intend soon to take up the subject 
 
1829.] EARLY WORK IN BOMBAY. 67 
 
 of infanticide. Mr. Money (son of W. T. Money, Esq., Mr. 
 Wilberforce's friend,) told me that he had some thoughts of 
 memorialising the Supreme Government. Lord W. Bentinck, 
 you know, has abolished Suttee ; and there is no saying what 
 he may do. A Jain priest from Kathiawar, who knew General 
 Walker, is almost daily with me. He speaks very affection- 
 ately of him ; but he says that they have allowed the good 
 landobast (arrangement) which was made, to go to destruction. 
 I shall give you an account of the movements on this subject." 
 
 The closing weeks of the year 1829 were spent in the 
 organisation of the infant mission, in daily preaching to the 
 natives, in Sunday sermons to the British sailors in the 
 harbour for whom Mr. Wilson always cared, and in the 
 Scotch Church. Till Christmas he was the guest of the chap- 
 lain Mr. Laurie, at his house in the most southerly point of the- 
 peninsula, Colaba, itself a separate island at one time. The 
 day after he moved into his own house in the Fort. This 
 seems to record his first discussion with Parsees, and his first 
 visit to a Hindoo house in Bombay. 
 
 " 30 ] th. I engaged, with Mr. Allen, in preaching to the 
 natives. . . . 31s. Some Parsees, with whom we sat for 
 a considerable time, reprobated the monuments in the English 
 Church, and accused the English of idolatry. We had a very 
 curious conversation with them on this subject. I was happy 
 to inform them that in the Scotch Church there were no 
 images. I deeply regret that there should be any occasion 
 for mistake on this and similar subjects. Christianity cannot 
 be presented to the heathen in too simple a form. Every 
 practice should be warranted by Scripture ; this is the only 
 safe principle. I preached for the first time in a Hindoo 
 house. My audience was larger than could be accommodated." 
 
 On the same ground Bishop Cotton long after opposed the 
 introduction of a reredos with figures into St. Paul's Cathedral, 
 Calcutta, where it was placed after his death ; defending his 
 
68 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1830. 
 
 prohibition on the ground of expediency, however, by the fact 
 that certain Sikh inquirers had been scandalised by the figures 
 in the painted glass windows of some of the Government 
 churches. The varied character of his work Mr. Wilson thus 
 sums up at this early period : 
 
 "28th January 1830. My engagements have been so numerous 
 and oppressive that I have had no disposition, and scarcely any time, 
 to make even the shortest entrances in my journal. I will, therefore, 
 give a general statement of the arrangements which I have made, and 
 on which I am now acting, and of one or two measures which have been 
 carried into effect. On Sabbaths I preach to a congregation of natives 
 amounting to between forty and fifty. About the half of them are 
 servants, who are sent by their masters for instruction. The remainder 
 are principally led to attend from curiosity, or from a regard to their 
 worldly interests. Christ himself was called to address those who fol- 
 lowed Him from a view to the loaves and fishes. I occasionally officiate 
 in the Scotch Church, and once in the three weeks I preach on board 
 one of the vessels in harbour in connection with the Bombay Seamen's 
 Friend Association. 
 
 " I regularly conduct worship in the Marathee language, and deliver 
 a short address on some passage of Scripture at nine o'clock in the 
 mornings at my own house. My audience varies ; but on some occa- 
 sions it has been encouraging. At four o'clock in the afternoons I 
 proceed to the streets of the city to declare the glad tidings of salvation. 
 When I am in a public situation great numbers come around me ; and 
 when I am in a private one, I have the advantage of being heard by 
 all those who see me, and of addressing myself with greater particu- 
 larity to individuals. On Tuesdays and Fridays I preach, after the sun 
 is set, in native houses. My services on these occasions, though at- 
 tended with many difficulties, afford me considerable comfort. They 
 are conducted at the time when the impure shastres and religious stories 
 are read to the people. On account of the want of circulation of 
 air in the houses they are not without their danger. I hope, however, 
 that by-and-bye I will be able to find some places where I may regularly 
 officiate with some degree of comfort. On Saturday evenings I have 
 a meeting with the Beni- Israelites. It has hitherto proved encouraging. 
 Marathee is the vernacular language of this people. 
 
 " Three female schools have been instituted by Mrs. Wilson. The 
 progress of the pupils is far from being encouraging. Much patience, 
 
1830.] FIKST GIRLS' AND BOYS' SCHOOLS. 69 
 
 attention and consideration will be required to bring them into such a 
 state as will warrant the hope that they will be useful auxiliaries in the 
 mission. The degraded state of those of whom they are composed forms 
 a sufficiently powerful motive for exertion in their behalf. Manuel, 
 who was lately admitted into the Church, is constantly engaged as an 
 inspector. A more regular attendance and efficient discipline, and con- 
 sequently stricter economy, are secured by this means than could possibly 
 be obtained by another measure. The children are as frequently visited 
 by Mrs. "Wilson as her health will permit ; and the readers will be re- 
 quired at least once in the week to attend at the house for particular 
 instruction. 
 
 " I have established two boys' schools, which, as far as is practicable, 
 are conducted on the principles pursued in the Sessional School of Edin- 
 burgh. I have been much disappointed with regard to the number of 
 scholars. The indigenous schools, and the schools of the Native Educa- 
 tion Society, are so arranged in Bombay, I find, as to prevent the col- 
 lecting of any very large number of boys in connection with any of the 
 missions. I do not, however, despair of seeing an improvement. 
 When the discipline of my schools is better understood, and when its 
 fruits become apparent, and when the hostility of neighbouring teachers 
 begins to cool, I expect to see an increase in the number of scholars. 
 Pedro is employed as inspector. One of the schools is under my own 
 roof. 
 
 " In connection with my labours some pleasing circumstances have 
 occurred. A Veishya, who is engaged by me as a schoolmaster, and 
 who had daily opportunities of hearing the gospel, about a fortnight 
 after he entered into the service of the mission began to shew signs of 
 seriousness. He commenced the perusal of the Scriptures, and dili- 
 gently perused them when he could find leisure. I frequently heard 
 him engaged in this exercise, and his tone indicated solemnity. I con- 
 cluded from what I observed on several occasions that he wished to get 
 private instruction from me ; but as I thought the voluntary expres- 
 sion of his desire would enable me perhaps to throw some light on his 
 character, I took no notice of what passed before me. In short time, 
 however, he informed me that he wished to be considered as a religious 
 inquirer, and solicited permission to attend me on the evenings. I 
 cheerfully acceded to his proposal ; and for the last six weeks he has 
 regularly attended me. I am much pleased with his attention and 
 progress, and the modesty of his professions. I have not yet considered 
 it proper to speak to him on the subject, because it is comparatively 
 easy for a person under the influence of strong impressions, which may 
 
70 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1830. 
 
 prove not to be the work of the divine Spirit, to consent to any pro- 
 posals which may be made on this subject ; and because, when the 
 general deceitfulness of the Hindoo is considered it appears necessary, 
 if a wish is entertained to preserve the Church in a state of purity, to 
 give to all catechumens a longer time of probation than may be neces- 
 sary in other circumstances. 
 
 " A few weeks ago a Brahman was executed for murder. I had an 
 opportunity of attending him in the jail, and conversing with him on 
 the subject of religion. As he did not perfectly understand Marathee 
 I asked the assistance of Captain Molesworth and Lieutenant Candy, 
 who addressed him in Hindee. He appeared to be a good deal 
 affected with divine truth ; and, apparently under its influence, he 
 destroyed his string, and constituted Messrs. Candy, Birdwood, and 
 myself the guardians of his child, which he wished to be educated in 
 the Christian faith. On the day previous to his death, however, he was 
 led to borrow another string. When we observed it upon him we 
 remonstrated with him. He said that he was led to wear it in order 
 that his body might be burned by his caste ; that he put no trust in 
 it ; and that we could not deprive him of the faith in the Saviour, which 
 had been imparted to him. As he was about to enter into the eternal 
 world we thought it proper to occupy his time by directly communi- 
 cating instruction to him. He died calling on the name of Jesus ; and 
 left us in such a state of hope as warranted us to say that perhaps he 
 was a believer. 
 
 " I lately had some intercourse with a very intelligent member of 
 the Eomish Church from the south of India, and very free discussion 
 respecting the apostasy of the body to which he belonged. I have 
 reason to believe that my instructions were blessed to him. When 
 leaving Bombay he expressed his horror at most of the abominations 
 of Popery, his determination to read and study the , Scriptures for him- 
 self, and his eagerness to correspond with me on the subject of religion. 
 He requested some bibles and tracts for distribution, and offered to 
 translate into Portuguese any tract (on the corruptions of the Eomish 
 Church) which I might compose. He was greatly benefited by the 
 intercourse which he had with Pedro Lewis. 
 
 " I have a monthly meeting with some European soldiers. There is 
 every reason to believe that in connection with them the divine bless- 
 ing has rested on my labours. 
 
 " I have been a good deal tried by the conduct of Narayan Shune- 
 kur, who was baptized in May last by Mr. Stevenson. He has on more 
 than one occasion shown great aversion to religious ordinances and re- 
 
1830.] THE EEAL DIFFICULTIES OF A MISSIONARY'S LIFE. 71 
 
 ligious instruction. He is engaged as a printer with Captain Moles- 
 worth, who lives in my neighbourhood, and his attendance on me has 
 not accorded with his opportunities. Pedro and Manuel give me great 
 satisfaction. The latter individual has commenced the study of Mara- 
 thee. 
 
 " A young gentleman in the Civil Service of the Company who was 
 brought under serious impressions during our voyage to India, makes 
 a decided profession of Christianity ; and, in the judgment of his pious 
 acquaintances, adorns the doctrine of his Lord and Saviour Jesus 
 Christ. I could mention some other facts of a similar nature, which I 
 have no doubt would prove highly gratifying to you. Many reasons, 
 however, will occur to you which will lead you to perceive the pro- 
 priety of my not mentioning them to you. A weekly meeting is held 
 at my house for prayer and conference on the Scriptures ; the average 
 attendance is that of sixteen ladies and gentlemen. 
 
 " I am much pleased -with Bombay as a missionary station, and when 
 I reflect on the great door of usefulness which has been opened to me, 
 I am much depressed with my insufficiency for the discharge of my 
 duties. The real difficulties of a missionary's life are little known and 
 felt by the religious public. To encounter them and overcome them, 
 much faith, courage, compassion, wisdom, perseverance, and prayerful- 
 ness is required. ' Can these dry bones live ?' is a question which 
 thrusts itself upon me whenever I am about to deliver the message of 
 salvation. The countenances of my auditors betray pride, stupidity, 
 superstition, unconcern. My addressing them calls forth wrath, folly. 
 My leaving them affords them an opportunity of giving vent to their evil 
 dispositions. When I repeat my visits to them then I see little but 
 aversion. Circumstances are not always of this kind, for there is fre- 
 quently attention, consideration, and impression manifested by the poor 
 Hindoos ; but, when general circumstances are considered, it may be 
 asked ' who is sufficient for these things ? ' Were it not the considera- 
 tion that we are ambassadors for Christ, that the people around us are 
 perishing for lack of knowledge, that the Word and Spirit of God are 
 omnipotent, and that the promises of God are on our side, I do not 
 know what could support us or induce us to declare divine truth. 
 There are, I am happy to say, very promising appearances in different 
 parts of India. In due season we shall reap if we faint not." 
 
 The experience of country and city, of preaching and 
 teaching, of creeds and customs, all based on familiarity with 
 the Marathee tongue, which Mr. Wilson had thus crowded 
 
72 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1830. 
 
 into the first year of his life in Western India, fitted him to 
 line out a policy for himself, and to lay the foundations of his 
 mission deep and broad. He was saved from the errors of 
 his predecessors, and in confidential communications to the 
 Society at home he did not hesitate to exercise that inde- 
 pendence of judgment and of action which he had claimed 
 from the first, and without which much that was unique in 
 his powers and his methods might have been lost to Bombay 
 in the uniform level of average work. In this passage of such 
 a letter to the secretary of the Society he anticipates, at that 
 early date, the mistake which many missionaries have begun 
 to avoid only in very recent years. That is, witness-bearing, 
 rather than the mere denunciation or exposure of idolatry, is 
 the key to the hearts and consciences of the natives of India. 
 " In reference to the mode of addressing the natives pur- 
 sued by my brethren, I have been led to entertain and express 
 the deepest regrets. With one exception, as far as I can form 
 a judgment, they are too frequently inclined to speak on the 
 folly of idolatry; and to neglect the preaching of the un- 
 searchable riches of Christ ; and to present divine truth to 
 the minds of the heathen in any manner which is destitute of 
 solemnity. I know that their temptations to pursue this 
 course are great. It is the easiest ; it excites the feelings of 
 the hearer without any difficulty. It is, however, unprofitable ; 
 and I believe that it is one of the chief reasons of the com- 
 paratively small success of modern missions. It is deceitful ; 
 a missionary falls into it without his being aware of it, and 
 perseveres in it at the very time when he declares that an 
 opposite course is his duty and his aim. It tempts to the use 
 of inconclusive arguments ; it excites a thousand unprofitable 
 objections; produces a bad impression on the heathen, and 
 destroys a missionary's temper. It is the bane of our Mission, 
 and, I believe, is the great cause of the comparatively small 
 success of modern missions. 
 
1830.] HOW MISSIONARIES SHOULD EVANGELISE. 73 
 
 "The preparations which are made for addressing the 
 heathen are not so regular and extensive as could be wished 
 for. This, I believe, originated in a great degree in the dis- 
 traction which was produced by the charge of too many 
 schools ; and it is persevered in more from the manner in 
 which the labours are arranged and conducted than from in- 
 dolence. On this account, however, it ought not to be over- 
 looked. When united with an incorrect pronunciation, 
 proceeding from a want of attention in the early stage of 
 study, or from carelessness on the part of the pundits, and 
 with a violation of the rules of concord, on which the Mara- 
 thas lay great stress, it forms a serious evil. . . . 
 
 " I thank God for enabling me to make much greater pro- 
 gress in Marathee than I expected. I fear, however, that I 
 may have in some degree injured my health. As I did not 
 feel the climate so irksome as I expected, my attention was 
 not directed to this subject till a few weeks ago I received a 
 letter from Mr. Eobson, the author of St. Helena Memoir, 
 who has been residing at Hurnee, and I found some pain in 
 the region of my heart." It was from that region that his 
 fatal illness proceeded. 
 
 The financial affairs of the Scottish Missionary Society 
 were, for local purposes, managed by a corresponding com- 
 mittee, chiefly of laymen, at Bombay. After some hesitation 
 whether he should not begin operations at Poona, that com- 
 mittee had agreed with Mr. Wilson that he should remain in 
 the capital. " I desire," he wrote to the directors at home, " to 
 express my deep-felt gratitude for calling me to labour in a 
 large town. It is evident that cities afford peculiar facilities 
 for missionary exertion. The Acts of the Apostles lead us to 
 conclude that in the Apostolical age the efforts of the servants 
 of Christ were chiefly directed to them, and from this consider- 
 ation the word ' pagan ' came to be applied to the heathen." 
 He accordingly drew up, at the end of 1829, the " Plan of opera- 
 
74 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1830. 
 
 tions which I intend to pursue in the island of Bombay." 
 He accompanied it by detailed regulations for the monitors 
 or pupil teachers, the masters, and the Christian inspectors of 
 his schools. The whole scheme shows a rare foresight as 
 well as the practical experience of the educationist; and it has, 
 indeed, been carried out in more recent times, in most of its 
 principles, in the village circle, and other primary vernacular 
 schools established by the various governments in India by 
 means of a school-rate. 
 
 " In discharging the duties of my office, I shall devote my un- 
 divided attention to the work of preaching among the heathen the 
 unsearchable riches of Christ. The different classes of the native 
 community, as far as I have the power of addressing them, I shall 
 consider as the objects of my ministry. In endeavouring to bring 
 before them the gospel of salvation I shall direct my chief efforts to 
 the work of personally declaring to them the truths of Scripture. I 
 propose to have a regular service at my own house in the mornings, 
 with a view to the instruction of my domestics, and of such individuals 
 as may be induced to attend. I propose, in the afternoons, to address 
 the natives in the streets of the city ; and in the evenings, after the sun 
 is set, to deliver prepared discourses, during three days of the week, in 
 such of the native houses as I may be able to engage for that purpose. 
 The last-mentioned arrangement, though it is novel, appears to me to 
 be particularly calculated for usefulness. It will be conducted at a 
 time when the natives can with peculiar facility be attracted together, 
 and in a manner which will prevent the frequent interruptions with 
 which a missionary is disturbed. 
 
 " With a view to suiting my labours to the circumstances of the 
 young, and in the hope of conciliating their parents and introducing 
 the gospel into their private circles, I intend to devote a share of my 
 attention to Christian schools. I propose exclusive of a Portuguese 
 school, which I may be able to establish to form two such institutions, 
 capable of containing each about 200 boys ; and to conduct them on 
 the principles which have been so well illustrated by John Wood, Esq., 
 Advocate, in the Sessional School of Edinburgh, and which have been 
 introduced into some of the most respectable seminaries in Scotland. 
 By confining myself to the number now stated, and by conducting them 
 in the manner proposed, I hope to be able to exercise a vigilant super- 
 
1830.] RULES FOR PRIMARY VERNACULAR SCHOOLS. 75 
 
 intendence over them, frequently to address the children, to pre- 
 vent heathen practices in them ; and I cherish the belief that, by the 
 divine blessing, the object which a missionary society ought ever to 
 have in view may be in some degree accomplished by them. For 
 conducting the business of them, it will be necessary to appoint a head 
 master for each of them, and instructed monitors for each class, who 
 shall receive a small pay ; and for preventing deception, and securing 
 their Christian character, it will be expedient to appoint an inspector 
 in whom I can trust, and who will report to me the deviations from 
 the rules which may be laid down for their government. Hindoo 
 teachers can easily be procured. For monitors I intend, in the first 
 instance, to apply to the American Mission. I have two individuals in 
 view who will be suitable as inspectors. According to a calculation 
 which has been made, the expense of maintaining these office-bearers 
 will allow education to be conducted at a rate which is somewhat cheaper 
 than in the generality of mission schools in the west of India. Female 
 education will receive all that attention which circumstances will permit. 
 The circulation of the Scriptures and tracts, and those opportunities of 
 usefulness which though not of a stated, are of a highly important 
 nature, will of course be attended to in their proper order. 
 
 " Circumstances may suggest a modification of my present plans, or 
 prevent, in some degree, their being carried into execution. I trust, 
 however, that my principles will not be lost sight of." * 
 
 "KEGULATIONS framed for the Management of the Schools, 
 drawn up on 7th December 1829. 
 
 " Monitors. 1. No person shall be employed as a monitor who has 
 not made considerable progress in his education. 2. Every monitor 
 shall receive a small sum as a remuneration for his labours. 3. The 
 monitors shall be regularly instructed by the missionary in the tasks 
 which they will be required to teach. 4. The duties of the monitors 
 shall be to facilitate and secure the acquisition of the tasks, and to 
 examine their pupils respecting their meaning. 5. All difficulties re- 
 specting terms, sentences, or allusions, which occur to the monitors, and 
 which cannot be solved by the master or inspector, shall be carefully 
 marked and stated to the missionary. 
 
 1 It was in 1791 that, as Southey describes, the Madras chaplain Dr. 
 Andrew Bell developed, from the simple custom of the native school children 
 writing on the sand with their fingers, the whole monitorial and intellectual 
 system of instruction which became so famous. 
 
76 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1830. 
 
 (t Master. 1. No person shall be employed in this situation who is a 
 Gooroo (priest) in any temple, who does jiot promise to give a true state- 
 ment of the object of the schools to parents and others interested in 
 them, and who does not bind himself to abstain from teaching heathen- 
 ism, and to comply with the directions which may be given to him. 
 2. The pay of the master shall, as far as possible, depend on the number 
 of children, the regularity of their attendance, and their progress in 
 education. 3. The duties of masters shall be to superintend and 
 instruct the monitors, to exercise discipline, and to use every lawful 
 endeavour to advance the interests of the schools. 
 
 " Inspector. 1. Every inspector shall be a professing Christian. 2. 
 Inspectors shall be required to remain in the schools during the usual 
 hours of teaching, to mark the attendance, to prevent heathen practices, 
 to report all deviations from the rules, and to use their endeavours by 
 visitation or otherwise, to induce the adult population to attend the 
 evening services which may be conducted with a view to their benefit. 
 
 " JOHN WILSON." 
 
 Of the eight members of the corresponding committee 
 at that time, all became the fast friends of Mr. Wilson, 
 and all were distinguished by their high character as officials 
 and merchants. Besides the Scotch chaplains there were the 
 Hon. Mr. Farish, who officiated for some time as Governor ; 
 Mr. E. T. Webb of the same civil service ; Mr. E. C. Money, 
 Persian secretary to government, whose name is perpetuated 
 by a missionary institution; Dr. Maxwell of the Medical 
 Board ; Dr. Smyttan, who became Mr. Wilson's most intimate 
 friend ; and Mr. M'Grigor. With friends and scholars like 
 Captain Molesworth and Captain Candy, Mr. Hynd from 
 Liverpool, and the various missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson 
 soon became the centre of that gradually extending society 
 of thoughtful and cultured persons into which, in time, he 
 was to introduce the native gentlemen of the city. As indis- 
 pensable to such varied and aggressive work as he had 
 undertaken, Mr. Wilson had originated the oldest Christian 
 periodical in India, the Oriental Christian Spectator. The 
 now rare sets of this monthly magazine, which was continued 
 
1831.] LORD CLARE ON THE WANT OF ENGLISH EDUCATION. 77 
 
 for thirty years, form an invaluable record of progress in all 
 forms in Western' India and the adjoining countries. In that 
 appeared the literary fruits of Wilson's ceaseless labours of 
 every kind. 
 
 Thus far the missionary policy of Mr. Wilson does not 
 seem to have included a high class English school or college. 
 The central school of the Native Education Society professed 
 to provide for the increasing number of Hindoos and Parsees 
 who sought English for commercial or official use ; and the 
 scheme given above provided for the Portuguese. As yet 
 Lord William Bentinck had not moved, Macaulay had not 
 taken his seat in council as first law member, and Dr. Duff 
 was only making his way to Calcutta through the perils of 
 repeated shipwreck. But Mr. Wilson had early taken steps 
 " to begin instructing the natives in the English language." 
 A letter from his friend Mr. E. C. Money to the Governor, 
 written on the 4th August 1831, called forth this reply from 
 Lord Clare, showing that almost everything remained to be 
 done : 
 
 u DAPOORIE, August 20th, 1831. 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR A variety of business has prevented me from 
 sooner acknowledging the receipt of your letter of the 4th of this 
 month. At present to begin instructing the natives in the English 
 language would appear a world of infinite labour and difficulty, and 
 I should like to learn whether any and what progress has been 
 made in the schools already established towards giving them any 
 such knowledge. I apprehend there are at present so few teachers 
 who know English it would be very difficult indeed even to make a 
 beginning. I went through the government Institution lately at 
 Poona, and though the boys had made a wonderful progress in arith- 
 metic, and even mathematics, neither they nor their instructor spoke 
 one word of our language. I do not know how you are provided in 
 this respect in the schools at Bombay, and unless instruction in the 
 English language is made a necessary part of every boy's education^ 
 who is brought up in every seminary patronised by government, but 
 little progress will be made. 
 
 " Much has been done in the way of education since then in most 
 
78 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1832. 
 
 parts of India, but we must not attempt too much at first. That is a 
 subject, however, which merits consideration ; at present I confess I do 
 not see how to make even a beginning. 
 
 " You are quite right, I believe, in what you say respecting infanti- 
 cide in Kutch. That horrid practice has hardly been even checked, 
 and after all our endeavours we have done but little towards reform- 
 ing, I believe, the most unprincipled and profligate race in India. 
 Threats and exhortations have been equally disregarded, but we must 
 not be discouraged. The abolition of Suttee was at one time believed 
 to be almost impracticable. 
 
 " I hear Mr. Elphinstone's portrait is very ill placed. I wish it 
 were in the Town Hall. Yours, my dear Sir, faithfully, 
 
 "CLARE." 
 
 It was on the 29th March 1832 that the germ of what 
 became the General Assembly's Institution was established as 
 the " Ambrolie English School, connected with the Scottish 
 Mission." " This infant institution," as it is described in the 
 first year's report, was under the immediate eye of Mr. Wilson 
 as its superintendent. Books as well as teachers had to be 
 created for it, such as Marathee and Goojaratee translations 
 of the English Instructor, the Catechism, and Dr. A. Thom- 
 son's text-books, and a work entitled Idiomatical Exercises 
 in English and Marathee, " to aid the natives in understand- 
 ing the structure and vocables of the English language." In 
 the first year the school was attended by 415 Hindoos and 3 
 Parsees. Fees were exacted, and the Christian character of 
 the education was insisted on from the first. The highest 
 prize was a sum of fifty rupees (5) for the best essay on the 
 spirituality of God, open to those youths " who attended the 
 Wednesday evening lectures of the Rev. John Wilson." 
 
 The population of Bombay, according to the census of 1833, 
 consisted of 18,376 Christians, principally Roman Catholics ; 
 143,298 Hindoos, including Jains; 49,928 Muhammadans, 
 with Arabs and Persians ; 20,184 Parsees, and 2,246 Jews, 
 including native or Beni-Israelites. The total population, or 
 234,032, was slightly above that to which Edinburgh and 
 
1832.] HIS SYSTEM CONTKASTED WITH DR. DUFF'S. 79 
 
 Leith together have grown at the present time. Such was 
 Mr. Wilson's field, and it was to go on increasing threefold as 
 his labours for the good of its varied communities extended. 
 
 Calcutta and Bombay, Eastern and Western India, pre- 
 sented, in their native communities, needs which were supplied 
 from the first by the systems of Duff and Wilson. These 
 differed indeed in the priority of time and importance given to 
 certain methods of operation, but they all the more effectually 
 secured the same great end of saturating Asiatic society and 
 government progress with Christian truth conveyed by the 
 most intellectual methods. Duff's instrument was the English 
 language, and it was at first applied exclusively to boys and 
 young men. Wilson's instrument was the vernaculars of a 
 varied population the Marathee, Goojaratee, Hindostanee, 
 Hebrew, and Portuguese ; with Persian, Arabic, and Sanscrit 
 in reserve for the learned classes. These he acquired and 
 fluently used, often in provincial dialects too, in a few years, 
 in preaching and in teaching both girls or women, and boys or 
 young men. But the Calcutta missionary no more neglected 
 Bengalee and even Sanskrit as his college developed, or 
 female education as society advanced in intelligence, than his 
 great Bombay colleague was indifferent to English. It was a 
 happy adaptation of the men to the conditions, which indeed 
 helped to make them what they became, that English held the 
 first place with the one, and a purified Orientalism was long 
 the most important weapon of the other. Looking back half 
 a century, those who know the social and spiritual state of 
 both Eastern and Western India may fancy that a fuller 
 adoption of Orientalism in the former, and an earlier use of 
 English for the highest instruction in the latter, would have 
 been better for both the missions, and for the advancement of 
 India. But that is only to forget that such an arrangement 
 would have paralysed Duff in his fight beside Macaulay, with 
 the fanatical orientalist party in the government, without 
 
80 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1832. 
 
 whose defeat progress of any kind would have been impossible; 
 while it would have long postponed, if it did not altogether 
 change, that hold which Wilson obtained on the affections and 
 the intellect of the native communities, which was due to his 
 oriental lore and his more than Asiatic courtesy and grace. 
 In truth, the historian of British India who can estimate 
 causes aright, will put side by side with Duff's opening of 
 the boys' English school in Calcutta in August 1830, the 
 establishment of Mrs. Wilson's first of many female schools 
 in Bombay in December 1829. Both were seeds which have 
 already grown into great trees. Each represented that side 
 of civilisation without which the other becomes pernicious. 
 Each reacted on the other. Every succeeding generation of 
 young men demands educated women in increasing numbers. 
 These bring up better instructed children ; and in instances 
 no longer rare, present the spectacle, unknown to Asia all 
 through its history, of pure and happy family life. Mrs. 
 Wilson's organisation and management of the female schools, 
 her frequent contributions to the Oriental Christian Spectator, 
 and her superintendence of the mission during her husband's 
 absence on preaching tours, were interrupted only for a time 
 by the birth of four children, of whom two sons survive. 
 
 Although thus carefully laying the foundations of his 
 missionary policy and machinery, and well aware that for many 
 a day his must be a work of preparation, Mr. Wilson from 
 the first expected and worked for baptised converts. He did 
 not lose himself in his system, nor did he loftily or vaguely 
 look for a harvest from the seed he was hourly sowing, only 
 in the distant future. He rather tested, improved, and 
 extended his system, by the assured belief that the Divine 
 Spirit would show immediate or speedy fruit such as his few 
 predecessors had not witnessed in Western India. He was -a 
 man to make and follow his own policy, not theirs ; while he 
 was too wise and kindly to neglect their experience. So he 
 
1832.] FORMATION OF THE FIRST NATIVE CHURCH. 81 
 
 formed a native church in Bombay in February 1831, two 
 years after landing, and a year after evangelising the island. 
 He thus announces the fact to his father, himself an elder of 
 Lauder Kirk, and familiar with the ecclesiastical organisation : 
 " I formed a native church on Presbyterian principles. Eight 
 members joined it ; and I administered the Lord's Supper to 
 them and to some Europeans." The draft minute of this 
 transaction, the beginning of a church which he watched and 
 helped till it grew to be the vigorous body it now is, worship- 
 ping in its own fine ecclesiastical building, has a peculiar 
 interest as a contribution to these modern "Acts of the 
 Apostles." In the half century since those days, when the 
 number of the Protestant native church in India, in all its 
 branches, has grown to be above the third of a million, and is 
 increasing annually, according to the official census, at the 
 rate of 6J per cent, contrasted with the half per cent of 
 Hindoos, all the foreign missionaries have long since agreed 
 that the Church of India must, as it grows to support itself more 
 largely, determine its own organisation, free from the divisions 
 of the western sects and historical creeds. This too was Mr. 
 Wilson's view ; but in 1831 what so well fitted as presbytery 
 for the infant church ? 
 
 "Bombay, 4th February 1831. 
 
 " This day, in the house of the Rev. John Wilson, minister of the 
 gospel in connection with the Church of Scotland, and missionary from 
 Scotland, amongst some converted Hindoos and others a native church 
 was formed. John Wilson, the servant of Jesus Christ, stated that he 
 was licensed as a preacher of the gospel by the Presbytery of Lauder 
 on 6th May 1828 ; that he was ordained to the office of the ministry 
 in the same place on 24th June 1828, and that he arrived in India on 
 the 13th February 1829. Mr. Wilson baptized on the 2d of January 
 in his own house Heer Chund, Ransod, Saha Wanee, and Dewukee, a 
 Hindoo woman. He also declared worthy of communion on the same 
 day John Rennie Baptist, an African by descent, who had been baptized 
 in his youth. On the 17th January 1831, he baptized Raghoba 
 Balajee Weishya. Along with these Margaret Bayne Wilson, the 
 
 G 
 
82 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1832. 
 
 spouse of Mr. Wilson, who had been married to him in 1828 ; Rama 
 Chundra, formerly a Brahman, who had been baptized at Bankote in 
 1829, Narayan, formerly a Shenavee, who had been baptized in Bom- 
 bay in 1829, and Manuel Gomes, a Roman Catholic, who had come 
 into the true church in 1830. All these persons having declared that 
 they were willing to unite in church fellowship, Mr. Wilson proceeded 
 to explain the nature of church order and fellowship. He said that on 
 these subjects the Holy Scriptures were the only infallible guide ; and 
 these Scriptures, in several passages which he read, taught there were 
 persons who ruled and persons who were ruled. The persons who 
 ruled in the Church were of two kinds, elders and deacons." 
 
 After a detailed explanation of the Presbyterian organisation, 
 the minute concludes " All the persons having approved of 
 these statements, Mr. Wilson, in the name of Christ, by prayer 
 constituted them into a church. They agreed to recognise 
 him as their minister, and he gave them suitable instruction. 
 On the 6th of February the Lord's Supper was administered 
 to the church. Mr. Webb and a converted Hindoo partici- 
 pated along with the members. The son of Eama Chundra 
 was baptized by Mr. Wilson in the presence of the Eev. John 
 Stevenson and Kaghoba Balajee." Mr. Webb was the 
 Civilian who became soon after a member of the govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Up to 1831 the registration of the baptisms of native con- 
 verts had been made in the book of the kirk-session of the 
 chaplains in Bombay. In all forty-two persons had thus been 
 admitted to the church by the Scottish missionaries in the 
 Konkan. Mr. Wilson at once saw the necessity of separate 
 registers for converts, as congregations should be formed and 
 the native church be extended. Writing to his colleagues, 
 who immediately agreed with him, he thus with his usual 
 foresight and faith contemplated the future : " Converts to the 
 Christian religion are in the present state of the law wholly 
 anomalous, and, as far as they are concerned, it matters not 
 where their baptisms are registered. Nay, there may arise a 
 
1832.] DISPUTE WITH THE SCOTTISH MISSIONAEY SOCIETY. 83 
 
 great evil from the insertion of their names in the list referred 
 to (that of the Scotch Kirk) ; when the government begin to 
 legislate there is nothing more probable than that they will 
 ask ' What has been your custom ? ' When we tell them that 
 we have sent lists of baptisms at Bombay, Poona, Bankote, 
 Hurnee, Nehar, etc., to the kirk-session at Bombay, they will 
 probably say 'Very well, gentlemen, go on in that way;' 
 and this dooms the native churches for ages to the greatest 
 inconvenience and much expense. Would it not be better 
 for us ab origine to keep registers of our own in connection 
 with the respective native congregations ? " Thus the organ- 
 isation of a church followed, in its simplicity and its power, 
 the model of the first gathering of the Eleven in the upper 
 room at Jerusalem, and their successors. 
 
 Not so thought the small body, though chiefly Presbyterian 
 ministers, who formed the executive of the Scottish Missionary 
 Society. From the day that he entered their seminary when a 
 student of twenty-one, he had stipulated for a degree of inde- 
 pendence which their somewhat extreme rules seemed to for- 
 bid. He had hardly landed in India when he found that his 
 colleagues were engaged in a controversy with the directors, 
 the management of which soon fell into his hands. In June 
 1830 we find him writing to Dr. Cormack of Stow in all the 
 frankness of friendship : " Our directors in St. John Street 
 have lately sent out to my brethren some very alarming com- 
 munications. They do not recognise our Presbyterian princi- 
 ples and our ordination vows, and they wish to bring us under 
 a spiritual tyranny. I am sure that you and other worthies 
 of the Church will keep a watch upon them." The contro- 
 versy we may now speedily dispose of. It was the old one 
 between a strong man strong in intelligent devotion to his 
 work, and a weak committee weak by reason of distance 
 from the new condition of things in question, and of the 
 reduction of the strongest among them to the low level of 
 
84 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1832. 
 
 routine uniformity. From the treatment that nearly broke 
 the heart of Carey and his colleagues, against which Andrew 
 Fuller and John Foster in vain protested, down to the present 
 hour, committees have been only necessary evils when inter- 
 fering with wiser men than themselves. In the infancy of 
 Missions discretion and charity were especially required on the 
 part of distant directors. Practically it was found that the 
 rules of the Scottish Missionary Society so acted as to clash 
 with the standing and the conscientious duties of the mission- 
 aries as ordained ministers of the Church of Scotland. 1 The 
 missionaries, if they were to be merely the paid employes of 
 a committee responsible to an undefined body of contributors, 
 would lose the protection and the efficiency which the perfect 
 representative system of their Church gave them, in common 
 with all its members and office-bearers. 
 
 In August 1830, accordingly, Mr. Wilson printed and sent 
 to each of the directors, and to his own friends, a " Memorial 
 addressed to the Directors of the Scottish Missionary Society 
 on their opposition to the practice of Presbytery by the Pres- 
 byterian Missionaries." It is a bold and trenchant document, 
 showing a far-sighted regard for the good and the growth of 
 the native church, yet free from all sectarianism in spirit. 
 The result was a reply offering a compromise, under which the 
 Society and its Bombay missionaries, reduced to Messrs. 
 Wilson, Nesbit, and J. Mitchell, worked together for a time. 
 
 1 The somewhat similarly constituted London Missionary Society, which 
 was almost as presbyterian in its early directors and missionaries as the Scot- 
 tish Society, showed much more wisdom both then and since. Mr. Wilson 
 seems to have been aided in the controversy by this wise regulation, which he 
 took from the printed instructions of the London Missionary Society to their 
 missionaries among the heathen : "Should a Christian Church be formed 
 from among those who have been converted by your instrumentality, we have 
 merely to remind you that the fundamental principle of our society leaves the 
 external form and constitution of that Church entirely" to their and your 
 choice. . To the Word .of God alone your attention on these subjects will be 
 directed." Extracted from the copy of the Rev. Josiah Hughes of Malacca, 
 1830. 
 
1835.] MISSION TRANSFEREE!) TO THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 85 
 
 But as the Society's funds declined, and the female schools 
 especially became imperilled, in spite of the growing local 
 support in Bombay itself, the directors began to see that 
 their missionaries had been right. The Church of Scotland 
 had meanwhile been sending out its own agents, Duff, 
 Mackay, and Ewart, to Calcutta, by means of the India Mis- 
 sion Committee, of which Mr. Wilson's old Professor, Dr. 
 Brunton, was the convener. Before the General Assembly of 
 1835, accordingly, there was laid a petition from its ministers 
 who were missionaries, and also from the chaplains in Bombay 
 and Poona, which resulted in their transfer from the Society to 
 the Church in its corporate capacity. Thus officially did Mr. 
 Wilson begin with Dr. Brunton a correspondence which con- 
 tinued till 1843. The letter reflects the progress made by the 
 Mission in the first six years of its existence : 
 
 "Bombay, 3d October 1835. 
 
 " MY DEAE SIR Three weeks ago I had the pleasure of receiv- 
 ing your letter dated the 29th April last, and I am truly grateful to you 
 for the kindness of the feelings with which you received our petition 
 for the transference of our mission to the General Assembly, and the 
 zeal and promptitude with which you have prosecuted its objects. 
 Should our now united wishes be accomplished, as I fervently trust 
 they will, I hope that the relation in which we shall stand to one 
 another will be one of mutual satisfaction and comfort : and that our 
 combined exertions at home and abroad will, by the divine blessing, 
 minister greatly to the advancement of that kingdom which is para- 
 mount in the council of heaven, and which is the highest exhibition of 
 God's glory and grace to created intelligence. Than the Church of 
 Scotland there is no body to which, from an admiration of its doctrines 
 and constitution, we can possibly be more attached ; in whose wisdom 
 and deliberation we can more implicitly trust ; whose zeal, when direc- 
 ted to the heathen world, we can view as promising to be more efficient ; 
 and whose polity we can conceive to be a greater blessing to a Church 
 newly forming in a country hitherto covered with moral darkness. 
 Than Bombay and the north-west of India, on the other hand, there is 
 no place in the world where the Church, of Scotland may more advan- 
 tageously labour, and where more important results may, in God's own 
 
86 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1835. 
 
 time, be confidently anticipated. We have a capital which contains a 
 population of Hindus, Mussulmans, Parsees, and Jews, in many respects 
 the most inviting, and which, from its geographical situation and 
 mercantile importance, is frequented by people of all the Indian and 
 other Asiatic nations, and of several tribes of Africa, and from which 
 as from a centre the Gospel may radiate in all directions. We have 
 here the head-quarters of Hinduism, for the Maharashtra Brahmans 
 take the precedence at Benares and through the whole of India for 
 their learning and influence. We have a people whose energy, before 
 it was subdued by the superior skill and prowess of our countrymen, 
 was felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, and which, 
 when it receives a holy direction, may be expected to be instrumental 
 in accomplishing great good. We have also the advantage of having 
 commenced our labours, and done not a little in the acquisition of lan- 
 guages, the study of the different systems of superstition, the prepara- 
 tion of books, the establishment of schools, and the preaching of the 
 Gospel to facilitate our future labours. We have many opportunities 
 for ' correspondence with Calcutta, where the General Assembly has 
 already a most flourishing and promising mission, and we could co- 
 operate with our brethren there to no inconsiderable extent. 
 
 " But I must now reply to your query. It is difficult to form an 
 estimate of the probable amount of the permanent contributions to our 
 mission in India. Last year the receipts of the Bombay Auxiliary 
 Society amounted to Ks. 9400 ; of the English School for natives under 
 my superintendence, to Rs. 1000; and of one of the female schools 
 formed by my dearest wife, who has lately entered into the joy of her 
 Lord, to Rs. 700. There is not the prospect of a falling off in the 
 Auxiliary this year. An increase of contributions to the English 
 school I so confidently expect, that, in addition to its present establish- 
 ment, I have engaged a European as a teacher for it on a salary of 
 Rs. 150 per mensem. The ladies of Bombay have resolved to continue 
 to support the school for destitute native girls, and to associate with 
 it among the natives the remembrance of her who was its devoted 
 founder. Ten thousand rupees may be stated as the annual sum which, 
 in these various forms, will probably be given by our friends in this 
 quarter. Independently of pecuniary contributions we not unfrequently 
 receive from them essential aid in the prosecution of our duties. I 
 may mention as an instance of this, that I experienced the greatest kind- 
 ness from all the civil and military authorities, and from the native 
 princes, during a journey which I lately accomplished through Goojarat, 
 Kathiawar, and Kutch. I believe that, even with an extension of the 
 
1835.] HIS ENGLISH COLLEGE. 87 
 
 mission, we should not need more than two-thirds of our supplies from 
 Scotland, and that at present an annual contribution of 1000, or 1200 
 from that quarter, would enable us to proceed vigorously." 
 
 Thus pleasantly was the last obstacle to Mr. Wilson's 
 success removed, nor thereafter, either before or after the 
 Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843, were his 
 labours impeded by home interference. A new vigour was 
 given to all the operations of the mission, and not least to 
 the English college, to which, after their successful experience 
 in Calcutta, the General Assembly's Committee directed 
 special attention. Mr. Wilson removed it into the Fort, that 
 is, into Bombay proper in those days, as " the situation is the 
 most convenient for the most respectable natives, and in 
 which there is no similar institution." He mentions the rent 
 of the premises, Es. 120 a month, as " very reasonable, con- 
 sidering the demand for houses in that part of the town." 
 The fact is of economic interest in the light of the speculative 
 mania of 1863-66, and of the present value of property there. 
 
 " We have commenced operations with every encouragement, and 
 have now an attendance of 215 boys, who are taught on the intellectual 
 system, and who are making gratifying progress both in literary and 
 religious knowledge, which the parents were expressly informed by me, . 
 through the native papers, they would receive, and to the communica- 
 tion of which they have no objection. The pupils form a group as 
 interesting as can be imagined as far as the variety of tribes is con- 
 cerned. They have been drawn not only from the different classes of 
 the Hindus, but from among the Parsees, Jains, Mussulmans, Jews, and 
 native Christians ; and their association together, independently of the 
 instructions which they receive, cannot but have a powerful influence 
 in removing those prejudices of caste which so mnch impede missionary 
 operations in this country. 
 
 " The school is already indebted to me for as large a sum as I can 
 conveniently advance, and I hope that the Assembly's Committee will 
 be disposed, as soon as convenient, to appropriate for it the sum of 
 250 per annum, employing 50 for prize books, etc., to be purchased 
 in Edinburgh, and giving me permission to draw upon them for the 
 sum of 50 quarterly. I shall undertake to raise all other necessary 
 
88 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1835. 
 
 funds in India for the present, and that without making any encroach- 
 ment on the ordinary income of the Auxiliary Society, which is already 
 all most profitably employed. I shall feel truly grateful to you if you 
 will procure, as you so kindly propose, the consent of the Committee 
 to my being furnished with one of the Assembly's trained teachers from 
 Calcutta. I am anxious to have such a person, not so much merely to 
 support the intellectual system, which has been already so successfully 
 introduced that the Rev. Mr. Taylor of Belgaum, after seeing it in 
 operation, has determined to send to me the teacher of his school as an 
 apprentice, but to give needed help in conducting its business, and to 
 give me a feeling of security, that even though Mr. Payne should be 
 induced to leave it for a more lucrative situation, or for any other 
 cause, the whole burden of it should not be thrown upon me and the 
 native assistant. Some of the books which we use in the school are the 
 same as those used in the Assembly's Institution in Calcutta. Of three of 
 them we had some time ago made translations both into Marathee and 
 Goojaratee, which are now found to be very useful. 
 
 " Every economy will be studied in reference to the school in 
 Bombay. Unless, however, every thing connected with it be arranged 
 on a respectable scale, it will not, while the Native Education Society 
 has such abundant resources from the government, be productive of 
 much good. It is a subject of gratitude that the mission enjoys so 
 much of the confidence of the natives as it actually does, and that even 
 the very individuals who have so zealously but unsuccessfully come 
 forward to the defence of the different systems of superstition, are on 
 the most friendly terms with myself, and frequent in public and private 
 intercourse with me. I lately finished a course of weekly lectures on 
 the evidences and doctrines of natural and revealed religion, which I 
 commenced three years ago. I have begun another course on the 
 propagation of the gospel from the resurrection of Christ to the present 
 day. On this course the Durpun, edited by a young Brahman, remarked 
 ' a great many natives were present at the first lecture. The course 
 Mr. Wilson has now commenced cannot but be interesting to them, as 
 not only bringing before them the data which must lead to the solution 
 of the most important problem which can engage their attention, but 
 as conveying to them most valuable information on the general history 
 of the world, and the greatest moral revolutions which have taken 
 place on the face of the globe. His avowed object is to convert; but 
 he wishes in the first instance to inform and to afford the means of 
 judging.' 
 
 " The state of my health is now such that I have felt warranted to 
 
1835.] HIS MISSIONARY POLICY. 89 
 
 resume, though from my multifarious duties I cannot daily pursue it, 
 my preaching in the native languages at places of public concourse. 
 My audiences are extremely encouraging. The attendance at the 
 stated services of the mission is greater than I have ever formerly 
 witnessed it. I have seven candidates for baptism. The schools both 
 for boys and girls, in which the native languages are taught, are in 
 much the same state in which they were when I transmitted to you 
 our annual report. I should regret exceedingly to see them diminished, 
 as they are in every respect suitable to the circumstances of the lower 
 orders, the ' poor to whom the gospel is preached,' and from whom the 
 first body of converts may be probably raised in India, as well as in 
 other countries. The English school will, I trust, soon furnish a 
 superior class of teachers for them. I have placed in it one or two of 
 their most promising pupils. Should the state of your funds render it 
 necessary the Portuguese school may be suspended for the present 
 without much injury to the usefulness of the mission. 
 
 " Though I fear that native missionaries, till they are raised from 
 among the children of converts educated from their earliest days in 
 Christianity and in a Christian atmosphere, will not, generally speaking, 
 prove such efficient labourers as Europeans, and though I believe that 
 we must first show them the example of an apostolic ministration, I 
 enter with my whole soul into your views as to the adoption and devis- 
 ing of every practical measure for their training. It will be necessary 
 that we, in conjunction with the chaplains, etc., should, as soon as 
 possible, receive from the Assembly all the presbyterial powers vested 
 in the section of the Church of Scotland at Calcutta. The sooner that 
 we are in a state of complete organisation the better. 
 
 " I have received a very interesting letter from Mr. Mackay. I enter 
 most cordially into the view which he states, that the experience of the 
 two missions will be in many respects mutually advantageous. Mr. 
 Duff's success in the organisation of presbyterial associations in Scotland 
 is truly encouraging to us amidst all our trials and travail in India. 
 The General Assembly in 1647 thus wrote 'Surely 'tis to be wished, 
 that for defending the orthodox faith, both against popery and other 
 heresies, as also for propagating it to those who are without, especially the 
 Jews, a more tried and more firm consociation may be entered into. 
 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.' I trust that this wish, in the compre- 
 hensive sense in which it is expressed, will ere long be realised. The 
 internal spiritual riches of the Church of Scotland will not be 
 
90 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1836. 
 
 diminished, but increased by the most abundant external communica- 
 tion. 
 
 " My present salary, exclusive of house rent and travelling expenses, 
 which are included in the general expense of the mission, but inclusive 
 of an allowance for my two children, is .230 per annum. The 
 experience of nearly seven years' residence in Bombay, the expense of 
 which is more than one-third greater than that of out-stations, war- 
 rants me to say what both my missionary brethren and members of the 
 corresponding committee of the Scottish Missionary Society, long ago urged 
 me to state to my supporters, is inadequate to the comfort and usefulness 
 in the Lord's work which it is desirable I should enjoy, and which, from 
 private sources, I have hitherto enjoyed. I should like it raised to 
 250. I simply mention this circumstance because you have kindly 
 asked me to be explicit as to the proposed expenditure." 
 
 The total cost of the mission in 1836 was 1820, of which 
 one-third was subscribed by the English residents. From 
 first to last Mr. Wilson's income from the mission was insuf- 
 ficient for ordinary requisites, apart from those extensive tours 
 and those social duties which he began to take upon himself, 
 and which gradually became the secret of his power with 
 native, even more than with English society. But nothing 
 save an official demand from the Home Committee ever called 
 forth a reference to his pecuniary affairs. On the contrary, 
 he joyfully devoted such private resources as came to him 
 in subsequent years, and such funds as his friends and 
 admirers entrusted to him personally, to the one work of his 
 life. Mr. J. Jordan Wilson, a wealthy friend of his youth, 
 who was early attracted to him by his student-like zeal and 
 by the belief that there was some slight bond of kinship 
 between them, and above all by close spiritual ties, left him 
 a legacy of a thousand pounds, half of which was for any 
 missionary object he chose, and half for his private use. The 
 letters to his Edinburgh agents, sent in reply to the news of 
 the legacy, directed the expenditure of the whole amount in 
 various ways for the Bombay Mission. The following letter 
 to that gentleman shows how soon and thickly the cares of 
 
1836.] HIS VARIED LABOURS. 91 
 
 the mission pressed upon his resources, and how manifold 
 were his labours : 
 
 "Bombay, 13th November 1830. 
 
 " MY DEAREST FRIEND I have little leisure, and some of that is 
 spent in connection with the Oriental Christian Spectator, which I 
 regularly send to you, and the numbers of which must be viewed by 
 you as letters, as they generally contain something which has proceeded 
 from our own house. The Spectator is very extensively read in India ; 
 and there is reason to believe that it is accomplishing much good by 
 diffusing information on the most important subjects. I trust that 
 God will honour it in some degree to expose that monstrous system of 
 iniquity, the Hindoo religion, and to aid the servants of the Saviour in 
 proclaiming the gospel. You will see in the number for November, 
 which I hope will soon reach you, a short paper by myself on tha 
 ' Sanscrit and Marathee renderings of Theological Terms.' I intend 
 to follow up this most important subject, and to make such free 
 remarks on the translations of the Scriptures into the Indian languages 
 as I may conceive calculated to further their improvement. The paper 
 which follows the article to which I refer, and entitled ' Selected 
 Sanscrit Shloks,' is by a Mr. Law, a young gentleman of the Civil 
 Service. He is a most extraordinary linguist. He was brought under 
 serious impressions through our instrumentality during the voyage to 
 India. He lately stayed a month with us, and we were much pleased 
 with his Christian character. Our usefulness among Europeans, 
 through the grace of our heavenly Father, continues to extend, particu- 
 larly among the higher classes. The old serpent, by stirring up the 
 opposition of bigots, has attempted to defeat and prevent our occa- 
 sional labours among the sailors and soldiers ; but he has failed. The 
 true friends of the cause have rallied more closely around us, while our 
 poor countrymen have more highly valued the word of life which they 
 knew had been attempted to be taken from them. 
 
 " In your letter you express your wish that I had been connected 
 with the General Assembly's Institution at Calcutta. I think that it 
 is calculated to be highly useful, and I wish it every success. I would 
 remark, however, that colleges though they are admirable instruments 
 in the instruction of Christians, are but clumsy instruments in the 
 making or conversion of Christians. The preaching of the gospel is the 
 grand means of propagating the gospel, and for every professor at pre- 
 sent there should be at least twenty preachers. The Assembly's opera- 
 tions will have a glorious effect on the Church at home. Mr. Duff, 
 
92 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1836. 
 
 whom they have sent out, is a pious young man, and he will, I am 
 happy to say, preach as well as profess. He, like myself, has had 
 toughly to fight, through the newspapers, for religious liberty. See 
 the number of the Spectator for November, under the article headed 
 ' Persecution of Hindoo Youth.' I have at present two Hindoos under 
 my care, converts of our mission, whom I instruct with a view to their 
 being admitted to the office of the ministry. I have now seven in- 
 quirers around me, of most of whom I entertain a favourable opinion. 
 Five of them are Hindoos, three men and two women ; one is an African, 
 and one a Jew. I have great difficulty in instructing this last individual, 
 as he can scarcely speak any other language than Arabic, of which I 
 have a very slight knowledge. He is, however, learning Hindostanee 
 and English. 
 
 " Permit me to make an appeal to your Christian sympathy. I 
 know that to you I need to make no apology on this subject. There 
 are many many poor people in Bombay in very wretched circum- 
 stances. About two hundred come to me every Monday morning for 
 a little rice, and at that time I endeavour to administer to them the 
 word of life. On Saturdays I preach to about six hundred of the same 
 description of persons at the house of Captain Molesworth. For the 
 relief of this class of persons a society, at my suggestion, has been 
 lately formed, and I believe that their wants will be regularly and 
 systematically relieved. There are other classes, however, for whom I 
 have been able to do nothing, and their circumstances possess peculiar 
 interest. They are persons who lose employment by inquiring into 
 Christianity, or by embracing it ; they are persecuted Christians 
 (Armenians and Chaldeans), and Jews from Bussora, Bagdad, Tabreez, 
 and other places, who come with the most heartrending accounts of 
 Muhammadan tyranny ; and they are poor Indian Roman Catholics. 
 My heart is often pained by observing their wants ; and I am not 
 ashamed to say that we have relieved at times beyond our ability. 
 You know that none of the Missionary Society funds can or ought to 
 be applied to them. If you and some of the other friends of the 
 Redeemer would in a quiet way raise a small sum for them, you would 
 confer a blessing on the cause of humanity and Christianity. By 
 informing me of the sum raised, I could act on the faith of getting it, 
 and tell you how to appropriate it. I would furnish you with an 
 account of the way in which it may be expended. 
 
 "My darling wife has six female schools, and she is useful in 
 instructing female inquirers." 
 
1836.] RELATIONS WITH DR. DUFF. 93 
 
 In this letter we see the germ of every side of the young 
 missionary's work in and for Bombay, save only the English 
 college. Experiences were soon to teach him that, for preaching 
 and immediate fruit no less than in that wider work of prepara- 
 tion, the fruit of which comes plenteously after many days 
 and has already begun so to come, the daily instruction of the 
 most intellectual and influential youth by one to whom they 
 become attached, is second to no other agency is, indeed, 
 for that class superior to all others. But even up to 1836 he 
 had not learned, as he afterwards did, to perfect his own 
 system of Christian aggression on the corrupting civilisations 
 of the East, by the enthusiastic encouragement of the higher 
 education through English. The following letter to Mr. J. 
 Jordan Wilson, closes with a statement of spiritual truth, 
 happily familiar enough now, but rare in Scotland forty 
 years ago. It is the last of a long correspondence covering 
 fifteen years, in which the younger man led the older to a 
 cheerful peace and a joyous self-sacrifice for the cause of Christ. 
 It is the first where we meet with allusions to a friendship 
 with Dr. Duff, and an admiration for him none the less true 
 and hearty because it was discriminating, which continued 
 on both sides all through their Indian lives. 
 
 " Bombay, 7th July, 1836. 
 
 " You mention Mr. Duff's elevation to a Doctorsliip. He is well 
 worthy of his honours, although some of his views on the economics of 
 Christian missions are, in my opinion, erroneous. I have just remarked 
 in a letter to a friend to-day as follows : ' Dr. Duff's warm advocacy of 
 the Calcutta Institution has been by far too exclusive. I rejoice in the 
 prosperity of the Seminary, and wish it every support ; but he ought 
 not to have advocated its cause by disparaging the direct preaching of the 
 gospel to the natives in their own languages by Europeans, and over- 
 looked 'female education, and the general education of the natives 
 through the medium of their own tongues, which form the readiest key to 
 their hearts. The higher Institutions are well calculated to attract the 
 higher classes of society, and to educate teachers and preachers. We 
 must have a body of Christians, however, from which to select these 
 
94 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1836. 
 
 agents. For this body of Christians we must not mainly depend on 
 our Academies. ' To the poor the gospel is preached.' ' Of the little 
 flock, and present inquirers at this place,' I also observe to Dr. Brunton, 
 1 some were first impressed by hearing the gospel in the crowded bazaar, 
 some by hearing it at the margin of the sea : some in the church ; 
 some in the school-room ; some in the place in which the Lord of 
 Glory was born when he came on his mission to this world ; some in 
 the social circle ; some in the private chamber ; and some by the 
 perusal of Christian publications. I have thus been encouraged to 
 remember the words of inspiration : ' Blessed are ye that sow beside 
 all waters.' ' In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening with- 
 hold not thine hand : for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, 
 either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.' I could 
 not refrain from giving you, who are so much interested in my opera- 
 tions, this brief expression of my views. Were I to visit the Modern 
 Athens, and seek to propagate these opinions, I should, instead of being 
 dubbed a ' Doctor in Divinity,' probably be dubbed a ' Babbler,' like 
 Paul in the Ancient Athens. I have the fullest confidence that the 
 Lord will soon vindicate his own cause : and I am perfectly willing, if 
 I have the means of carrying on my labours, to be personally over- 
 looked and despised. I bless God for what I have already seen as to 
 the diminishment of prejudices against 'highway missionaries.' Six 
 years ago my countrymen laughed at me when they saw me ' harangu- 
 ing mobs.' These same gentlemen have conferred on me their highest 
 literary honour, and notwithstanding my street preaching propensities, 
 have put me into the chair formerly occupied by these great men Sir 
 James Mackintosh, Sir John Malcolm, etc., and suffered me to 
 ' harangue ' them as their president ! I had serious thoughts of saying 
 nolo episcopari ; but when I thought that I might contribute to shield 
 the whole class of ' Banters ' from contempt, and use my influence for 
 the Lord's cause, I refrained. 
 
 " Would that I could, in reply to your inquiry, speak a word in 
 season to you, as you have done to me ! The foundation of faith 
 is the Gospel offer of salvation to the chief of sinners who will 
 accept it. We must be content to be saved gratuitously. We can 
 neither purchase our justification before we Deceive it, nor ade- 
 quately acknowledge it when we have received it. The Saviour is 
 infinitely worthy of our reliance, and the moment we rely upon him 
 we are safe, and may rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. 
 We must seek for comfort by looking to him and his finished work. 
 The eye, as Dr. Chalmers I believe expresses it, must look to the Sun 
 
1836.] SPIKITUAL COUNSELS AND MODERN PREACHING. 95 
 
 of Righteousness for his light-giving and life-giving beams, and not 
 turn in to gaze upon its internal structure. The work of Christ within 
 us is the evidence of our faith ; but the work of Christ without us is 
 the object of our faith, and the offers of Christ the warrant of our faith. 
 When Satan says to us, ' you have not believed, else whence all your 
 fears, and all your failings and offences,' we should reply, if we cannot 
 give him the direct contradiction, ' I now believe what the Saviour 
 says to me, and I will now give my fears to the winds in spite of all 
 your efforts.' Our struggle with and distress on account of indwelling 
 sin, which is common to us and all the Lord's people, ought to enhance 
 the Saviour in our estimation, and not to detract from our grounds 
 of confidence in him, which are the unchanging graciousness of his 
 character and the unfailing efficacy of his mediation. My little 
 children never imagined that I ceased to be their father when I chode 
 them, or removed them from my presence, or punished them, till I saw 
 in them a proper contrition. Why, then, why, should we dishonour 
 God by imagining that he ceases to be our Father ? There is too little 
 of the freeness of the Gospel set forth in modern preaching." 
 
 Throughout this period Mr. Wilson seems to have kept up 
 a regular and full correspondence with the friends of his 
 youth, to an extent remarkable at a time when communication 
 with home was so slow and so costly. Outside of his own 
 family and his wife's, and apart from the official letters, first 
 of Dr. Brown and then of Dr. Brunton, Mr. Archibald Bonar, 
 W.S., was his most constant correspondent. Mr. Bonar's 
 letters trace the course of the Church of Scotland as the 
 Evangelical party obtained a majority in its councils, and as 
 it prepared itself for what is popularly known as the Ten 
 Years' Conflict, that ended in the Disruption of 1843. In a 
 letter of 19th June 1834, after recording the death from 
 consumption at Leghorn of Mr. Martin, who had been called 
 to St. George's, Edinburgh, as a preacher worthy to succeed 
 Dr. Andrew Thomson, Mr. Bonar thus proceeds : 
 
 " The Assembly met on the 22d ult., and was constituted with un 
 usual pomp. The Commissioner held his levee in the ancient Palace 
 of Holyrood, and there was a great display of troops on the first day. 
 A committee was appointed to converse with his Grace about the usual 
 
96 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1836. 
 
 profanation of the Sabbath, and it was found that the King and he had 
 agreed that all the Sunday's parade, and even the dinner, should be 
 discontinued. Wednesday being the King's birthday, the Commissioner 
 invited all the ministers to dine with him at the Palace, and in the 
 evening they were introduced in state to Lady Belhaven. Patrick 
 Macfarlane of Greenock was Moderator, and managed very well. It was 
 calculated by some of the knowing ones that the Moderates had a 
 majority of fifteen or twenty. But whether it was so you shall pre- 
 sently see. The first great division took place on Lord Moncreiff's 
 motion, that if in any parish the majority of heads of families, being 
 communicants, declared that they did not wish the presentee that he 
 was not agreeable to them that man could not and should not be 
 settled in that parish. After a stormy discussion this motion was car- 
 ried by a majority of forty-seven ! And though it was ultimately agreed 
 to take the opinion of Presbyteries on the point, yet it was passed as an 
 interim Act, so that it is at this moment a law of the Church against 
 intrusions. The next great question was whether chapels-of-ease should 
 be made parish churches, and their ministers be entitled to all the 
 privileges of parish ministers quoad sacra. But to this the Moderates 
 could not agree. They had conscientious (!) scruples about the power 
 of the Church to do this without taking the opinion of the Presbyteries. 
 To be sure, last year the Assembly by an Act admitted the ministers 
 of the Parliamentary churches to like privileges ; but then the majority 
 of these were thought to be Moderates, whereas almost the whole of the 
 chapel ministers will be ' wild men ; ' and some men, not otherwise so, 
 get very scrupulous when anything goes against their grain. Well, of 
 course, they opposed this as they do every reformation ; but their oppo- 
 sition was of no avail, for the motion was carried by forty-nine in favour 
 of admitting them. In consequence of this decision the ministers of 
 the chapels within the bounds of Glasgow Presbytery have already 
 taken their seats, and I suppose ours will do so on Wednesday next. 
 You know the notorious character of the Aberdeen Presbytery. Not 
 one of the ministers from it voted right this year, and yet by this new 
 Act the orthodox party have there the majority ! 
 
 " Did I tell you that William Cunningham of Greenock had got 
 the College charge ? He is doing admirably ; of great use in the 
 Presbytery. John Sym, minister of Sprouston, a cousin of Professor 
 Wilson, has been appointed successor to Dr. Inglis. He is only twenty- 
 five years, but a very fine young man. Mr. Candlish, sometime assistant 
 in St. George's, has got that church." 
 
CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 1830-1836. 
 
 PUBLIC DISCUSSIONS WITH LEARNED HINDOOS AND 
 MUHAMMADANS. 
 
 How Mr. Wilson became an Orientalist " Turningthe World Upside-down " 
 Ziegenbalg's "Conferences" First Discussion with Brahmans Christian 
 Brahman against Hindoo Pundits " God's Sepoys " The Ten Incarnations 
 The Pundits Retire Morality versus Religion The Second Discussion The 
 New Champion with Garlands of Flowers Mr. Wilson's " First Exposure of 
 Hindooism " The Third Discussion Mr. Wilson's " Second Exposure of 
 Hindooism " Parseeism and Muhammadanism enter the Arena H. Xavier's 
 and H. Martyn's Controversial Tracts Dr. Pfander's later Treatises Mr. 
 Wilson's Reply to Hadjee Muhammad Hashim Polygamy and Divorce accord- 
 ing to the Old Testament and the Koran The Difference The Sexualism of 
 the Koran and Slavery The sons of Israel in Western India The Black and 
 White Jews Joseph Wolff, the Christian Dervish and Protestant Xavier 
 Visit of Mr. Anthony Groves, Dervish of a different stamp Mr. Francis W. 
 Newman as a Missionary Mr. Robert C. Money Sir John Malcolm Lord 
 William Bentinck The Earl of Clare Sir Robert Grant Mr. Wilson on the 
 British Sovereignty in India in 1835 Bombay Union of Missionaries Pro- 
 gress in Kaffraria Mr. Wilson on Carey and Morrison. 
 
 H 
 
Believe and our whole argument breaks up. 
 
 Enthusiasm's the best thing I repeat ; 
 
 Only, we can't command it ; fire and life 
 
 Are all, dead matter's nothing, we agree : 
 
 And be it a mad dream or God's very breath, 
 
 The fact's the same, beliefs fire once in us, 
 
 Makes of all else mere stuff to show itself : 
 
 We penetrate our life with such a glow 
 
 As fire lends wood and iron this turns steel, 
 
 That burns to ash all's one, fire proves its power 
 
 For good or ill, since men call flare success. 
 
 But paint a fire, it will not therefore burn. 
 
 Light one in me, I'll find it food enough ! 
 
 Why, to be Luther that's a life to lead, 
 
 Incomparably better than my own. 
 
 He comes, reclaims God's earth for God, he says, 
 
 Sets up God's rule again by simple means, 
 
 Re-opens a shut book, and all is done. 
 
 He flared out in the flaring of mankind ; 
 
 Such Luther's luck was how shall such be mine ?" 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING : Bishop Blougram's Apology. 
 
 " I assure myself that Christ at the last daie will speak friendly to mee also, 
 for here he speaketh very unkindely to mee. I bear upon mee the hate and 
 envy of the whole world, the hate of the Emperor, of the Pope, and of all 
 their retinue. Well, on in God's name, seeing I am come into the lists so will 
 I fight it out. I know my quarrell and caus is upright and just. The great- 
 est adversarie I have in, this caus is the Divel, and indeed he setteth on mee 
 so fiercely oftentimes with this argument (thou art not rightly called), that 
 hee had long since slain mee therewith if I had not been a Doctor." 
 LUTHER : Colloquia Mensalia, Translated by 
 
 Captain Henrie Bell, 1652. 
 
1830.] JOHN WILSON'S ORIENTAL ACQUIREMENTS. 99 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THERE is no recorded instance in the life of any Oriental 
 scholar, whether official or missionary, of such rapid but 
 thorough acquisition of multifarious information regarding 
 the literature and the customs, as well as the languages of 
 the natives, as marked Mr. Wilson's first year's residence in 
 India. Sir William Jones began his purely Indian studies 
 at a later period of life, and carried them on amid compara- 
 tive leisure and wealth. Colebrooke, the greatest of all Orien- 
 talists, laid the foundation of his splendid acquirements so 
 slowly that Sanscrit at first repelled him, though afterwards 
 he would rise from the gaming-table at midnight to study it. 
 Ziegenbalg and Carey had the same overmastering motive as 
 John Wilson, but the former hardly went beyond the one 
 vernacular Tamul, and the latter was distracted by the hard- 
 ships of poverty and a discontented wife ; so that he began 
 by working as an indigo-planter when learning Bengalee. 
 Mr. Wilson not only mastered Marathee, but Goojaratee ; to 
 these he soon added Hindostanee and Persian, while almost 
 his earliest work in Bombay was the preparation of a Hebrew 
 and Marathee grammar for the Jews, there known as ^Beni- 
 Israel. Thus its four great communities, Hindoo and Muham- 
 madan, Parsee and Jewish, he was early prepared to influence, 
 while he had from the first attained sufficient fluency in Portu- 
 guese to care for the large number of half-caste descendants 
 of our predecessors in the island. A scholarly knowledge of 
 Arabic he was later in finding leisure to acquire. But his 
 advance in Sanscrit seems to have been parallel with his 
 
100 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1830. 
 
 acquisition of Marathee, so that we find him from the very 
 first confuting the Brahmans out of their own sacred books 
 as Paul did in the case of the Athenians and the Cretans. 
 This knowledge he steadily extended to the more obscure and 
 esoteric dialects of the older Hindoo tongues, on which the 
 various sects of quasi-dissenters, like the Sikhs and the Vaish- 
 navas, had their authoritative scriptures. He was early a col- 
 lector of Oriental manuscripts. Nor was he content with 
 this. He employed Brahmans to gather information for him 
 on a definite principle, and wherever he went he was constant 
 in his cross-examination of the people and their priests. In 
 1829 we find the first example of this recorded in one of his 
 promised circular letters to the Edinburgh University's Asso- 
 ciation of Theological Students : 
 
 " I have now seen a little of one of the most interesting portions of 
 the great family of man ; and I am filled with horror and amazement 
 at its utter alienation from God. The Hindoos do not even in pro- 
 fession serve the Creator. They follow a course which is altogether 
 opposed to reason and to natural conscience. They are the votaries of 
 a religious system, of the moral obliquities of which it is impossible to 
 form a right conception. The individuals among them who act as 
 their priests are very numerous, and very deceitful ; and their efforts 
 are uniformly exerted to confirm their less enlightened brethren in all 
 their superstitious doctrines and practices. At some future time I 
 hope to be able to furnish you with more ample details on this 
 and similar subjects. For the last three months one of the most 
 intelligent Brahmans in this part of the country has been employed 
 by me for the purpose of furnishing me with an account of the Hindoo 
 religion. I prepared a list of queries, according to which he arranges 
 his observations ; and I am in the course of receiving a more correct 
 view of the doctrines taught by the Brahmans, and the reasonings by 
 which they endeavour to defend them, than I could otherwise have 
 obtained." 
 
 The result of the first fifteen months' unwearied toil was 
 seen in the beginning of a series of discussions on Christianity, 
 forced on Mr. Wilson, to his great satisfaction, by Hindoo, 
 
1830.] TURNING THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN. 101 
 
 Muhammadan, and Parsee apologists in succession. The ardent 
 and courageous scholar, having fairly organised his schools, 
 and his translating and preaching work, was by no means 
 content to go on in a daily routine, vaguely waiting or passively 
 believing that Hindoo and Parsee, Jew and Muhammadan, 
 would come over to him. " I have felt it my duty to pro- 
 ceed," he writes to more than one of his home correspondents 
 in 1831, "somewhat out of the course of modern missionary- 
 procedure. The result of my efforts has more than realised 
 my expectations. Matters I thought were going on too 
 quietly ; I could see little of that which is spoken of in the 
 'Acts of the Apostles' as a turning of the world upside 
 down, and nothing of that stir which attended the labours of 
 the Apostles in the different cities which they visited. There 
 was praying and there was teaching in schools, and there 
 was preaching to some extent, especially by our missionaries ; 
 but there was no attempt to make a general impression on 
 the whole population of a town or province. ' Drive gently ' 
 was the maxim. I thought on the days of Paul when he 
 stood on Mars' Hill. I thought on the days of Luther, and 
 Knox, and Calvin, and I began to see that they were right. 
 They announced with boldness, publicly and privately, in the 
 face of every danger, in the midst of every difficulty, to high 
 and low, rich and poor, young and old, and I resolved by 
 divine grace to imitate them. I have consequently challenged 
 Hindoos, Parsees, and Mussulmans to the combat. The former 
 I fight by the mouth principally, and the two latter by the 
 pen. The consternation of many of them I know to be great, 
 and hundreds have heard the gospel in the place of tens. I 
 have had in the idolatrous Bombay, and the still more idola- 
 trous Nasik, 250 miles distant, many hundreds for auditors. 
 At present I am waging war, through the native newspapers, 
 with the Parsees and Mussulmans. They are very indig- 
 nant ; some of them had got up a petition praying Govern- 
 
102 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1830. 
 
 ment to stop me, but this was in vain. They did not present 
 it. They show talent in their communications, but with a 
 bad cause what can they do ? Conscience, the Holy Spirit, 
 the promises of God and the providence of God, are on our 
 side. for a pentecostal day! This may not be granted 
 during our sojourn. Perhaps God only wishes us to be as 
 the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Prepare ye the 
 way of the Lord.' " 
 
 A year before this, when announcing the first of these 
 debates, he had pronounced it " the first general discussion on 
 the Christian and Hindoo religions which has perhaps taken 
 place in India." This statement is correct, notwithstanding 
 the " conferences" which the Lutheran missionaries of Denmark 
 had held with the Tamul Brahmans and Muhammadans in 
 South India a century before. 1 " Upon the 6th of March 1 707," 
 begins the record, " I, Bartholomew Ziegenbalgen, was visited 
 by a grave and learned Brahman ; and, asking him what he 
 proposed to himself by his friendly visit, he replied that he 
 desired to confer with me amicably about the great things 
 and matters of religion." All through the narration there is 
 no sign, at that early time, of the overturning process. In 
 truth, the good men of that mission, which had Tranquebar 
 for its head-quarters, from Ziegenbalg to Schwartz, and to 
 this day, tolerated caste even at the Lord's table, and in all 
 their converts save ordained natives. Very different was the 
 "turning upside-down" of Mr. Wilson's Bombay discussions, 
 and yet in temper and in charity quite as "amicable" on his 
 part, though terribly in earnest. Thus the first began. 
 
 Eama Chundra, the Pooranik Brahman who had been 
 baptized at Bankote, visited Bombay in May 1830, for the 
 
 1 See that curious volume " Thirty-Four Conferences between the Danish 
 Missionaries and the Malabarian Brahmins (or Heathen Priests) in the East 
 Indies concerning the Truth of the Christian Religion : Together with some 
 Letters Written by the Heathens to the said Missionaries. Translated out of 
 the High Dutch by Mr. Philipps." London. 1719. 
 
1830.] BRAHMAN MEETING BRAHMAN. 103 
 
 purpose of declaring to his caste-fellows and priestly col- 
 leagues his reasons for forsaking them. For a time his argu- 
 ments failed to prick their apathy. But at last Pundit 
 Lukshmun Shastree was tempted to defend at great length 
 the teaching of Hindooism regarding the ten Avatars or in- 
 carnations of Vishnoo, and, in the heat of controversy, to 
 refer the question to five or six Brahmans. Eama Chundra 
 demanded a fair public debate. To this the Pundit reluc- 
 tantly consented, but himself prepared an advertisement 
 announcing that there would be a discussion upon the evi- 
 dences of the Hindoo and the Christian religion in the house 
 of Mr. Wilson, at four o'clock on Friday the 21st May; that 
 Rama Chundra, formerly a Pooranik, would defend the 
 Christian religion; and that Lukshmun, a Pooranik, would, 
 " as he felt disposed," take up the side of the Hindoo religion. 
 A great crowd assembled accordingly, and among them 
 upwards of a hundred Brahmans. Lukshmun being the secular 
 Sanscrit teacher of one of the American missionaries, and Eama 
 Chundra a convert of the Scottish missionaries, both mission- 
 aries were present. Mr. R. T. Webb, as a layman and a high 
 official, was asked to keep order. The interest of the whole 
 lay in the fact that Brahman met Brahman ; the one new to 
 the work of Christian apologetics and exposition, but assisted 
 by Mr. Wilson occasionally ; the other also helped by abler 
 reasoners. Mr. Wilson opened the proceedings, which were 
 in Marathee with constant quotations of Sanscrit si okas or 
 verses, by stating the advantages of discussion in the attain- 
 ment of truth, by exhorting the combatants to observe charity 
 and the audience to put away prejudice, and by meeting 
 only the initial assumption that God had established several 
 religions, with the remark that, as God is the Father of 
 all mankind, he will not appoint opposing laws for the regu- 
 lation of his family. After the first day the Pundit Lukshmun 
 "did not long keep his ground." Rama Chundra, "though 
 
104 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1830. 
 
 he occasionally introduced irrelevant matter, and was too 
 tolerant of the sophistry of his opponents, acquitted himself 
 in a manner which greatly interested many of his auditors." 
 During the next three days, accordingly, the discussion fell 
 into abler hands, Mr. Wilson on the one side, and on the 
 Hindoo side Nirbhaya Eama and Kisundas Joguldas, chief 
 pundit and principal pleader respectively of the highest 
 Government Appellate Court, the Sudder Adawlut. The 
 Brahmans were the first to ask for quarter. The benefit 
 of the discussion was not confined to the crowds who heard 
 it. Two editions of the report in Marathee were speedily 
 exhausted; all Hindoo Bombay talked of it; inquiry was 
 stirred up as nothing else could have done, and the delusion 
 was dispelled that Christianity feared the investigation of the 
 learned. True to his wise, natural, and kindly policy, in this 
 as all through his career, Mr. Wilson took care that what he 
 himself had learned as Western truth, but yet was of Asiatic 
 origin as to its mode, he urged on Orientals in an Eastern 
 form, and so commended it to every man. These extracts 
 from the report, giving the more purely native part of the 
 discussion, will show how it played, then as still, in the 
 East as of late growingly in the West, around the three great 
 questions of the nature of God, the relation of morality to 
 religion, the origin and the means of getting rid of sin here 
 and hereafter. 
 
 Eama Chundra began by declaring that he had abandoned 
 the Hindoo religion because the statements of its scriptures 
 were inconsistent with truth. Finding that the chief pun- 
 dit, Mrbhaya, demanded proof that there is one God, he 
 pointed to the works of God, and quoted, as binding on his 
 opponent, the sloka of the Bhagavat-Geet, to the effect that 
 there is one Supreme Being, the author of birth, life, and 
 death. 
 
 " R. G. In the Hindoo Sliastres it is written that God was at first 
 
1830.] GOD'S SEPOYS. 105 
 
 destitute of qualities, and that afterwards he became possessed of 
 suttva, ruja, and tuma. In this statement three difficulties present 
 themselves to my mind. The declaration that God was destitute of 
 qualities tends highly to his dishonour ; and I am unable to under- 
 stand, if he was destitute of power, how he could become possessed of 
 it. I cannot admit that such qualities as ruja and tuma are to be 
 applied to the Divinity. 1 The Avatars (incarnations) of Vishnoo have 
 taken human life and committed other bad actions, on this account 
 I put no faith in them ; but not so with the Avatar of Christ ; he has 
 obeyed God in all things, and given his life for man. As then the 
 onion and the musk are known by their odour, and the tree is known 
 by its fruits, so are the Avatars to be known by their works. Their 
 works are evil, and therefore I renounce them. 
 
 " Lukshmun. I ask a question If a subject commits a crime, is the 
 king to be blamed for punishing him? Is God to be blamed for 
 taking an Avatar to punish the Rakshusas (demons) ? 
 
 " E. G. Amongst men a king must punish an offender according to 
 his crime ; but God has established principles, from which men by 
 their own wickedness come to evil, and go to hell, therefore there was 
 no occasion for an Avatar to come into the world for that purpose. 
 
 " Nirbhaya. God was not wholly included in the Avatar, and there- 
 fore the sins of the Avatars are not to be laid to God. 
 
 " R. C. Suppose them to be so far disconnected with God as to be 
 only his messengers if they are true they will act rightly. 
 : " Kisundass. Yes ! the Avatars were God's Sepoys. 
 
 l The published report of the discussion here quotes the explanation of 
 these terms by Mr. Ward of Serampore, in his View of the History, 
 Literature, and Mythology of the Hindoos, a work of surprising industry to 
 have appeared so early as the beginning of this century. "We may now sub- 
 stitute the latest explanations by Professor Monier Williams in his Indian 
 Wisdom : " When the universal and infinite being Brahma (nom. case of the 
 neuter Brahman) the only really existing entity, wholly without form and 
 unaffected by the three Goonas or by qualities of any kind wished to create 
 for his own entertainment the phenomena of the universe, he assumed the 
 quality of activity (rajas) and became a male person, as Brahma (nom. case 
 masc.), the Creator. Next, in the progress of still further self-evolution, he 
 willed to invest himself with the second quality of goodness (sattva], as 
 Vishnoo, the Preserver ; and with the third quality of darkness (tamas], as 
 Siva the Destroyer." This development of the. doctrine of triple manifesta- 
 tion (tri-moorti], which appears first in the Brahmanised version of the Indian 
 Epics, had already been adumbrated in the Yeda, in the triple form of fire, and 
 in the triad of gods, Agni, Soorya, and Indra, and in other ways. 
 
106 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1830. 
 
 " R. C. If God's Sepoys, why did they not act according to his 
 will ? If they commit sin, how are they to be known as his Sepoys. 
 
 " K. They are known by their badge, and not by their conduct. 
 
 " R. C. Where is the badge ? Nirbhaya Rama says they are only 
 parts of God ; but if parts, they will be like himself in substance : but 
 God has no parts, he is everywhere present. 
 
 " Skas. If they are not from God, whence are they ? 
 
 " R. C. They may have been men, and therefore they are not to be 
 worshipped. 
 
 " K. But if they are great and powerful, and are sent in the place 
 of God, with power to punish the Rakshusas, they are as kings, who 
 are not to be blamed for punishing offenders. 
 
 " R. C. Are we then to bow down to all who do any wonderful 
 acts ? Their works prove that they are not part of God. If I have a 
 piece of gold, and break it into many pieces, the qualities in each will 
 still remain the same. 
 
 " K. In the God you worship you admit three persons : and why 
 then do you reject ten Avatars ? 
 
 " R. C. Not so : in the Deity there are three persons, but one God ; 
 as in the sun, there is the sun, the light, and the heat, but all in- 
 cluded in one sun. I utterly reject the Avatars. Why did they take 
 place ? The object of the Fish Avatar was the discovery of the stolen 
 Vedas. The object of the Tortoise was the placing the newly created 
 earth upon his back to keep it firm. The object of the Boar Avatar 
 was to draw up the earth from the waters, after it was sunken by the 
 Devtuya. The object of the Man-lion Avatar was to destroy the 
 rebellious giants, Hirunuyaksha and Hirunyukushipoo. The object of 
 the Dwarf Avatar was the destruction of the religious Bulee. The 
 object of the Purushoo Rama Avatar was the destruction of the 
 Kshutriyas. The object of the Rama Avatar was the destruction of 
 Ravuna. The object of the Krishna Avatar was to destroy the giant 
 Kungshu. These are the Avatars which, you say, have already taken 
 place. Is there any appearance of God in such acts ? Could he not 
 have accomplished these objects without assuming an Avatar ? Did 
 his taking a form make the work easier ? I maintain, then, the reason 
 for such Avatars is absurd. This is not the case with Christ : he came * 
 that the punishment of sin might be endured, and God's hatred of sin 
 manifested. 
 
 " Shulchurama Shastree. Cannot a king do what he pleases 1 Can- 
 not he go into the bazaar and carry off what he pleases ? Who can call 
 in question his doings ? 
 
1830.] THE AVATARS AND THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 107 
 
 " Mr. W. This is one of your other modes of explaining the actions 
 of Krishna. A king, by his power, may prevent inquiry into his con- 
 duct ; but he assuredly can sin. If the greatness of Krishna is to be 
 considered, it must be viewed as an aggravation of his faults. Utterly 
 opposed to these Avatars is that of Christ, in whom we wish you to 
 trust. He came into the world to save sinners. By his miracles he 
 proved his divine mission. His doctrines were holy and his works 
 were holy. He voluntarily gave his life a ransom for us. He illus- 
 trated the divine mercy, and the divine holiness. He procured a 
 righteousness for man. He prays for man in heaven. He is able to 
 save man. The books which contain his history are true. They are 
 not like the Hindoo Shastres. In them we find no foolish stories, no 
 errors, and no utter want of evidence. Read them. Search and pray 
 for wisdom. Embrace the truth. 
 
 " Shuk. How can you show that God has forbidden the worship of 
 idols ? for where there is one who does not, there are an hundred who 
 do worship idols. 
 
 " R. C. All men are sinners, and are inclined to depart from God. 
 
 " Mr. W. Are the idols like God ? 
 
 " Shuk Not so : but if obeisance is made to the shoe of a king in 
 the presence of his servants, and they bear the intelligence to the king 
 that such-a-one has great respect for him, for he every day conies and 
 makes obeisance before his shoe, would you not consider this as paying 
 respect to the king ? so is it in worshipping the Deity by the idol. 
 
 " Mr. W. By this reasoning you make God at a distance ; and we 
 say that he is everywhere present, and that he is everywhere propi- 
 tious. Is God then in the idol ? 
 
 " Shuk Yes, in every thing. 
 
 " Mr. W. You say that God is in a particular manner in the idol, 
 and that he is brought in by the Muntras (invocations) ; but if a 
 Mussulman touches it he goes out ! Even your old Shastres say that 
 you are not to worship idols. The Vedantee philosophers near Calcutta 
 assert this ; and they have produced many passages in support of their 
 opinion. There is one in the Bhagavat Geet. 
 
 " Luk. It is said that man cannot approach God ; therefore he must 
 first propitiate Krishna. By Krishna God may be approached, and in 
 no other way. 
 
 " R. G. You say, then, that Krishna is propitiated by idols, and 
 that through him the Deity. But suppose I am hungry, and have a 
 handful of rice ; if I throw that direct into the fire it will be burnt 
 up, and I shall be deprived of my food ; but I must have a vessel to 
 
108 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1830. 
 
 put it in, that it may be put on the fire and be cooked : but suppose 
 the vessel I select is a dirty one, or a cracked one, then my rice will be 
 spoiled in cooking, or the water will escape, and it will not be cooked ; 
 and in either case I shall remain hungry. I must then be careful that 
 I select a proper vessel. So must it be with your Avatar (incarna- 
 tion). Take care and get a proper one. 
 
 " K. We should follow him only if his works are good, and not 
 otherwise. 
 
 " R. C. Therefore you must see and get a proper mediator. 
 
 " ShuJc. I hold that by the performance of ablution the mind is 
 washed ; for all evil proceeds from evil thoughts ; and by the perform- 
 ance of ablution morning and evening I am brought to think of this, 
 and thereby a check is thrown upon evil thoughts, and so the mind is 
 purified. 
 
 " R. C. In your own Shastres the inefficiency of these remedies is 
 declared. 1 
 
 " K. I allow that unless the mind is firm these austerities are of 
 no avail. 
 
 " Brahman. What is sin ? 
 
 " Mr. W. The breaking of the law of God. 
 
 " Brahman. How did sin get into the world ? 
 
 " Mr. W. How shall sin get out of the world ? This should be the 
 great inquiry. When a man is seized with cholera he does not distress 
 himself by inquiring about the manner in which it came to him, but 
 earnestly seeks a cure. The grand reason why we object to your 
 remedies is, that they all proceed on the principle that man is saved by 
 his own works. Admit this principle and you destroy the kingdom of 
 God." 
 
 It is " the immemorial quest and old complaint." In the 
 Brahmans' conferences with Ziegenbalg the same fixed ideas 
 
 1 Will water absolve from sin ? what, then, are there no fishes in the 
 river ? Will fasting absolve from sin ? does not the snake feed on air Avhen 
 he can get nothing else ? Will living upon raw fruits and herbs absolve from 
 sin ? what ! do not the goat and other animals feed on them daily ? Will 
 abstinence from drink absolve from sin ? does the Chatuk bird ever drink ? 
 Will living in a hole under ground absolve from sin ? what ! are there no rats 
 in the holes in the jungle ? Will covering the body with ashes absolve from 
 sin ? does not the donkey roll in the dust all day long ? Will sitting in a 
 state of absorption absolve from sin ? does not the Bugla bird sit all day long 
 on the banks of a river ? Therefore none of these austerities can be of any 
 avail unless the mind is upright. 
 
1830.] KELIGION VERSUS MORALITY. 109 
 
 of the pantheist, the polytheist, the ritualist, ever recur, pre- 
 faced always by the assumption which Mr. Wilson put out of 
 the controversy at starting, that to save the European one way 
 and the Hindoo another " is one of the pastimes and diversions 
 of Almighty God," as the Tamul priest of Vishnoo expressed 
 it. The argument of Kisundass, that the nine Avatars or in- 
 carnations of Yishnoo the tenth, Kalki, is to appear as a comet 
 in the sky, on a white horse, with an apocalyptic sword, 
 to restore the righteousness of the golden age were God's 
 Sepoys, known by their badge and not by their conduct ; and 
 that of Shookaram, that as a king God can sin as he pleases, 
 denote the universal belief of the Hindoos that morality and 
 god- worship have different and frequently opposite spheres. 
 Since, about 1864, Sir Henry Maine first brought his study of 
 early institutions and his official task of constant legislation 
 to bear on Hindoo society, this has been recognised, and 
 students of the science of religion, who are at the same time 
 familiar with the social phenomena of native society, have 
 worked it out. 1 Hence missionary and legislator alike, to- 
 gether as well as separately, each in his own sphere, have to 
 act so that the crimes sanctioned by the theology of the Hin- 
 doos shall be prohibited by an application of the moral law of 
 Christianity, and the jurisprudence of the civilised nations of 
 the West ; while the legislator has to guard against the oppo- 
 site extreme of seeming to sanction, and of really perpetuating 
 with a new authority, the vast mass of Hindoo religious and 
 therefore civil law, which he must leave untouched. From 
 Lord William Bentinck and Macaulay to Lord Lawrence and 
 Sir Henry Maine, and from Claudius Buchanan and Carey to 
 Duff and Wilson, this double process has gone on, till India 
 enjoys a more humane criminal code and a more perfect 
 toleration of creeds and opinions than Great Britain itself. 
 
 1 See Mr. A. C. Lyall's papers in the Fortnightly Review, especially that at 
 p. 560 of the number for April 1878. 
 
110 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1831. 
 
 The excitement caused by this discussion among the 
 natives of Bombay had not passed away when, in February 
 1831, 'another champion arrived to renew the controversy. 
 This was Mora Bhatta Dandekara, who thought to succeed 
 where the pundit Lukshmun and his friends had failed. 
 Many Brahmans were present. " They brought their chief 
 champion every day in a carriage, with garlands of flowers 
 hanging about him. They could not, however, defend their 
 religion," writes Mr. Wilson to his father. The debate con- 
 tinued during six successive evenings. Mr. Webb again pre- 
 sided at the request of both parties. The Brahman convert, 
 Kama Chundra, again took part in it, but the chief combatant 
 for Christianity was Mr. Wilson himself. " The Brahmans 
 were the first to solicit a cessation of hostilities." It was left 
 on this occasion to the Hindoos to publish a report of the 
 proceedings, and several wealthy men subscribed for the pur- 
 pose. But the Bhatta had not taken notes, and he preferred 
 to publish, as his defence, a tract on the Verification of the 
 Hindoo Religion, to which he challenged a reply. The debate 
 had, as on the former occasion, referred principally to the 
 character of the Divine Being, the means of salvation, the 
 principles of morals, and the allotment of rewards and punish- 
 ments. The Verification reiterates the arguments of the 
 former apologists for Hindooism, but it is of interest from the 
 attacks it makes on some statements of the Christian Scrip- 
 tures which it first perverts. This, for instance, is the ren- 
 dering of the opening verse of the fourth Gospel : " In the 
 beginning was word. That word was in the heart of God ; 
 and the same word was manifested in the world in the form 
 of Christ." The real value of the tract, however, lies in the 
 fact that it called forth Mr. Wilson's first Exposure of the 
 Hindoo Religion, to which a translation of it by Mr. Nesbit 
 is prefixed : " The Bhatta, though he has in some instances 
 disguised the truth, writes generally in support of what has 
 
1834.] HIS EXPOSURES OF HINDOOISM. Ill 
 
 been called the exoteric system of Hindooism ; and a little 
 reflection will show that the attempt to uphold any other can 
 only be made with the sacrifice of the pretensions to inspira- 
 tion on the part of the Hindoo scriptures, and with admis- 
 sions which must prove destructive to the popular supersti- 
 tion. The efforts which have hitherto been made to refine on 
 the Brahmanical faith have hitherto proved, and must ever 
 prove, completely abortive. It is essentially distinguished by 
 exaggeration, confusion, contradiction, puerility, and immor- 
 ality." Such was Mr. Wilson's earlier impression of a system, 
 with even the innermost recesses of which further study and 
 experience were to make him so familiar, that the Government 
 and the Judges frequently appealed to him as the highest 
 trustworthy authority for political and legal ends. 
 
 The Brahmans, thus twice met on the later Pooranik or 
 Brahmanical side, determined to return to the charge, this 
 time on the earlier Vedantic, or what was then called the eso- 
 teric ground. One Narayan Eao, English teacher in the Eaja 
 of Satara's school, accordingly wrote a reply to the first 
 Exposure of Hindooism, under the signature of "An 
 Espouser of his Country's Keligion." Mora Bhatta edited the 
 work, and took it to Mr. Wilson. Hence his publication, 
 towards the close of 1834, of A Second Exposure of the 
 Hindoo Religion. The title-page bears these lines of Sir 
 William, Jones : 
 
 " Oh ! bid the patient Hindoo rise and live. 
 His erring mind that wizard lore beguiles, 
 
 Clouded by priestly wiles, 
 To senseless nature bows for nature's God." 
 
 Like its predecessor, this Exposure is a model of kindly con- 
 troversy and lofty courtesy to antagonists. " I beg of them," 
 he writes to the Hindoos in his preface, " to continue to 
 extend credit to me and to my fellow-labourers for the bene- 
 volence of our intentions, and to believe that anything which 
 
112 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1834. 
 
 is inconsistent with the deepest charity is not what we would 
 for one moment seek to defend." Both works caused a greater 
 demand for copies than was expected, and called forth many 
 letters from natives assuring the writer that they had been 
 thus led to lose all confidence in the religion of their fathers. 
 The books were translated into Bengalee and other Indian 
 vernaculars, and continued to be long useful in letting light 
 into many a native's mind. Mr. Wilson made good use of 
 the admissions of the Bengalee theist Eammohun Eoy,who had 
 at that time written his principal works and had been care- 
 fully answered by Carey and Marshman. The Second Exposure, 
 dedicated to Mr. James Farish who acted as interim Governor, 
 has a further literary interest, as showing Mr. Wilson's steady 
 as well as rapid advance in his Sanscrit studies, and in the 
 consequent use of the Vedic, Pooranic, and Epic literature, for 
 the demolition of error. His preface thus concludes : " To 
 several friends I am indebted for the loan of several Sanskrit 
 MSS. which were not in my possession, and which I have 
 used for enabling me to judge of the fidelity of existing 
 translations and opinions, and correctly to make some original 
 extracts. It was my intention at one time to have quoted 
 more liberally from the Upanishads than I have done. The 
 inspection of a great number of them led me to perceive that, 
 while they abound in metaphysical errors, there is a great 
 accordance in the few principles which they respectively un- 
 fold, and to which attention should be particularly directed. 
 -Bombay, October 1834." 
 
 At the time of the second of the three discussions with 
 Brahmans on the Christian and Hindoo religions, Mr. Wilson 
 found himself challenged to an encounter on the two very 
 different fields of the Zoroastrianism of the Parsees and the 
 ethics and theology of the Muhammadan Koran. His 
 review of the Armenian History of the Religious Wars be- 
 tween the Persians and Armenians, in the Oriental Christian 
 
1833.] HIS EEFUTATION OF MUHAMMAD ANISM. 113 
 
 Spectator of July and August 1831, tempted the descendants 
 of the persecuting Magi, now peaceable and loyal enough 
 because themselves persecuted exiles, to defend the Avasla, 
 their sacred book. This controversy opens out so wide a 
 field, alike in itself and in Mr. Wilson's career as a scholar and 
 a missionary, that we shall reserve it and its consequences 
 for another chapter. But an expression adverse to Muham- 
 madanism in one of Mr. Wilson's letters to the Parsees, called 
 forth a champion of Muhammad and the Koran, and led to 
 the publication of a Refutation of Muhammadanism, in 
 Hindostanee, Goojaratee, and Persian, 1 which may be placed 
 side by side with the two exposures of Hindooism, though no 
 separate English edition of it has appeared, beyond fragments 
 in the Oriental Christian Spectator from May to August 1833. 
 " Hadjee Muhammad Hashim of Ispahan, who, as his name 
 shows, had performed the pilgrimage to Mecca, and was the 
 most learned Moulvie in Bombay, challenged me," writes Mr. 
 Wilson, "to the proof of the licentiousness and imposture of the 
 author of the Koran, and I readily attempted to establish my 
 position. After several letters had appeared in the native 
 newspapers, the Hadjee came forward with a pamphlet of 
 considerable size in Goojaratee and Persian, in which he 
 evinces at once great sophistry and great ability." His 
 Eeply to Hajee Mahomed ffashim's Defence of the Islamic 
 Faith is, if we except the necessarily imperfect tract of 
 Henry Martyn continued by Dr. Lee, the first controversial 
 treatise of the kind in point of time, as the Exposures of 
 Hindooism are. 2 Dr. Pfander had not yet begun that series 
 
 1 Raddi-i-din Mussulmani is the Persian title. 
 
 2 "We do not reckon the treatise on Christianity, written for the Emperor 
 Akbar by Hieronymo Xavier, the nephew of the great missionary, although 
 it was answered twelve years after it appeared, in 1609, by Ahmed Ibn Zain- 
 al-Abidin, and this called forth a rejoinder, in Latin, from Phillip Gaudag- 
 noli of the Propaganda College, Rome. Pfander's first and ablest treatise, 
 the since well-known Mizan ul ffaqq, or "A Resolution of the Controversy 
 between Christians and Muhammadans," was published in Persian in 1835, at 
 
 I 
 
114 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1833. 
 
 of Christian apologies in controversy with Muhammadans, 
 which have done more than any other instrument to shake 
 the apparently immovable confidence of the votaries of Islam 
 in Agra and Delhi, in Allahabad and Lucknow, in Lahore 
 and Peshawur, in Constantinople and Cairo, where more than 
 one learned Moulvie now preaches the faith which once he 
 attacked, or even translates the Christian Scriptures. 1 It was 
 Pfander's representation of the need for a biography of the 
 prophet, suitable for the perusal of his followers, that led Sir 
 William Muir, when a busy settlement officer and revenue 
 secretary at Agra, to prepare his Life of Mahomet, which is 
 the greatest in the English language, as Sprenger's is in the 
 German. But no one can peruse Mr. Wilson's Eeply to 
 Muhammad Hashim without remarking how he has, in brief, 
 anticipated Muir in shrewd insight, criticism, and keen ex- 
 posure of the moral irregularities and shortcomings of 
 Muhammad's Koran and his private life. In twenty -one 
 necessarily condensed chapters Mr. Wilson covers the whole 
 field of the controversy, save on its historical side which was 
 not raised. That it went very far down into practical life as 
 well as ethical principles, these preliminary letters on the 
 subject which gave rise to the discussion will show. 
 
 " John Wilson, a servant of Jesus the Messiah, presents his saluta- 
 tion to Haji Muhammad Hashim. 
 
 " I have perused your letter in the Bombay Sumachar respecting 
 
 the Fort of Shushy, Georgia, where he was one of the German Mission, and 
 whence he was driven in 1836 by the Eussian Government, with its usual 
 intolerance to all but its own political and autocratic division of the Greek 
 Church. The Hindostanee translation was lithographed at Mirzapore in 1843. 
 See the Article in Vol. IV. of the Calcutta Review on the Muhammadan con- 
 troversy, written, we believe, by Sir William Muir. At a later period Wilson 
 refers to this article in a note to his Lands of the Bible. 
 
 1 See Syud Ahmed's Mahomedan Commentary on the Holy Bible. Two 
 Parts, quarto. Allygurh, 1862-5 ; which the Venerable Archdeacon Pratt 
 reviewed in the Friend of India of 1862, and the Rev. Dr. Robson treated 
 in the British and Foreign Evangelical Review of July 1867. 
 
1833.] MUHAMMADAN POLYGAMY AND DIVOECE. 115 
 
 the transactions of Muhammad with the female sex, and I am not a 
 little surprised at the manner in which you have expressed yourself on 
 this subject. It is my intention, should you- continue to desire me, to 
 enter fully into its consideration. At present I shall confine myself to 
 your remarks on polygamy and divorce. 
 
 " You say that for a man to have more than one wife is a good 
 thing. You will find it impossible to prove that this is the case. 
 There are many reasons for differing from you in opinion. I here 
 mention the most important of them. 1. After God had created Adam 
 the first man, he gave him only one wife named Huwa. If it had 
 been good for man to engage in polygamy, God would have given 
 Adam, whom he created in a happy state, more than one wife. 2. 
 There are not more women than men in the world ; and when poly- 
 gamy is indulged in some men must be deprived of wives, which you 
 must allow to be a great evil. It is manifest, then, from this circum- 
 stance, that to have more than one wife is contrary to the course of 
 nature. It is because polygamy is practised in the Muhammadan 
 states that it has been found necessary to have hijre. 3. Polygamy is 
 detrimental to the increase of population. ... 4. Polygamy is hurtful 
 to the right education of children. When one man has a great number 
 of sons and daughters, with a variety of mothers, he cannot manage 
 and instruct them so well as he would be able to do if they had only 
 one mother. 5. Polygamy is the frequent cause of a great many 
 quarrels and jealousies among the different wives. This you very well 
 know, and this you allow, when you have to speak of divorce as a 
 ' quick expedient for settling disputes.' 6. It is impossible for a 
 husband with a plurality of wives to treat them all with the love and 
 affection which is due to them. Wherever polygamy has prevailed, 
 the female character has become degraded and debased to an extent 
 which I cannot describe. As a wise man consider these arguments, 
 and never again attempt to vindicate polygamy nor Muhammad, who, 
 to please his disciples, allowed them to take four wives to themselves, 
 who took four times that number to himself, and who even promised 
 wives to his disciples when they should get to heaven. You wished 
 me to state my opinion. I have now expressed it. 
 
 "You approve of divorce for the settling of disputes and other 
 objects of a like nature, according to the will of the husband. But on 
 this point, as well as on the preceding, you will find it very difficult to 
 show cause. When divorces, like those of which you speak, take place, 
 the mother is banished from the children to whom she gave birth, on 
 whom her affections are placed, and in whom she undoubtedly has a 
 
116 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1833. 
 
 property as well as their father. The children are bereft of their 
 mother whom they love, and deprived of her tender care. The women, 
 who fear that they may be driven away for a slight cause, are often 
 tempted to take the common property to themselves, that they may be 
 prepared for the day of evil. The men, who feel that they have the 
 power which you approve, are ready to part, according to their tempta- 
 tions, with their lawful wives, that they may get new ones." 
 
 " IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE GREATEST OF ALL NAMES. 
 
 " The least of the slaves of God, Haji Muhammad Hashim, sends 
 his compliments to John Wilson, the servant of Jesus the Messiah. 
 What you wrote in answer to me I have seen. I could object to 
 everything brought forward by you, but it would take up time, be of 
 no use, and cause you much pain. I shall therefore shortly reply. 
 
 " 1st. As to your proofs against polygamy from the case of Adam 
 and Huwa, and there not being a greater number of women than men 
 in the world, etc., etc., it appears to me that you have considered 
 polygamy to be actually necessary to, and incumbent on, the being 
 a Moosulman ! But this, I state, is not the fact it is not necessary, 
 but allowed. If a man find that one wife is not enough for him, and 
 he is able to support and take care of others, he may, if he sees fit, 
 take another, and so on until he has four, by the ' Nikah Daimee,' and 
 by purchase, ' Muttah,' as many as he likes. I hold, therefore, that your 
 argument falls to the ground. But we will pass from this topic. If 
 what you have said is the fact, it comes to this, that in every instance 
 polygamy must be shameful and base, and from the time of Adam to 
 the present time it must surely have been lawful. But I have seen 
 that in your books it is written that some of the most celebrated 
 ancestors of the Lord Jesus (Huzrut) were polygamists. Abraham, the 
 friend of God, besides his wife Sarah, the mother of Jacob, took, by 
 the advice of Sarah, Hagar ; and Jacob married Rachel and Leah, 
 daughters of Laban, his maternal uncle, and by the wish of both these 
 wives took their servants Bilha and Zilfa, and had children by all 
 four. We may therefore say that polygamy is not in its nature sinful, 
 and depends on expediency, and the wish of the just man. Since 
 polygamy was lawful among men before the time of Jesus Christ, why 
 is it not to be thought lawful and allowable among Muhammadans ? 
 Regarding Huzrut Muhammad taking twelve wives to himself, and 
 giving only four to his disciples, although he did so he did not pro- 
 hibit them from taking more by ' Muttah ' and purchase, and laid no 
 bounds on them in this way. Nor is it necessary that a prophet and 
 
1833.] A MUHAMMAD AN'S DEFENCE OF POLYGAMY. 117 
 
 his followers should equally act or be subject to the same obligations. 
 What matters it that there should be a difference in acts like these ? 
 Huzrut Isa told his disciples to marry, but never himself married. 
 He was like them in all things else concerning the law and the duties 
 of life. And thus it was that Muhammad told his people in twenty- 
 four hours to pray seventeen times, but himself prayed fifty-one times. 
 
 " Regarding divorce, the propriety of which you declare to be most 
 difficult of proof, and that the separation of mother and children takes 
 place from it, and that wives, if they fear that for a small fault they 
 shall be divorced, will on the day of separation take their husband's 
 property, it is easy to answer this. That it was lawful under the 
 Mosaic law, appears from what Huzrut Isa says in the 19th chapter of 
 Matthew, ' On account of the hardness of your hearts, Moses allowed 
 you to divorce your wife.' If therefore Moses, for the hardness of the 
 hearts of the Jews, allowed the practice of divorce, what harm was 
 there in Muhammad allowing the same to his followers, and for^some 
 one reason which he himself was aware of ? But the quarrels and dis- 
 sensions you mention are not necessary, as divorce is also not neces- 
 sary. And divorce is never used until there is no other resource, and 
 this also is only allowed, not commanded ; and no respectable person 
 will ever divorce the mother of his own children. And if a bad wife 
 is divorced, her part of the property is always given her. And if a 
 wife knows that on account of bad conduct she may be divorced, it 
 will prevent her from such a course. 
 
 " I am a seeker of the right road, and having discovered that road, 
 I hold it necessary for me to walk in it ; and if I prove that my sect 
 is holding an untruth, after all my exertions, I shall only discover the 
 falsity of it without getting to myself any good. The Muhammadan 
 religion, which I have chosen, is the religion of the twelve Imaums, 
 and I have not entered it merely in imitation of my ancestors (because 
 my parents were Muhammadans), nor from prejudice on account of my 
 tribe and family, but because, after much search and examination, and 
 after inquiries into all other kinds of religions, and finding more proofs, 
 and full confirmation of the truth of the Muhammadan doctrines, I 
 became a follower of that sect. Now that you have commenced to 
 teach men the right road, you should fully explain and prove the 
 truths of your own belief, that the seekers of truth, if enfeebled by 
 your arguments, should adopt your views and become obedient to 
 your doctrines. 
 
 " But supposing, what is impossible, that you could prove the 
 falsity of the Muhammadan religion, that could never prove the truth 
 
118 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1833. 
 
 of the Christian religion. Supposing that you should say, from the 
 falsity of the Muhammadan religion the truth of the Christian faith 
 must necessarily follow, because Muhammad himself confessed Christ 
 to be a prophet, and thus there are consenting or concurring evidences 
 of the mission of Jesus Christ, I answer, that Muhammad only con- 
 fessed that Christ to be a prophet, who said to the children of Israel 
 that after him another prophet would arise called Ahmud. If, there- 
 fore, this is the very Christ whom the Christians worship, they must 
 confess the Muhammadan faith to be true ; but if they worship another 
 than that Christ who thus prophesied of Muhammad, the Muhamma- 
 dans acknowledge no other than him, and I affirm that the prophetic 
 mission of Christ has not the concurring evidences that I supposed you 
 assumed." 
 
 The reply to this communication was as follows : " To Haji 
 Muhammad Hashim, John Wilson presents respectful salutations. 
 
 " I have carefully perused your second letter in defence of Muham- 
 mad, but I must frankly acknowledge that it is my decided opinion 
 that you have completely failed to answer my statement of reasons 
 against polygamy. In reply to that which respected the fact that God 
 gave only one wife to Adam, and that there are not more women than 
 men in the world, you allege that I supposed that it was required by 
 the Muhammadan law that every man should have four wives. Grant- 
 ing that I had made this mistake, you have not in the slightest degree 
 overturned my argument. I assure you that I was not ignorant of the 
 state of your law on the subject, and that I am of opinion that the 
 countenance which it grants is a great evil. You should have showed 
 wherein my six reasons were erroneous. I would have taken no 
 offence at your reasoning, however acute and forcible it might have 
 been. It is much better for a person to reason, than merely to say 
 that he can reason. 
 
 " Abraham, and Solomon, and other individuals mentioned in the 
 Old Testament, practised polygamy, but I ask you if God approved of 
 their doing so, and gave them his divine countenance ; and if they 
 consulted their best interests by the course which they pursued. I find 
 no passage in the Bible approving of polygamy. On the contrary, I 
 find Moses in his 5th book, 17th chapter, and 17th verse, laying down 
 a law even for the King of Israel, that ' he should not multiply wives 
 to himself, that his heart turn not away ; ' and I find it said respecting 
 Solomon, in the llth chapter of the first book of Kings, 'that his 
 wives turned away his heart after other gods r^and his heart was not 
 perfect with the Lord his God/ You see, then, that the Scriptures of 
 the Jews and Christians differ from the Koran of Muhammad. 
 
1833.] MUHAMMAD'S POLYGAMOUS INTERCOURSE. 119 
 
 " You have not satisfactorily explained why Muhammad took to 
 himself more wives than he allowed to his disciples. It is more suitable 
 to the character of a teacher to exceed his disciples in the actual 
 service of God than to fall short of them ; but it is more suitable that 
 he should fall short of them than exceed them in worldly enjoyment. 
 Do not you admit that this is the case ? I require an answer. 
 
 "I have little to say respecting your remarks on divorce. You 
 seem not to indicate that kind of divorce of which you spoke in your 
 first letter, as ' a quick expedient for settling disputes.' Christ Jesus 
 allows divorce in the case of fornication ; and although Moses allowed 
 the Jews, on account of the hardness of their hearts, to practise it in 
 some other cases, Muhammad, who pretended that he was improving 
 upon Moses and upon Christ, was required, by consistency, to confirm 
 or improve what Christ established. Instead of doing this, how- 
 ever, he brings matters back to their old state, when the Jews were 
 unwilling to submit to a right law. In acting thus he clearly showed 
 that his pretensions were without ground. I am most happy to find 
 that you are of opinion that no respectable person will divorce the 
 mother of his children without a sufficient reason : and I shall be 
 happy to learn that all the Persians, and Arabians, and others, are 
 resolved to treat their wives with increased kindness. They will in 
 this way essentially promote their own happiness, the right education 
 of their children, and the welfare of society in general. 
 
 " Connected with the subject on which I have made these remarks, 
 there are other three to which I invite your attention. The first 
 respects the laws which Muhammad laid down regarding his own 
 wives. He said that it was the will of God that his followers should 
 treat all their wives with the same respect ; but, in the thirty-third 
 chapter of the Koran, he claims the right of treating his wives as he 
 should see fit. He forbids his disciples from marrying their near 
 relatives ; but he throws no restraint upon himself, as you will perceive 
 from the chapter to which I have referred. He allowed none of his 
 followers to have that intercourse with his wives which he claimed for 
 himself with regard to those of others. He also allowed all widows to 
 marry a second time except his own. On this subject you do not need 
 information ; you only require to reflect. 
 
 " The second circumstance which I have in view is the dishonour- 
 able and criminal manner in which Muhammad procured some of his 
 wives. I call on you to consider his conduct with regard to Zainab the 
 wife of Zaid. He falls in love with her, prevails on her husband to 
 put her away, and impiously pretends that he had the authority of God 
 
120 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1833. 
 
 for marrying her. I call on you to examine his conduct with regard to 
 Mary, the Egyptian girl. In both these cases he grievously sinned. 
 Kooskuna Abdoolah, in a letter addressed to me, and published by the 
 editor of the Hurkaru and Wurtuman says that his conduct was no 
 worse than that of David King of Israel. I say that it was much worse. 
 David sinned, it is true : but he repented bitterly. The Bible con- 
 demns the conduct of David ; and nothing can be said against its truth 
 on this account. The Koran approves of the evil conduct of Muham- 
 mad ; and it is therefore evident that this Koran came not from God, 
 who is infinitely holy, and who cannot look upon sin without hatred 
 and detestation. 
 
 " The third point to which I refer you is the promise which 
 Muhammad gave to his followers of marriage in heaven. As I know 
 that you are possessed of a good understanding, I shall merely on this 
 subject quote a couplet from a Persian poet 
 
 " You profess to be a seeker of the right road, and that you have 
 embraced Muhammadanism after much inquiry. You also declare that, 
 if you discover the falsity of it, you will get no good. I do not see 
 what are the reasons which warrant you to come to this conclusion. 
 If you actually discover that the Koran does not contain the religion 
 of God, you will perhaps, by the aid of God, seek more diligently for 
 its discovery in some other quarter. I give you credit for making 
 inquiry in your youth, particularly as the Koran denounces all persons 
 who act as you have done, and I would respectfully, but very earnestly, 
 entreat you to re-examine minutely the claims of Muhammad. The 
 topics to which I have briefly directed your attention will furnish you 
 with some ground of decision ; and those which I now bring before 
 your notice may perhaps conduce to the same object. 
 
 " It must be admitted by every intelligent person that, if God see 
 fit to make a revelation of his will to men, the book containing that 
 revelation must be true in all its statements, free from contradictions of 
 principle, and holy in its tendency. Let the Koran be examined by 
 this simple test and I am certain that it must be renounced. You 
 are acquainted with its contents, and I ask you to consider if they are 
 all of that kind which can be approved. As examples of the errors in 
 matters of well-known facts, I refer you to what is said respecting the 
 hills and mountains of the earth, the setting of the sun, and the char- 
 acter of Alexander the Great. In the chapter of Lockman, it is thus 
 written : ' And he hath thrown on the earth mountains firmly rooted, 
 lest it should move with you.' In the chapter of the Kav, it is thus 
 written : ' And he followed his way till he came to the place where the 
 
1833.] THE CONTRADICTIONS AND ERRORS OF THE KORAN. 121 
 
 sun setteth, and he found it to set in a spring of black mud ; and he 
 found near the same a certain people/ In the same chapter it is said 
 that Alexander believed in God, while the historians of his own country 
 clearly show that he lived and died a heathen. The contradictions in 
 principle are exceedingly numerous. These cannot be explained, as the 
 Moosulman doctors wish, on the supposition that the prophet chose to 
 repeat at one time what he had declared at another, for in the chapter 
 of women it is thus written : ' Do they not attentively consider the 
 Koran ? If it had been from any besides God, they would certainly 
 have found therein many contradictions.' According to the doctrine of 
 the Koran itself, then, its contradictions are proofs that it did not come 
 from God. Muhammad indirectly, and unwillingly, gives testimony 
 against himself. The Koran is not holy in its tendency, although 
 many of its precepts, borrowed from the Jewish and Christian Scrip- 
 tures, are correct. Instead of striving to restrain sin, and utterly 
 eradicate it, Muhammad says, ' God is minded to make his religion 
 light unto you, for man was created weak.' Instead of supporting the 
 authority, and manifesting the holiness of God, your prophet teaches 
 that men have the power of saving themselves by their own works ; 
 or of procuring pardon by their own repentance. Do not deceive your- 
 self, and ruin yourself, by resting on his scheme of salvation. Good 
 works are at all times required ; and,, however good they may be, they 
 cannot be better than God commands. They cannot then stand in the 
 place of the sins which have been already committed. Men, even in 
 their best estate, sin daily in thought, in word, and in action. Their re- 
 pentance cannot procure pardon, for were God to give to men the 
 assurance that it would prevail, his kingdom would be destroyed. Men 
 would begin to say that we may sin without fear, for we can escape 
 when we please ; we have only to repent. In no earthly government 
 of nations does repentance procure pardon. How will it succeed with 
 God who is the King of all worlds ? That atonement which was made 
 by Jesus Christ is the only sure ground of hope. 
 
 " You say that Christ declared that a prophet named Ahmud would 
 come unto the world. I deny that he did ; and I ask you to show me 
 the writing on which you ground your statement. Muhammad, I 
 know, said that he was the great prophet spoken of in the Jewish 
 Scriptures. But his own admission proves that he was not what he 
 represented himself. He uniformly speaks of Christ as the Messiah. 
 Now every Jew will tell you that the Messiah is the great prophet and 
 Redeemer, whom they and their fathers have expected. 
 
 " You inform me that I should explain and prove the truths of my 
 
122 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1833. 
 
 own belief. This is my daily employment. When I have received 
 your answer to this letter, which is as long as can be admitted at once 
 into the Sumachar, I shall (D.V.) present you with an explanation and 
 proof of what is required. I am really astonished to see a person of 
 your abilities devoted to error. Wishing you much prosperity, I am 
 your humble Servant, 
 
 "J. WILSON." 
 
 In the elaborate Reply itself, Mr. Wilson does not allude 
 to the almost unmentionable " Mostahil ' or temporary hus- 
 band, so essential a part of the Muhammadan system of divorce, 
 as authoritatively laid down in the " Fatawa-i-Alamgiri." * 
 Nor did the attack of the Hadjee lead him to the considera- 
 tion of a subject which recent treaties have made prominent, 
 the relation of the sexual side of the Koran to the slave-trade 
 and slavery. To the practical efforts in that direction he 
 was soon to be called. But he does not spare the Hadjee in 
 his sixth chapter, " On the mode in which Muhammad procured 
 and treated his wives," a subject on which even Gibbon is 
 severe. The law of polygamous marriage and treble divorce has 
 never been interfered with by the British Government among 
 the forty millions of its Mussulman subjects in India ; while 
 not a few Hindoo criminal practices, like widow-burning, 
 child-murder, hook-swinging, and human sacrifice, all in the 
 name of religion, have been ruthlessly stopped. The result is 
 such a horrible state of society among the Mussulmans of 
 eastern Bengal, as was revealed in an official inquiry in 1873, 
 and which still goes on corrupting, under the aegis of the 
 Koran and its expounders. Mr. Wilson was able to write of 
 this controversy, as of those which preceded it, that it had 
 shaken the faith of some Muhammadans in different parts of 
 the country. The Parsee editor of the newspaper in which 
 it was at first conducted, summed it up in the brief de- 
 
 1 See Baillie's translation, and the exposure of the abomination by a Hindoo, 
 Professor Shama Churun Sircar, in the Tagore Law Lectures for 1873 
 (Calcutta). 
 
1833.] FIRST CONVERTS FROM MUHAMMADANISM. 123 
 
 claration, "All the world know that Islamism has been 
 either propagated by the sword, or embraced on account 
 of its licentiousness." From far Cochin, and the south, a 
 convert came convinced by the Reply, which was reprinted 
 in other parts of India. In October 1833 Mr. Wilson 
 baptized the first Muhammadan of Bombay who had been 
 received into the Christian Church. He was a fakeer, or 
 mendicant devotee, whose secession from Islam infuriated his 
 intolerant brethren. He was followed by an inquirer, a very 
 learned Moolla, young and master of several tongues, who 
 during the controversy was the stoutest opposer of Christ, 
 but humbly solicited baptism as now convinced of the truth 
 of Christianity. 
 
 It was with a peculiar interest that Mr. Wilson directed 
 his attention to the Jews of western India from the very 
 beginning of his studies in the Konkan. Tor it was on that 
 low coast, and in the country stretching upwards to the high 
 road to Poona that, according to their own tradition, their 
 ancestors, seven men and seven women, found an asylum, after 
 shipwreck, sixteen centuries before. The little colony increased 
 under the protection of the Abyssinian Chief who had settled 
 there, and they came to be recognised as another variety of 
 the Muhammadans. Destitute of all historical evidence, even 
 of their own Law, the Beni-Israel,or sons of Israel as they called 
 themselves, clung all the more tenaciously, generation after 
 generation, to their paternal customs. On the mainland they 
 became industrious agriculturists and oil-sellers. In the 
 new settlement of Bombay they found work to do as artizans, 
 and even shopkeepers and writers. Not a few of them are 
 Sepoys in the Bombay army, as many Christians are in the 
 Madras army. They differ from the black Jews of Cochin, 
 further south, who have sprung of the earliest emigrants from 
 Arabia and Indian proselytes. Nor have they any connection 
 with the so-called white Jews of the same place, whose 
 
124 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1833. 
 
 arrival in India dates no farther back probably than the 
 earliest of those expulsions from Spain, which, in the same 
 way, afterwards sent Lord Beaconsfield's ancestors to Venice. 
 The Beni-Israel, repelling the name of Yehudi as a reproach, 
 were probably older than both, for the Cochin Jews say that 
 they found them on their arrival at Eajapoora, in the Konkan. 
 In two careful and learned papers, written for the Bombay 
 Branch of the Koyal Asiatic Society, Mr. Wilson traced them 
 to Yemen or Arabia Felix, the Jews of which they resemble, 
 and with whom they hold intercourse. One of the Eothschild 
 family, Mr. Samuel, and Mr. "Wilson himself afterwards, 
 found the origin of the Aden Jews in the remnant of the 
 captivity who fled into Egypt, where, as Jeremiah had warned 
 them, many were sent captive to Arabia, and where they led 
 the Himyarite King of Yemen, Toba, to embrace their faith. 
 The Yemen colony was reinforced after the dispersion, on 
 the fall of Jerusalem ; and again on the defeat of Zenobia ; 
 till Sana, the capital of Yemen, became a new bulwark of 
 Judaism against the Christians of Ethiopia on the west and 
 the Zoroastrians of Persia on the east. The Beni-Israel were 
 very near Mr. Wilson's heart. For them he prepared his 
 first grammar of Hebrew and Marathee. Long after he 
 ceased to receive support for them from the home churches 
 he made it his special care to raise funds on the spot. The 
 transfer of the mission to the General Assembly he welcomed, 
 among other reasons, because of the impetus it gave to this 
 department. In 1826 a converted Cochin Jew, Mr. Sargon, 
 had worked among them, and the American Missionaries also 
 had from the first cared for them. Of the 1300 children who 
 attended Mr. Wilson's various schools in 1836, some 250 were 
 Beni-Israel, and of these one third were girls. 1 
 
 At the end of 1833 Bombay was visited by Joseph Wolff, 
 the erratic Jew of Prague, who delighted to proclaim himself 
 
 1 Appeal for the Christian Education of the Beni-Israel of Bombay. 
 
1833.] THE BENI-ISRAEL AND JOSEPH WOLFF. 125 
 
 the Protestant Xavier, and lamented that he had not alto- 
 gether followed that missionary in the matter of celibacy, 
 such was the sorrow that their separation by his frequent 
 wanderings had brought on Lady Georgiana and himself. He 
 had the year before sent Mr. Wilson this communication : 
 
 "CABOOL, Wth May 1832. The bearers of these lines are the 
 Armenian Christians of Cabool, whose ancestors were brought to Cabool 
 from Meshed by Ahmed Shah ; as they had no longer any means of 
 support at Cabool they were constrained to emigrate from here with 
 their wives and children, and intend now to settle themselves at 
 Jerusalem and round Mount Ararat. As they are very poor indeed 
 I cannot but recommend them to my English friends as worthy objects 
 of their pity and compassion for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, who 
 will come again in the clouds of heaven in the year 1847 to establish 
 his throne and citadel in the capital of my Jewish ancestors in the city 
 of Jerusalem and at that time there shall be neither Armenian nor 
 Englishman, but all one in Christ Jesus crucified, the King of Kings 
 and Lord of Lords. JOSEPH WOLFF, Apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ for 
 Palestine, Persia, Bokhara, and Balkh." 
 
 After emerging from Central Asia in a condition more 
 nearly resembling that of a nude dervish than an Anglican 
 clergyman, Wolff had attempted to convert Eunjeet Singh at 
 Lahore, had himself been civilised for the time at Simla by 
 Lord William Bentinck and his noble wife, and had made his 
 way round and across India by Madras and Goa to the 
 western capital. In the amusing and by no means uninstruct- 
 ive Travels and Adventures, which, in 1861, was dedicated 
 "by his friend and admirer" to the Eight. Hon. Benjamin 
 Disraeli, we have these glimpses of Bombay society, and of 
 Mr. Wilson, with whom he afterwards frequently corresponded 
 on mission-work for the Jews and the eastern Christians. 
 " Wolff arrived in Bombay on the 29th November, and was 
 received by all classes of denominations of Christians there 
 with true cordiality and love. He was the guest of Mr. James 
 Farish, who was several times Deputy-Governor of Bombay. 
 
126 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1833. 
 
 Lord Clare, the Governor, called, and heard a lecture which 
 was delivered before a large audience. Wolff also lectured in 
 Parish's house as well as in the Town Hall of Bombay, when 
 English, Parsees, Armenians, Mussulmans, Portuguese, and 
 Hindoos were present. One of the Parsees announced a 
 lecture on the principles of the Parsees, in which he tried to 
 adopt the style and actions of Joseph Wolff, but he was 
 dreadfully cut up in the papers. . . . Wolff had a public 
 discussion with the Muhammadans at Bombay, when the most 
 distinguished members of the British Government were pre- 
 sent, both of the military and civil departments, including 
 Parish, Eobert Money, and the missionaries Wilson and 
 Nesbit, and also Parsees." Mr. Wilson and Mr. Stevenson 
 introduced him to all departments of their mission-work, but 
 he was especially interested in the Beni-Israel, some of whom 
 he had first seen at Poona. He writes of "those learned, 
 excellent, eloquent, devoted, and zealous missionaries of the 
 Scotch Kirk," and continues, "Wolff went also with Mr. 
 Wilson to see' one of the celebrated Yoghees, who was lying 
 in the sun in the street, the nails of whose hands were grown 
 into his cheek, and a bird's nest upon his head. Wolff asked 
 him, How can one obtain the knowledge of God ?' He replied, 
 ' Do not ask me questions ; you may look at me, for I am 
 God!' Wolff indignantly said to him, 'You will go to hell 
 if you speak in such a way.' " The subtle pantheism of the 
 ascetic absorbed into Vishnoo was beyond the Judseo-Chris- 
 tian dervish. 1 He left soon after for Yemen and Abyssinia, 
 whence we shall hear from him again. 
 
 1 Lady "William Bentinck had a hard fight to assure the Governor-General's 
 court that Wolff was not mad. " I have succeeded," she told him, " in con- 
 vincing all who have seen and heard you that you are not cracked, but I have 
 not convinced them that you are not an enthusiast." "Wolff replied, "My 
 dear Lady William, I hope that I am an enthusiast, or, as the Persian Soofees 
 say, that I am drunk with the love of God. Columbus would never have 
 discovered America without enthusiasm." And so "Wolff afterwards revealed 
 the true fate of Conolly and Stoddart. 
 
1833.] MR. GROVES, DR. KITTO, AND MR. F. W. NEWMAN. 127 
 
 A wandering missionary of like zeal but more intensity 
 of spirit visited Bombay in the same year, Mr. Anthony 
 Groves of Exeter, first and most catholic of those who call 
 themselves "The Brethren." Having parted with all he 
 possessed, according to his rendering of Christ's precept 
 " Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth," as expounded 
 in a pamphlet on Christian Devotedness, he proceeded by St. 
 Petersburg to Bagdad in 1831, and there commenced his 
 mission. He had as his secretary, and the tutor of his 
 children, the deaf lad who afterwards became remarkable as 
 Dr. Kitto. Plague, inundation, and famine, broke up the 
 schools in which he gave a Christian education to eighty 
 children under five masters. His own wife and children fell 
 victims, and in 1833 he visited India to learn lithographic 
 printing, and acquaint himself with the experience of men 
 like Duff and Wilson. But his speculative views were too 
 far advanced for that. He was a dervish of a different type 
 from the buoyant Wolff, but still a dervish. He held that, as 
 the gospel was to be preached for a witness by missionaries 
 supported by the free-will offerings of Christendom, before the 
 end come, no mission should continue in the same place for 
 more than five years. After a visit to England he returned 
 with a considerable reinforcement of coadjutors in 1836. On 
 both occasions Mr. Wilson showed him that hospitality and 
 did him that social service, which were already beginning to 
 be drawn upon by all visitors who could plead any interest of 
 any kind in the East and its peoples. 
 
 Another type of missionary policy was supplied by Mr. 
 Francis William Newman, brother of the greater John Henry 
 Newman, and son of a well-known banker. After giving 
 brilliant promise, since well redeemed, as Eellow of Balliol 
 up to 1830, Mr. W. F. Newman drifted away from the Thirty- 
 Nine Articles into the views of Mr. Groves, whose pamphlet 
 attracted him also to Bagdad. There he hoped to draw the 
 
128 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1833. 
 
 Muhammadans to the Arian form, at least, of Christianity by 
 such purely moral evidence of its superiority as the lives of 
 really disinterested Englishmen might supply. He dreamed 
 of a colony "so animated by faith, primitive love, and 
 disinterestedness, that the collective moral influence of all 
 might interpret and enforce the words of the few who 
 preached." He looked for success "where the natives had 
 gained experience in the characters of the Christian family 
 around them." This was precisely what Wilson, of all 
 missionaries who have ever worked in the East, did in 
 Bombay ; but he succeeded where Mr. F. W. Newman soon 
 failed, because he never ceased to show that a disinterested 
 life and the Christian family spring directly out of those 
 "mystical doctrines of Christianity" which the author of 
 that sadly suggestive book the Phases of Faith, 1 began by 
 postponing. Wolff, Groves, and F. W. Newman were all on 
 one right track, the superiority of what is called the internal 
 evidences, of arguments addressed to the moral and spiritual 
 faculties of heathen and Muhammadan. So had Wilson 
 begun, and so did he continue all through his career, from 
 the letter quoted at page 72, to his testimony, along with 
 that of Bishop French of Lahore, regarding the importance of 
 witness-bearing, at the Allahabad Conference in 1873. But 
 Wilson did not make the mistake of cutting the stream off 
 below the fountain-head, and hence the permanent and 
 developing fruitfulness of his work to all time and among all 
 creeds and classes. Francis Newman returned to England in 
 two years, himself partly affected by a Muhammadan carpenter 
 of Aleppo, to find the Tractarian movement beginning, and 
 his brother and his whole family alienated from him. He 
 would not return to the East; considering the idea of a Chris- 
 
 1 Compare the " second period" of that book, entitled Strivings after a 
 'more Primitive Christianity, with the greater Apologia of his brother, John 
 Henry Newman. 
 
1835.] ROBERT C. MONEY SIR JOHN MALCOLM. 129 
 
 tian Church propagating Christianity while divided against 
 itself to be ridiculous. So Ecclesiasticism drove him out, he 
 thinks, and we may admit this much, that Protestant Evan- 
 gelicalism lost not a little in the brothers Newman, abroad 
 and at home, whoever was to blame. The unity which 
 each has to this day sought they would have found, as John 
 Wilson did, in catholic work for the Master, pursued in loving 
 unity with missionaries of all sects in India. The mission in 
 Bagdad and Persia, abandoned by Groves and Newman, he 
 in due time did his best to revive with the only means at 
 his disposal. 
 
 In 1835 the society which Mr. Wilson had gradually 
 gathered around him lost its greatest lay ornament in the 
 death of Mr. Eobert C. Money, secretary to the Government. 
 The son of Wilberforce's friend, he had ever shown in Bombay 
 all the excellencies of " the Clapham sect," as a devoted 
 member of the Church of England. Under the Charter of 
 1833 Archdeacon Carr had been made the first Bishop of 
 Bombay, and the Church Missionary Society had received a 
 new impetus there. Erom the first Mr. Money became the 
 attached friend of Mr. Wilson, and co-operated with him in 
 every good work. Men of all classes, native as well as 
 English, united to raise as his memorial the Church of 
 England Institution, or English College, in Bombay, which 
 bears his name. Mr. Wilson was for some time engaged in 
 the preparation for the press of a memoir, and of the papers 
 of one who, like Mr. Webb and Mr. Law at the same time, 
 and Sir Bartle Frere at a later period, reflected lustre on the 
 Bombay Civil Service. 
 
 To the regret of all classes in the Presidency Sir John 
 Malcolm resigned the office of Governor at the close of 1830, 
 and with that ceased those services to India and Asia right 
 up to the Caspian, which justified Sir Walter Scott's eulogies 
 and the great Duke's friendship. 
 
 K 
 
130 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1835. 
 
 Not the least valued, certainly not the least sincere, of the 
 addresses presented to his Excellency who had come out to 
 India as an infantry cadet at thirteen, was that which Mr. 
 Wilson wrote and signed as Secretary to the Bombay Mis- 
 sionary Union. At a time when the Charter of 1833 had 
 not removed the silly opposition of the East India Company, 
 these men, some of whom had been driven from Calcutta and 
 for a time threatened with expulsion from Bombay, thanked 
 "the Honourable Major-General Malcolm, G.C.B., Governor 
 of Bombay, for the facilities which he has granted for the 
 preaching of the gospel in all parts of the Bombay territories, 
 for his favourable exertions for the abolition of Suttee, and 
 for the kind manner in which he has countenanced Christian 
 education." His reply was that 'of the purely secular but 
 truly tolerant statesman. He begged Mr. Wilson to assure 
 the missionaries " that it is solely to their real and Christian 
 humility, combined, as I have ever found it, with a spirit of 
 toleration and good sense, that I owe any power I have pos- 
 sessed of aiding them in their good and pious objects, which 
 . . . must merit and receive the support of all who take an 
 interest in the promotion of knowledge, the advancement of 
 civilisation, and the cause of truth." So had Mountstuart 
 Elphinstone spoken before him. So, and even still more 
 warmly, did Lord William Bentinck afterwards reply to a 
 farewell address from the Calcutta missionaries : " The offer 
 of religion in the schools of the missionaries 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 this advice, the 
 school founded exactly on these principles, lately superintended 
 by the estimable Mr. Duff. I would say to them, finally, that 
 they could not send to India too many labourers in the vineyard 
 like those whom I now have the gratification of addressing." 
 
1835.] SIR ROBERT GRANT. 131 
 
 Sir John Malcolm met in Egypt his successor, Lord Clare, 
 whose Irish blood he found inflamed because of the delay in the 
 arrival of the steamer at Cosseir. The Earl of Clare was fol- 
 lowed in 1835 by Sir Eobert Grant, who keenly sympathised 
 with Mr. Wilson and his work on its highest side. Lord 
 Clare had, indeed, specially requested Mr. Stevenson to con- 
 tinue to give religious instruction in the Poqna School at first 
 established by that missionary, after it had been transferred to 
 the Government, and he had privately assisted missions. But 
 Sir Eobert Grant was a man to whom Wilson could, in the 
 first year of his administration, publicly apply this language 
 when appropriately dedicating to his Excellency a sermon on 
 "The British Sovereignty in India." The dedication was 
 based on " the confidence which I entertain, grounded both 
 on your well-known sentiments and your actings since your 
 arrival in this Presidency, that the cause of Christian and 
 general philanthropy in India, so dear to the heart of your 
 distinguished father, will ever secure your warmest support 
 in the high station in which God in his providence has placed 
 you." Sir Eobert Grant, and his elder brother Lord Glenelg, 
 were sons worthy of Charles Grant, who, from his earliest 
 experience as a Bengal civilian in 1776, had devoted himself 
 to the moral and spiritual regeneration of the people of India. 
 Afterwards, as author of those Observations on the Moral 
 Condition of the Hindoos and the Means of Improving it, 
 which were written in 1792, and have almost the character of 
 prediction ; as chairman of the Court of Directors and mem- 
 ber for the county of Inverness, the head of the Grants of 
 Grant proved to be the mainspring of all the reforms which 
 were forced by successive charters on the East India Company, 
 up to that of 1833. While his elder son assisted him in the 
 House of Commons, and afterwards as a Cabinet Minister and 
 a peer, it fell to Sir Eobert to carry out in Western India the 
 enlightened provisions of that charter. This he did with a 
 
132 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1835. 
 
 wisdom and a success which more than justified Mr. Wilson's 
 eulogy ; while in his private character he became, when at the 
 head of the Bombay Government, the author of those hymns, 
 four of which Lord Selborne has embalmed for ever in his 
 Book of Praise, among the four hundred best sacred lyrics of 
 the language. The name of the author of the strains begin- 
 ning " Saviour, when in dust I lie," and " When gathering 
 clouds around I view," will be always dear to Christendom ; 
 but these hymns were the least of his services to its cause. 
 His last act as Governor of Bombay was to request Mr. 
 Wilson to submit to Government a plan for the practical 
 encouragement of a sound and useful education of the natives, 
 by whomsoever conducted, whether by the State, by mission- 
 aries, or by natives themselves. 
 
 The sermon on the British Sovereignty in India, which, 
 on the 8th of November 1835, Mr. Wilson preached in St. 
 Andrew's Church for the Scottish Mission, marks the broad 
 imperial view which he had already learned to take of our 
 position in southern Asia as rulers, and of our relation to the 
 feudatory Princes who have been incorporated with our 
 political system by Lord Canning's patent only since the 
 Mutiny of 1857. The preacher's subject was the not dis- 
 similar mission of Cyrus. 1 Mr. Wilson spoke at an " epoch- 
 making" time, when the Charter of 1833 had in India just 
 began to operate in the two directions of opening the trade of 
 the East India Company to the world, and securing the 
 education of the people in the English language, and all that 
 that fact involved. He was too wise and equitable a mission- 
 ary to exaggerate his success on the one hand, or to argue on 
 the other that the progress of the Christian church in India 
 would have been greater if the State had devoted public funds 
 to it as well as to education. At a later period, in 1849, he 
 thus wrote, " though it be devoutly admitted that the exalted 
 
 1 Isaiah xlv. 1-4, 6-13. 
 
1835.] EARLY MISSIONARY QUESTIONS. 133 
 
 Saviour demands the homage of governments and communi- 
 ties, as well as of individuals, it is obvious that the professed 
 expression of that homage by the exaction of pecuniary con- 
 tribution in support even of Christian Institutions, from an 
 unwilling people, may be questioned without any want of 
 loyalty to Christianity itself." 
 
 All through this period the Bombay Union of Mission- 
 aries showed great activity in the number and variety of the 
 questions which it discussed. Mr. Wilson was the secretary 
 and the most energetic member. Now we find him in 1832 
 submitting a petition, which Lord Bexley presented to the 
 House of Lords, for the amelioration of the Hindoo and Mu- 
 hammadan laws of property and inheritance as they affected 
 converts to Christianity, which resulted in Lord William 
 Bentinck's first concession on that point, to be completed 
 long after by Lord Dalhousie and Lord Lawrence. Now he 
 reports on the purchasing and receiving donations of Oriental 
 works for the use of the Union. Now he gives information 
 regarding the similar Christian Union in China. Now he 
 seeks light on the delicate questions raised by converts as to 
 marriage and divorce, which he helped Sir Henry Maine and 
 the Legislature to settle for ever half a century after. Now 
 he proposes and discusses such questions as these "Are 
 there any instances of a remarkable progress of Christianity 
 among a people without the gospel being previously, generally 
 and simultaneously, proclaimed among them ?" " How is 
 the statement that Christ is an object of worship in his entire 
 person consistent with the declaration that Christians worship 
 the immaterial God alone?" 1 "What influences tend to 
 
 1 Thus decided : " It was the opinion of the members that when we speak 
 of worshipping the immaterial God alone, we speak of serving that God who, 
 though he is an unchangeable and eternal Spirit, pervading all space, dwells 
 also in the Incarnation which he assumed, with a perfect union of the divine 
 and human natures, and who, in that character and person, as well as in all 
 his other relations, demands the homage of all." 
 
134 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1835. 
 
 modify and destroy Caste ? " The growing extension of in- 
 temperance and drunkenness under the excise and opium 
 laws, among communities who are temperate by climate, 
 custom, and creed, gave at that early period a peculiar 
 interest to the question which was thus decided : " The 
 Union are of the opinion that it is the duty of all Christians in 
 India to promote and encourage the cause of temperance 
 societies ; that these societies should be formed upon the 
 principles of the Bible, and that they should exhibit the pre- 
 valence of Christian principles as the grand means of produc- 
 ing temperance ; also that they should be formed upon the 
 principle of entire abstinence from all ardent -spirits, opium, 
 tobacco, and other intoxicating drugs, except when used as 
 medicines, or in cases of extreme urgency and necessity ; and 
 moderation in the use of fermented and other liquors." 
 
 The spirit of union and co-operation which always marks 
 the various missionaries abroad in the face of the common 
 foe, was farther illustrated by a communication from the 
 Presbytery of Kaffraria, which expressed a desire for friendly 
 correspondence. To the somewhat narrow remark that Cal- 
 vinistic Presbyterian missionaries should be more united 
 than they are, or than the Churches at home, Mr. Wilson 
 appended the characteristic note, "We would add, in the 
 spirit of gospel Catholicism and all Christian missionaries.'' 
 This letter, dated 4th July 1832, and signed " John Bennie, 
 Moderator," describes the work of four missionaries at Chumee 
 and Lovedale, " the two oldest stations, where there is a con- 
 siderable population," and Pirrie and Burnshill. In the half 
 century since we get this glimpse at South Africa, Lovedale 
 has become the brightest light among its tribes, 1 and the native 
 question seems to be approaching a settlement, in the East 
 Indian sense, after six wars. 
 
 1 See Mr. Anthony Trollope's testimony in his South Africa, vol. i. p. 
 216. (1878). 
 
1835.] CAREY AND MORRISON. 135 
 
 India itself and China were soon after to lose their two 
 foremost scholar-missionaries, in the death of Dr. Carey at 
 Serampore on the 9th June 1834, at the age of seventy- three ; 
 and of Dr. Morrison at Canton on the 1st August, at the 
 comparatively early age of fifty-three. Mr. Wilson, who was 
 still beginning in Western India and Asia the preparatory 
 work that they had done so well for Eastern and Northern 
 India, and for China and Eastern Asia, wrote thus of the two 
 men whose special merits he, of all others, was best fitted to 
 describe : 
 
 " Dr. Carey, the first of living missionaries, the most honoured and 
 the most successful since the time of the Apostles, has closed his long 
 and influential career. Indeed his spirit, his life, and his labours were 
 truly apostolic. Called from the lowest class of the people, he came to 
 this country without money, without friends, without learning. He 
 was exposed to severe persecution, and forced for some time to labour 
 with his own hands for his support ; yet then even, in his brief inter- 
 vals of leisure, he found time to master the Hebrew and Bengalee lan- 
 guages, to make considerable progress in the Sanskrita, and to write 
 with his own hand a complete version of the Scriptures in the language 
 of the country. The Spirit of God, which was in him, led him forward 
 from strength to strength, supported him under privation, enabled him 
 to overcome in a fight that seemed without hope. Like the beloved 
 disciple, whom he resembled in simplicity of mind and in seeking to 
 draw sinners to Christ altogether by the cords of love, he outlived his 
 trials to enjoy a peaceful and honoured old age, to know that his 
 Master's cause was prospering, and that his own name was named with 
 reverence and blessing in every country where a Christian dwelt. 
 Perhaps no man ever exerted a greater influence for good on a great 
 cause. Who that saw him, poor, and in seats of learning uneducated, 
 embark on such an enterprise, could ever dream that, in little more 
 than forty years, Christendom should be animated with the same 
 spirit, thousands forsake all to follow his example, and that the Word 
 of life should be translated into almost every language, and preached 
 in almost every corner of the earth ? " 
 
 "Dr. Morrison, whose name will be held in everlasting remem- 
 brance, died at Canton on the 1st of August last, at the age of fifty- 
 three. He had laboured as a missionary for nearly twenty-seven years 
 
136 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1835. 
 
 in China, and (with the assistance of Dr. Mylne in some of the books) 
 translated the Scriptures into Chinese, compiled and published a 
 copious Chinese dictionary, and several important philological works, 
 prepared and circulated many Chinese tracts, founded the Anglo- 
 Chinese College at Malacca, and proved the means of the conversion 
 and scriptural education of Leang Afa, who is now labouring, with 
 some success, as a native preacher. He was also for several years 
 interpreter to the English Factory, and he supported himself, and con- 
 tributed much to the cause of missions, from the salary which he 
 received in consequence of the situation which he thus held." 
 
 More than any other missionary in the East, Mr. Wilson 
 proved to be their successor. It is a subject of regret that 
 he could not become the biographer of Carey, whose -life has 
 yet to be worthily written. 1 
 
 1 The Memoir by Eustace Carey, his nephew, was written avowedly at the 
 request of the Baptist Missionary Society, which had misunderstood Dr. Carey 
 from the first, and is unworthy of the subject. The Lives of the Serampore 
 Missionaries, by the late John Clark Marshman, C. S. I. , is the most valuable 
 contribution made to the history of Christian and social progress in India, 
 by one who is emphatically the Historian of British India before the Mutiny; 
 but its theme is too wide to represent William Carey in all the details of his 
 unique career. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 1830-1835. 
 
 TOURS TO NASIK ; TO JALNA AND ELORA ; TO GOA, 
 KOLHAPORE, AND MAHABLESHWAR. 
 
 Man the Missionary's Business Tours of Officials and Missionaries John 
 Wilson a delightful companion First Tour with Mr. Farrar The Glories of 
 the Ghauts The Ramoshee Brigands Brahmanical Opposition at Nasik 
 The Sacred Godavery Second Tour to Jalna Battle of Korigaum Ahmedabad 
 Worship of the Monkey God Historical Characters The Telescope and 
 Hindooism Discussion with the Jains A Christian Government quoted 
 against Christianity Elora Christ preached in the Cave Temple of Kailas 
 Dowlutabad Aurungabad Opposition of the Military Authorities at Jalna 
 Mr. Wilson seriously injured by a horse A New Hindoo sect Strange 
 Iconoclasm Ahmednuggur Strolling Players Christian Sectarianism out of 
 place in India Third Tour to Goa Old Scenes in the Konkan Dr. Claudius 
 Buchanan The Inquisition at Goa M. DeUon's Sufferings New and Old 
 Goa Forged Romish Vedas Latin Conversations with Portuguese Priests 
 A Blushing Prioress His Excellency the Vice Rey The Augustinians and 
 Franciscans The Representatives of Sivajee The Raja of Kolhapore Satara 
 Mahableshwar A tiger springs up near Mr. Wilson. 
 
' ' The celebrated coast of India trace, 
 That runs down southward to Cape Comorin, 
 Once Kumari : immediately in face 
 Lies (now Ceylon by name) Taprobane ; 
 Over the sea the Lusitanian race, 
 Who shall with arms and fleets come after thee, 
 Shall victories gain, cities and lands possess, 
 Which shall their lives for many ages bless. 
 
 " The provinces round which these rivers flow, 
 And various tides contain, are infinite : 
 One kingdom's Mahmoud ; one of the Gentoo, 
 For whom the devil doth laws and customs write. 
 Behold Narsinga's seignory doth show 
 Sacred oldest remains to faithful sight, 
 St. Thomas' body, Hero Sanctified, 
 Who placed his doubting hand on Jesus' side. 
 
 " Here was the city, which was called by name 
 Meliapor, rich, great, well favoured : 
 The ancient idols it adored, the same 
 As races vile are now to worship led : 
 Far to it from the shore the people came, 
 When the great Faith, which o'er the world is spread, 
 Thomas came preaching, who had travelling sought 
 A thousand provinces, which he had taught. 
 ***** 
 
 " Ganges and Indies, Thomas, thee deplore, 
 Weeps all the ground on which thou once didst tread ! 
 The souls that thou hast taught yet weep the more, 
 Who with the Sacred Truth were clothed and fed ; 
 But angels, in a singing, shining choir, 
 Keceive thee in thy glory merited ; 
 We pray thee, ask assistance of the Lord, 
 And to thy Lusians favour thus afford ! " 
 
 CAMOENS : Aubertin's Translation of The Lusiads. 
 
1831.] HOW TO KNOW INDIA. 139 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 " THE business of the missionary is with man," was a saying of 
 Dr. Chalmers that Mr. Wilson frequently quoted. To know 
 India, of all countries, is to be familiar with its people ; to be 
 acquainted with its princes ; and to understand the relation of 
 the British Government and its administrative systems to 
 both. For a missionary to know India, he must add to all 
 that the study, at first hand, of its religions and their learned 
 men, Brahmanical, Muhammadan, and Non- Aryan. He must 
 possess the ability to lay a pure and a historical Christianity 
 alongside both the administrative systems and the religious 
 philosophies or cultures, so as to saturate the former with the 
 positive and direct moral spirit which they necessarily lack 
 from political conditions, and to overthrow the latter by the 
 more purely spiritual and potent force of Christ Himself. The 
 ordinary missionary will do well if he confines his energy to 
 one of the three faiths. As a matter of fact, most Indian 
 missionaries have worked among the Hindoo or the aboriginal 
 communities, who are vast enough. But Mr. Wilson was a 
 pioneer whose deliberate equipment, as well as his evangelic 
 ambition allowed no human or traditional substitute for 
 Christianity to remain unstudied or unattacked. The official, 
 civilian or soldier, however zealous, has to be content with 
 the indirect and frequently unconscious disintegration which 
 has been going on in India ever since Clive obtained the civil 
 government of Benares from the effete emperor, Shah Alum. 
 But, freed from the lower responsibility of political considera- 
 tions, Mr. Wilson could use all that makes the civilian efficient, 
 and press it home at once with a moral disinterestedness and 
 
140 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1831. 
 
 a spiritual force, which the natives, high and low, were not 
 slow to appreciate. Like the civilian, and to a far greater 
 extent than the average of the eight or nine hundred members 
 of the covenanted civil service who have always governed the 
 millions of India so well, he held the key to the ears and 
 hearts of the people in a knowledge of their languages and 
 hoary civilisations, Aryan and Semitic. Like the district 
 officer and commissioner, too, but with a freedom and over an 
 extent of territory they rarely know, he made his almost 
 annual tours, east and south and north, to the very centre of 
 India, to Goa, and again to the far Indus and the courts of 
 Eajpootana, till he knew peasant and prince, rude ascetic, 
 sacerdotal Brahman, and scornful Moulvie, as no one hedged 
 round by officialism could do. 
 
 Next to mastering the languages it was his object to 
 mix with the people who spoke them. His model was no 
 lower than " Our Lord and His apostles," with whom he had 
 more than once to silence ignorant critics in England. 
 "Wherever," he wrote, "the objects of their ministry most 
 advantageously presented themselves, they were prepared to 
 fulfil it. The temple, the synagogue, and the private apart- 
 ment ; the narrow street and the public highway ; the open 
 plain and the lofty mount ; the garden and the wilderness ; 
 the bank of the river and the margin of the sea ; were equally 
 hallowed by these heavenly teachers." And he, like them, 
 was in the East ! " But many say, ' Leave this preaching 
 without doors to native agents, who will be best able to bear 
 the exposure connected with it.' . . . Even after we have 
 been blessed, through God's mercy, with native preachers, 
 we must for some tune show them in our own persons the 
 lively example of an apostolic ministration. . . . Xenophon 
 remarked that the Asiatics would not fight unless under 
 Greek auxiliaries." The "exposure" Mr. Wilson ridiculed, 
 although his most fruitful tours were made at an early period, 
 
1831.] ON TOUR WITH JOHN WILSON. 141 
 
 when even roads were not, and a paternal government had 
 not doubled its debt to develop the resources of the country 
 by great public works. Barely did he find a comfortable post- 
 house or even tolerable resting-place when out of the beaten 
 track of military stations and civilian hospitalities. Studying 
 nature as well as man ; preaching, speaking, examining daily ; 
 keeping up the correspondence rendered necessary by his 
 supervision of the still infant Mission in Bombay ; answering 
 references of all kinds from missionaries, officials, and scholars, 
 he found because he made the tour a holiday. On such 
 occasions he carried a few books in an old satchel ; manuals, 
 sometimes in manuscript, of the botany, geology, and political 
 relations with the feudatory princes, being as indispensable as 
 the bundles of vernacular and Sanscrit writings which he cir- 
 culated. Thus he was never alone, and every tour added to 
 his multifarious collection of objects of natural history and 
 archaeology, to say nothing of Oriental MSS., on which he 
 lectured to his students and friends. When accompanied by 
 a brother missionary, and frequently by survey and settlement 
 officers, like Colonel Davidson, whom he met in his wander- 
 ings, he proved the most genial of companions. His stores of 
 information, old and new, interspersed with humorous anec- 
 dotes and a child-like fun, turned the frequent mishaps of 
 jungle journeys into sources of amusement. And then, when 
 the travelling or the preaching of the day was done, and the 
 rough dinner was over at the tent door or in the native 
 " dhurmsala," or enclosed quadrangle, there went up to heaven 
 the family supplication for Gentile and Jew, and dear ones 
 near and far away. To be on tour in the glorious cold season 
 of India, from November to March, is to enjoy life in the 
 purest and most intelligent fashion, whether it be in the 
 Viceroy's camp or in the more modest tent of the district 
 civilian. To be on a missionary tour with one who thus 
 understands the people and loves them, is to know the highest 
 form of enjoyment that travel can give. 
 
142 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1831. 
 
 Mr. Wilson's first tour commenced in the middle of Janu- 
 ary 1831, after a year of organising work in Bombay. His 
 companion was the Kev. Mr. Farrar, 1 of the Church Missionary 
 Society, who was just beginning to be able to speak to the 
 Marathas. They rode upwards of 400 miles. Their most 
 distant point was the sacred Brahmanical city of Nasik, on the 
 upper waters of the Godavery. They set out by the Bhore 
 Ghaut, now on the Madras line of railway, by Poona, and 
 Ahmednuggur, and returned by the Thull Ghaut, now ascended 
 by the railway to Calcutta. They sailed from Bombay to 
 Panwel, on the mainland, passing the cave-temple islands of 
 Elephanta, Salsette, and Karanja, which Mr. Wilson had pre- 
 viously visited with the civilian scholars Messrs. Law and 
 Webb. At the next village he met with the first specimens 
 of those aboriginal tribes of the jungle for whom he was to do 
 so much, the Katkarees, who prepare catechu. His first 
 view of the glories of the Ghauts of the Syhadree range he 
 thus describes : " As we rose from the valley a most majestic 
 scene began to unfold itself. When I beheld hill rising upon 
 hill, and mountain upon mountain the sun setting in glory 
 behind the towering clouds the distant ocean, forests, rivers, 
 and villages and when, looking around me, I observed, 
 amid this scene of grandeur, a single stone usurping the place 
 of Jehovah, the Creator of all, I felt and expressed the utmost 
 horror at idolatry, and the baseness, guilt, and stupidity of 
 man." 
 
 Some experience of Poona convinced him of the superior 
 importance of Bombay as a centre. On their way to Ahmed- 
 nuggur one of the servants was attacked by the Eamoshee 
 tribe of robbers, at that time scouring the country under their 
 famous leader Oomajee Naik, compared with whom, writes 
 
 1 Dr. "Wilson used to tell afterwards how he dandled Mr. Farrar's boy, the 
 present Canon Farrar, on his knee. But of his Anglo-Indian childhood 
 Canon Farrar assures us he has only a dim remembrance. 
 
 
1831.] STONED AT NASIK. 143 
 
 Mr. Wilson, Eob Roy might be reckoned an honest man. But 
 Nasik was the point of interest, a place of which Mr. Wilson 
 used to say that it first stoned him, and, forty years after, 
 would not allow him to leave Western India for a time 
 without presenting him with a eulogistic and grateful ad- 
 dress on parchment from its principal inhabitants of every 
 sect. Mrs. Wilson reports the visit in a letter, written home 
 in February 1831 : 
 
 " They visited many places by the way, preaching to immense 
 multitudes, and sleeping all night in temples, or outside of them, with 
 reeds for pillows. He gives me new and important information about 
 the incarnations of the gods, and the worship paid to them. ' Some of 
 the facts,' he says, ' are too horrible to relate. One temple has females 
 of abandoned character connected with it ; 1 but even this is not the 
 worst of its hidden mysteries of wickedness.' 
 
 "They began their preaching in the principal bazaar at the 
 Peshwa's palace. Their second place of addressing the natives was the 
 bank of the holy river (the Godavery), where the Brahmans were per- 
 forming ablutions. Here they had much discussion, but were prevented 
 from finishing their discourse by the hissings and hootings lavished 
 upon them by the Brahmans. On their return home they observed 
 even the Muhammadans doing homage to this river by pulling off their 
 shoes as they approached it. On the following day a great concourse of 
 visitors came to their bungalow, and they had many opportunities of 
 declaring the truths of the blessed Gospel. Even where a belief of the 
 truth has not been produced, a general scepticism regarding the Hindoo 
 religion has been the consequence of their ministrations and discussions ; 
 and in this city, which is ' wholly given to idolatry,' without even one 
 temple erected ' to the unknown God,' there has been an earthquake, 
 and a shaking among the dry bones. John describes the scenery around 
 Nasik as sublime and beautiful in no ordinary degree. The mountains 
 are very majestic; but everything is so associated with the reigning 
 superstition that one of .these is "called the bed of Rama. On its 
 summit there is a piece of table-land, with an elevated portion at the 
 extremity, which is supposed to be the couch of the god. The temples 
 form fine specimens of Hindoo architecture. The river is an object of 
 
 1 Most of the temples of any note have them as a regular part of their 
 establishment, and this, too, supported by the British Government ! J. W. 
 
144 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1831. 
 
 great attraction. Besides the great Rama-Kunda, or pool for bathing, 
 there are eleven other pools sacred to some of the gods. John looks 
 upon Nasik as one of the most important places in the Presidency for 
 missionary exertion. He says, however, that he would not wish to see 
 any one there but a person deeply versed in the Shastres and acquainted 
 with Sanscrit. He mentioned a circumstance which proves the ignor- 
 ance of the Brahmans, or how much the peculiarities of Hindooism 
 have passed into oblivion. They revere and are engaged in beautifying 
 the representations in some celebrated caves, 1 which are proved to be 
 of Buddhist origin, and once held in the utmost detestation by the 
 Brahmans. Mr. Wilson encountered a band of robbers on his way 
 home, but escaped from them unhurt. In consequence of the fatigue 
 of travelling and of constant preaching, he was taken ill on the road, 
 and fainted from exhaustion. ... He arrived in Bombay on Saturday 
 night, and you may judge what were our feelings of rapture on again 
 meeting. I think his health has profited by the excursion ; and he has 
 made an immense accession to his knowledge both of the languages and 
 customs of this people." 
 
 Nasik was soon after occupied by the Church Missionary- 
 Society, who have established there the Christian village of 
 Sharanpoor, an industrial settlement with a congregation of 
 five hundred, of whom some two hundred are communicants, 
 and a training school for freed Africans, who helped Dr. 
 Livingstone. The Godavery river, the scenery on the lower 
 reaches of which Sir Charles Trevelyan, when Governor of 
 Madras, compared to that of the Ehine between Coblentz and 
 Bingen, rises at the village of Trimbuk, only fifty miles from 
 the Indian Ocean at Bombay, and sixteen miles south-west of 
 Nasik. The Maratha Brahmans give out that its source is 
 connected, by a divine underground channel, with that of the 
 Ganges in the snows of the Himalayas. The traditional 
 fountain is a stone platform, approached by a flight of 690 
 stone steps, on a hill behind Trimbuk village. On to that 
 platform the stream falls from the rock, drop by drop, into 
 the mouth of an idol, out of which the water trickles into a 
 reservoir. Sir Eichard Temple, when Chief Commissioner of 
 
 1 At Lena, about six miles from Nasik. 
 
1832.] HIS SECOND TOUR TO JALNA. 145 
 
 the Central Provinces, sketched the beauties of the river 
 alike with brush and pen. It has been the scene of the 
 greatest successes as well as the most serious and expensive 
 failures of the Madras school of Irrigation. 1 
 
 Of the second tour, eastward to Jalna and the caves of 
 Elora, in the native State of Hyderabad, the country which 
 the British Government had saved for the Mzam all through 
 
 o 
 
 the chaos of Maratha, Hyder Ali, and Tippoo wars, we have 
 an account from Mr. Wilson's own pen, in letters to his wife. 
 At a time and in a country for the greater portion of which 
 there were no maps, we find the tour duly marked out in a 
 chart showing the road or track, on one side of it every village 
 with the number of its houses, and on the other the day and 
 date on which each was reached. The Eev. James Mitchell 
 was his companion. After Poona they walked or rode short 
 stages of from ten to fourteen miles a day at first. At 
 Alaudi, the first stage onward, they found a great assem- 
 blage for the festival of Inanoba, a god of whom Mr. Wilson 
 gives a humorous, but, towards the people, kindly account, 
 published in the Memoir of his wife. At the next village, 
 Phulshuhur, he inspected a settlement which was the first of 
 a curious experiment intended to train that most valuable 
 but neglected class, the East Indians, to agricultural pursuits. 
 Sir John Malcolm, in his farewell minute of 1830, had dis- 
 cussed the subject to which the present Governor of Bombay, 
 Sir K. Temple, has given attention. 
 
 "THE COLOSSAL PILLAR AT KORIGAUM. This monument was 
 erected by the British Government in commemoration of the brave 
 resistance made by Captain Staunton, of which you will see an account 
 in Hamilton's East India Gazetteer. The pillar is tastefully constructed. 
 It is in charge of a Sepoy, who was engaged in the action which it 
 commemorates. He gave us a plain account of the battle. 
 
 1 Grant's Gazetteer of the Central Provinces, 2d ed. ; and the monograph 
 of Mr. Morris on the Godavery District. 1878. 
 
 L 
 
146. LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1832. 
 
 "THE PATEL OR HEADMAN OF SHIKRAPOOR. After we had 
 preached in the village, and distributed books and tracts, the Patel 
 sent for us. The court of his house was large, but it bore marks of 
 decay. He received us very kindly, and invited us into an inner 
 apartment. As soon as we had sat down, he brought out a box con- 
 taining about twenty very handsome European engravings. He 
 requested us to translate all their titles into Marathee, and to write 
 them upon the covers. We complied with his request ; and he told 
 us that never in his life, advanced now to seventy years, had he met 
 such Sahebs as we. We preached the gospel to him ; and he furnished 
 us with pan supdri (betel nut and a green leaf), according to the 
 native custom. Mr. Mitchell had a great aversion to chew his offering, 
 and he almost spoilt our discourse by pleading in excuse the force of 
 habit. 
 
 " AHMEDABAD is situated to the westward of Seroor. The village 
 is much gone to decay, on account of the road to Poona having been 
 changed by the English. It is remarkable for nothing but the resi- 
 dence of the oldest representative of the once famous house of Pawar, 
 of which an interesting account is given by Sir John Malcolm. We 
 visited the old man, according to his personal invitation, and were 
 received with much kindness. We were surprised to find that he was 
 unable to read. He showed us the different buildings connected with 
 his wada, and we endeavoured to engage the interest of his mind by 
 giving him and his few attendants a simple statement of the gospel, 
 and by allowing him to view the neighbourhood through the medium 
 of Mr. Mitchell's telescope. 
 
 "WORSHIP OF HANUMAN, THE MONKEY GOD. In most of the 
 villages of the Dekhan there is a small temple of Hanuman, under the 
 name of Marwate, without the principal gate. The images are exceed- 
 ingly rude. They are liberally besmeared with red lead : and, alas ! 
 they are viewed as the guardians and benefactors of the neighbourhood, 
 and frequently resorted to. One of them fronted the place in which 
 we usually sat at Parner. The votaries generally walked twelve or 
 nineteen times round it, and prostrated themselves before it, and some- 
 times refrigerated it with cold water and adorned it with garlands. 
 A great majority of them were females demanding the boon of chil- 
 dren. The exercise which they take in connection with their worship 
 may not be without effect. 
 
 " THE CHARACTER OF THE NATIVES of these agricultural districts is 
 almost daily sinking in my estimation. Falsehood and dishonesty, and, 
 when practicable, incivility, are daily brought before my notice. Dnr- 
 
1832.] AMONG THE NATIVES. 147 
 
 ing the night which we spent in Jamgaum, we required a guard of two 
 Ramoshees, three Bheels, and two JMhars ! The latter individuals were 
 always on the watch to give the alarm. The others, who, as you know, 
 are professed robbers, think it beneath their dignity to keep their eyes 
 open, even when they are paid for their guardianship, and represent it 
 as necessary, as I believe it is, to the safety of travellers. When we 
 arrived at Nimba Dera, on the forenoon of Tuesday the 28th Novem- 
 ber, we were met by a most impertinent Brahman, who first by false- 
 hood, and afterwards by passion, endeavoured to drive us from the only 
 place where we could get shelter from the sun. He was joined by a 
 companion, who without hesitation united with him in wickedness. 
 Nothing but a severe reprimand, and the threat that we would 
 represent the matter to the Collector, effected anything. 
 
 " FAILURE OF THE CROPS. In some of the villages through which 
 we passed on our way to Nimba Dera, we were informed that, on 
 account of the great drought, the crops of the season had almost entirely 
 failed. Though the complaints of the natives were conveyed to us in 
 a tone which clearly intimated to us anything but resignation to the 
 divine will, they were very heartrending. Starvation appeared to be 
 apprehended by not a few, and, from the dread of it, many of the 
 inhabitants had departed with their cattle to the banks of the 
 Godavery and Kandesh. We distributed at several places a few 
 rupees, and they were received with joy. We endeavoured to im- 
 prove the righteous dispensation of divine providence, and we urged 
 upon all the acknowledgment of the supreme God, who alone can give 
 rain and fruitful seasons. 
 
 "THE JAGHEERDARS OF WAMBOOREE are sons to Balwant Rao 
 Nagunath, one of two officers to whose custody, in the fort of Shivaner, 
 Nana Furnavees entrusted Bajee Rao ; and his brother, Balwant Rao, 
 was thrown into a hill fort for permitting a correspondence between 
 Bajee Rao and his cousin Mahdoo Rao, the young Peshwa. We 
 informed them of our intention to call upon them ; and they expressed 
 their pleasure at the proposal. We went to them immediately after 
 dinner ; and we found that the two brothers (for we did not see a third) 
 had invited, in the expectation of seeing us, a great number of the 
 most respectable natives to assemble. We sat down on a mat which 
 they spread out for us, and entered freely into conversation with them, 
 and especially with the elder brother, who is styled Dajee Saheb. We 
 found them very inquisitive and polite, and much more accommodating 
 in their feelings than many other Brahmaixs of less significance. They 
 asked us to give them a general view of the Christian religion. They 
 
148 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1832. 
 
 were much interested in the statement given, and tolerant of the 
 objections made against Hindooism. They discoursed with us a short 
 time on the subject of education, and seemed pleased with the notice 
 which we took of their children. When I pressed upon one of the 
 boys the necessity of application to his studies, the father said ' now 
 you must give your whole mind to the subject, and when Mr. Wilson 
 returns to Wambooree you shall have his approbation.' We spoke to 
 them on the subject of female education, and told them that the 
 Governor was greatly pleased with the Kaja of Satara for having taught 
 his daughter. I told them about the progress of female education in 
 Bombay ; and they were delighted to hear that you could speak 
 Marathee and Hindostanee, and had so many girls under your care. 
 The musical boxes and some other curiosities quite charmed them. 
 On parting with them they expressed their highest satisfaction with us. 
 We presented them with two fine-bound New Testaments, and a copy 
 of the Exposure of Hindooism, etc., and distributed among the assembly 
 a considerable number of Gospels and tracts. Dajee Saheb and two of his 
 sons visited us in the evening, and stayed with us upwards of two hours. 
 He looked at the comet, the planets, and the moon, through Mr. 
 Mitchell's telescope, and maintained a very long and very interesting 
 conversation with me about the religion, manners and customs, govern- 
 ment, education, climate, public institutions, etc., of Britain, and the 
 merits of Hindooism. I have never found a native more desirous of 
 information than he appeared to be ; and if any weight is to be 
 attached to his declarations, it may be concluded that he was never 
 more interested in any European than in the Missionaries. I was 
 quite overcome with fatigue when he left us; and, considering the 
 fulness and frequency with which the Gospel had been preached during 
 the day, the numbers and attention of the auditors, and the precious 
 portions of divine truth put into circulation, I could not but devoutly 
 thank God for his great goodness towards us. 
 
 "VISIT TO SONAI AND INTERVIEW WITH THE JAINS. At Sonai 
 
 our labours were very comfortable. Great numbers of the natives 
 attended and received from our lips and our hands the doctrines of 
 salvation. A Jain appeared to be particularly impressed ; he took 
 down my address and promised to call on me in Bombay. We 
 addressed many individuals of his creed during the day, who were 
 Marwarees, and the principal corn merchants in the town. They 
 allowed the existence of one God in a manner inconsistent with the 
 tenets of their sect ; but they violently contended for the identity of 
 life as diffused throughout all kinds of existences. It was very difficult, 
 
1832.] AMONG THE NATIVES THE DROUGHT. 149 
 
 from the view which they took of this subject, to bring home the 
 charge of guilt to their consciences. We opposed their statements by 
 bringing before their notice the non-intelligence of the brute creation 
 as contrasted with the intelligence and progressive improvement of 
 man, and the ignorance and sin of man as contrasted with the 
 knowledge and goodness of that Intelligence which we affirmed to pre- 
 side over the universe. In the course of the day a learned Brahman, 
 who was listening to me, burst forth into a great passion. ' It would 
 be well,' he said, on leaving the circle, ' that you sported your senti- 
 ments only among the learned. You will infallibly confound the 
 ignorant.' I expressed my hope that his prophecy would prove true, 
 and I took advantage of his exhibition to show to all around the 
 propriety of the word of God being made known to all. 
 
 " VISIT TO HIWAKA AND THE FAUJDAR. We arrived at Hiwara on 
 the morning of the 30th November, and we took up our abode in a 
 mosque. We called upon Muhammad Kaim, who is styled the Faujdar, 
 and who resides in a large castle belonging to himself. He is the son 
 of the late Nuwab Kavi Jang, and a very interesting old man. He is 
 the descendant of an adopted son, Turk-Tas-Khan, a native of Bokhara, 
 who came to the Dekhan with Aurungzeb, and who, after a variety of 
 distinguished military adventures, was appointed Faujdar of Ahmed- 
 nugger. He has been particularly friendly to the English, and he 
 showed us several certificates bearing testimony to the fact which he 
 had received from several gentlemen. He treated us with sherbet from 
 a bottle from which the Duke of Wellington, etc., had drank in former 
 days. His son called upon us in the evening, and we presented him 
 with the New Testament in Persian, Hindostanee, and Marathee, and 
 with copies of the l Remarks on Muhammadanism.' The family is 
 now very poor, having only a pension of Rs.61 per month. We enjoyed 
 a fine view of the country from the top of the castle. Many fertile 
 spots were visible, but the whole region showed the want of rain. 
 
 " PRAWARA SANGAM, AND TOKA, 1st December. The road from 
 Hiwara to Prawara Sangam leads through a part of the country dis- 
 tinguished by an excellent soil, but at this season suffering considerably 
 from the drought. We had no opportunities of preaching on the 
 way ; but we had no sooner finished our day's journey than we were 
 surrounded by great crowds of Brahmans and other natives, who 
 evinced the greatest eagerness to hear our discourses and to receive our 
 books, and who had an opportunity of gratifying their desires on four 
 or five occasions. They behaved with the greatest civility, and treated 
 us with much respect. In the evening we took a walk on the banks 
 
150 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1832. 
 
 of the Godavery. It is at this place, and even at this season, a very 
 considerable stream. Numbers of the Brahmans were performing 
 their evening ablutions at the spot where the river Prawara enters it. 
 They form a numerous class in the neighbourhood. In Prawara 
 Sangam there are a hundred houses of them ; in Toka, which is 
 situated on the opposite bank, there is the same number ; and in 
 Gaigaam, about half a quarter of a mile farther down the river, there 
 are about ninety houses. Many of them engage in agriculture, but a 
 great source of their support is the dalcshina (alms) which they receive 
 from the pilgrims who come to bathe in the holy waters. This cluster 
 of villages, and Nasik and Paithan, form the only sacred towns on the 
 Godavery which are situated in the Marathee country. I should 
 think that their celebrity is on the decline. The progress of know- 
 ledge, and the increasing poverty of the people, contribute principally 
 to the destruction of the pristine zeal. No true philanthropist can 
 regret the circumstance, for nothing can be more melancholy than the 
 delusion under which men labour when they believe that they can 
 wash away their sins in .a river, and acquire a stock of merit by all the 
 trouble, fatigue, and expense which they incur in the fulfilment of 
 their wishes. In the course of the day we had laboured much to 
 expose it, and, I trust, with some effect. None of the natives, like 
 Shookaram Shastree, at the first discussions in Bombay, alluded to any 
 sacramental use of the waters a circumstance which is worthy of 
 notice, and particularly as we had intercourse with the most learned 
 Shastree. The benefit of ablution was argued to be positive, to be an 
 invaluable and unavoidable blessing to all who use it, according to the 
 many promises and declarations of the Shastres relative to the virtues 
 of the Ganges. The Hindoos and Eoman Catholics are wonderfully 
 agreed about the efficacy of rites intrinsically considered. On returning 
 home we saw a very large and splendid meteor proceeding in a direc- 
 tion horizontal to the earth. It was visible for a considerable time. 
 The natives assured us that a few days ago hundreds of a similar 
 nature were seen, and that they were greatly terrified by the unusual 
 occurrence. 
 
 "At Toka we went to the house of Baba Shastree, the richest 
 Brahman in the place, and we were rather surprised to find him 
 desirous of conducting us into an inner apartment of the upper story. 
 We were happy to perceive the liberality of his sentiments and feelings, 
 and we had no objections to gratify him. We found a respectable 
 congregation assembled, and we gave a general view of the Gospel, and 
 of the objections which we commonly urge against Hindooism. We 
 
1832.] THE E. I. COMPANY'S SUPPORT OF IDOLATRY. 151 
 
 were heard with respect, and nothing was urged in reply to us except 
 the encouragement granted by Europeans to idolatry. Augustus 
 Brookes of Benares, known among the natives as Gasti Brtik, it was said, 
 had become a convert to Hindooism. The E. I. Company was liberal 
 in its donations to temples. The great Saheb, Governor Elphinstone, 
 had distributed money among the Brahmans when he visited Toka, 
 and had given a salaarn and Us. 100 to the god. The Collectors were in 
 the habit of employing Brahmans to perform anusthans for rain, etc. 
 It was exceedingly difficult to deal with the observations which they 
 made on these subjects. I told them, on the information of the late 
 Dr. Turner, Bishop of Calcutta, communicated to me during his visit 
 to Bombay, that Mr. Brookes had expressed his regret for the counte- 
 nance which he had given to the delusions of the natives ; that it was 
 not to be concluded that, because the Company had continued the 
 revenue of temples, it approved of these temples, and that I hoped that 
 it would soon see the impropriety and sin of giving any support 
 to them ; that I could not credit the statements given about Mr. 
 Elphinstone, a gentleman who greatly promoted the improvement of 
 the natives, and who subscribed to the propagation of the gospel, and 
 that the Es.100 were probably placed by the Brahmans without his 
 consent before the idol ; and that, while the anushtans were performed 
 to please the natives, the payment of them by the Company, and every 
 other species of encouragement granted to idolatry, was decidedly 
 sinful. I also expressed my hope that the time was at hand when 
 right views on these subjects, and other practices sanctioned without 
 consideration, would generally prevail among Europeans. All the 
 Brahmans admitted the propriety of the Company, as a Christian Govern- 
 ment, giving nothing more than toleration to the Hindoo religion. Their 
 wishes, I doubt not, were nevertheless what we might expect them 
 to be. 
 
 " At half-past nine o'clock he invited us to return to his lodgings, 
 with the view of witnessing a display of fireworks, and the performance 
 of native musicians, etc., which he intended as a compliment to us. 
 We explained our views of the sanctity of the Sabbath ; and it was 
 with great difficulty that he accepted of our refusal. "We gave him 
 credit for his intentions ; and I have no doubt that his respect for us 
 was increased by our consistency. I should have mentioned before, 
 that I asked him why he had left the * holy city ' of Kashee (Benares), 
 and come on a journey to Toka in search of merit. He pleaded the 
 respect of his family for the idol at Toka. When I told him that in 
 the Marathee language the term Ivdshikare was equivalent to that of an 
 
152 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1832. 
 
 arch-villain, and that the circumstance told little in favour of the 
 1 sacredness ' of Varandsi, he laughed very heartily. 
 
 " In the evening we rode on to Shapura. The noise of our pro- 
 ceedings at Toka, etc., had reached the village before us ; and, long 
 after the sun had gone down, the inhabitants voluntarily came to us as 
 a body to hear the glad tidings. Though we were much exhausted, we 
 both preached to them. They expressed, like many of their country- 
 men, great readiness to add the name of Christ to the calendar of their 
 gods ; and we urged His exclusive claims to their love and adoration. 
 
 " ELORA, 4th December. After a Very fatiguing ride in the sun 
 we arrived at Roza. At this place there is a bungalow belonging to a 
 Mussulman gentleman ; but we found it occupied by two officers. They 
 did not invite us to come in ; and, after tying our ponies to a branch 
 of a tree, and engaging in social worship, we stretched ourselves on the 
 stone floor of a large mausoleum, built by the Emperor Aurungzeb. 
 We took our breakfast, at one o'clock ; and proceeded to make our first 
 visit to Kailas, the principal Brahmanical excavation of Elora. We 
 remained in it till after sunset, examining its many wonders and 
 curiosities. 
 
 " 5th December. We set out very early in the morning to the 
 excavations. We commenced with those situated in the northern part 
 of the hill, and went regularly through them all proceeding to the 
 south. We gave them a very minute examination ; and I wrote down 
 50 pages of notes on them, of which the following is a summary : 
 The caves are situated in a ridge of hills which run north and south, 
 with an inclination in the centre towards the east. They are not far 
 from the base of the hills ; and the entrance to them commands a very 
 extensive and interesting view of the Dekhan towards the west. The 
 rock out of which they are cut is of the trap formation, and well 
 suited for their marvellous workmanship. They are undoubtedly of 
 three different kinds, Jain, Buddhist, and Brahmanical. The Jain 
 caves are situated in the northern part of the hills, the Brahmanical in 
 the centre, and the Buddhist in the south. It is difficult to say which 
 of them are the most extensive and interesting. The Brahmanical 
 excel as works of art. The accounts which are given of their wonder- 
 ful structure do not, on the whole, fall beyond the truth. The Buddhist 
 caves, from the nature of the workmanship, and from the appearance 
 of the rock, appear to me to be the most ancient. 
 
 " I preached the gospel in the temple of Kailas to thirty natives, 
 and Mr. Mitchell followed me. Little did the formers of this wonder- 
 ful structure anticipate an event of this kind. We are in all probability 
 
1832.] PEE ACHES IN. THE KAILAS OF ELORA. 153 
 
 the first messengers of peace who have declared within it the claims of 
 Jehovah, announced his solemn decree to abolish the idols, and en- 
 treated his rebellious children to accept of the mercy proposed through 
 His Son. Some of our auditors pointed to the magnificent arches and 
 stupendous figures around us, as the very works of God's own hand ; 
 but we pointed them to the marks of the instruments of the mason, 
 to the innumerable proofs of decay everywhere exhibited, and to the 
 unsuitableness, absurdity,- and impiety of the representations. We 
 directed their minds to Him ' Who sitteth upon the circle of the earth, 
 and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers, That stretcheth out the 
 heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in ; ' 
 and we called upon them ' to lift up their eyes on high, and behold 
 Who hath erected these things, That bringeth out their host by number : 
 Who calleth them all by names, by the greatness of His might, for that 
 He is strong in power ; not one faileth.' They could not resist our 
 appeal ; but in all probability we had not long left them, when they 
 would practically deny their own admissions. 
 
 " DOWLUTABAD. We departed from Koza late in the evening ; but 
 before leaving it we inspected the graves of the illustrious Aurungzeb, 
 his son, and several other distinguished personages. The Mussulmans 
 had lights burning near them, and evidently viewed them as possessed 
 of no small degree of sacredness. Our ride to Dowlutabad was down a 
 steep hill. We travelled by moonlight. The gates of the fort were 
 shut when we arrived, and it was in vain that we sought admission. 
 We slept for a few hours in a shed. 
 
 " AURUNGABAD, 6th December. We rose early in the morning, and 
 after examining the curious fort of Dowlutabad, which is very correctly 
 described by Hamilton, we proceeded to Aurungabad. We took up our 
 residence in an empty bungalow in the cantonments. In the evening 
 we walked into the city, conversed with a few Mussulmans, and dis- 
 tributed among them Hindostanee tracts. They showed us a very 
 splendid mosque. 
 
 " JILGAUM, 7th December. We rode through Aurungabad. A great 
 part of its site is a mere ruin, and a great part of it within the walls 
 seems to have been used as a burying-ground. From the gate at which 
 we entered to that at which we came out is a distance of nearly three 
 miles. We arrived at Jilgaum, distant from Aurungabad about twenty 
 miles, at noon. We had suffered a great deal from the heat, and we 
 resolved never, without absolute necessity, to expose ourselves in this 
 manner again. Our luggage did not come up till about 4 o'clock 
 P.M., and we were not a little anxious on account of our fatigue and 
 
154 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1332. 
 
 hunger. We had not the consolation that we were called to endure 
 either in the cause of duty. They were the result of our own im- 
 prudent arrangements. 
 
 " In the evening I preached in Hindostanee, and Mr. Mitchell 
 preached in Marathee. We gave few books away. Most of the in- 
 habitants are Mussulmans. The hills which we crossed at Ellora 
 appear to be the natural boundary of the Marathee language in this 
 direction, though many of the cultivators, as far as we have yet come, 
 understand and speak it. 
 
 " JALNA. At Jalna, which is twenty-one miles east of Jilgaum, 
 we arrived at ten o'clock. We were received with much warmth and 
 kindly feeling by Captain Wahab. There are several young officers and 
 their wives, who are in very hopeful circumstances ; and who may 
 receive much benefit from our visit. I baptized the child of Lieutenant 
 
 . She is an illegitimate of three years old, and a sweet -looking 
 
 little girl. I have had much satisfaction in conversing with the father, 
 who appears a true penitent. I was asked to-day to baptize another 
 child ; but the father did not meet my views. To-morrow I intend to 
 baptize the infant of Captain Tompkins. He is a convert of Henry 
 Martyn, but he dislikes the English form of baptism. He is an ex- 
 cellent person, and useful as an instructor of the heathen. 
 
 " On Tuesday we preached to a large and noisy audience in the 
 bazaar, and distributed a considerable number of books, which were 
 received with much eagerness. One of the tracts, the Remarks oil 
 Muhammadanism, was handed up to the Colonel commanding the station, 
 by, we believe, some European officer ; and his fears have been so much 
 excited by the reports from Bangalore that he requested us to circulate 
 no more copies at present in the cantonment. We explained the nature 
 of the tract to him, and we told him that in the circumstances of the 
 case we should not continue to distribute it. 
 
 " 15 th December. Since I last wrote to you the enemy of souls 
 has been busy at this station, and he has succeeded in stirring up two 
 or three of his European votaries to represent to the authorities here 
 that our tracts are calculated to excite to sedition, to recall a great 
 number of them and consign them to the flames, and to advise the 
 total prohibition of any further circulation. The consequence is that 
 we have been forbidden to circulate any more, and that, in our present 
 circumstances, we have seen it expedient to dismiss all further applica- 
 tions. I doubt not that in a few days shame will cover those who have 
 thus opposed the work of God. Indeed, they already begin to feel its 
 burnings. You must not imagine from what I have now said that our 
 
 
1832.] A COLONEL STOPS HIS WOHK. 155 
 
 residence here has become unprofitable or unpleasant. The very con- 
 trary is the case. Our pious friends have cleaved more closely than 
 ever ; and even those who were formerly indifferent have been in some 
 degree interested. We have received and accepted an invitation for 
 dinner from one of the informers. 
 
 " I received a severe kick from a horse, which has laid me up for a 
 little. I have suffered a great deal of pain from the blow, which was 
 inflicted on the front bone of my right leg below the knee ; but I have 
 reason to be thankful that no serious danger is apprehended. At first 
 I had a few convulsive shocks ; but they soon went off. I am entirely 
 free from sickness, and the injury appears inconsiderable. 
 
 " 22c? December. I am now so well that I write to you upon my 
 chair. D.V. I preach to-morrow evening sitting. On Monday I pro- 
 pose to set out for my dearest love. I have engaged twelve porters to 
 carry me down for Rs.112. 
 
 " On the evening in which I received the injury, and before its 
 infliction, we had an interesting interview with four Hindoo sectaries, 
 who denominate themselves Mdnbhdvas. Their tenets appear to me to 
 be similar to those of the late Narayan Swami of Goojarat. They dis- 
 claim on their own account, but not on account of the ignorant, the 
 practice of ceremonies, and profess to rest all their hopes of salvation, 
 as their name implies, on their faith. They profess to view the 
 narratives of the Puranas as authentic history ; but they hold that their 
 narratives are inapplicable in practice to the circumstances of those who 
 devote themselves to the contemplation of the one God without form 
 and without quality. We pointed out the inadequacy and the errors 
 of their views ; and urged them to prosecute inquiry. One of them, 
 who took the lead in the conversation, and who appeared to possess a 
 considerable degree of learning, acknowledged the truth of our observa- 
 tions, but expressed his displeasure that we should have made known 
 our views to the ignorant who surrounded us. He thus acted in the 
 true spirit of Hindooism. 
 
 "PAITHAN, 27th December. Immense multitudes of the people 
 came to the mosque to receive books, and to listen to our discourses. 
 In this circumstance I see the goodness of God. Had they not visited 
 us I must have been unable to preach to them on account of my leg. 
 In the evening we went to Shivagaum, which belongs to the Company. 
 The natives showed greater kindness to us on our arrival than their 
 neighbours in the Nizam's country have been accustomed to do. They 
 are more familiar with the English character than the trans-Goda- 
 verians, and they are perhaps afraid to practise insolence. 
 
156 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1833. 
 
 " NANDOOR NIMBHA AND SHINGWA, 28th December. We left Shiva- 
 gaum early in the morning, and proceeded to Nandoor Nimbha. This 
 village is small, and almost all the male inhabitants of it, and a few 
 females, had an opportunity of hearing the Gospel. We offered them 
 Rs.8 for their village gods ; but they said that they were afraid to 
 part with them. We proposed that the power of the idols should be 
 put to the test ; and to our astonishment they consented. The head- 
 man handed a large club to Mr. Mitchell, for the purpose of striking 
 them ; and he dealt out three heavy blows upon Hanuman. His lord- 
 . ship received them with great meekness, and without showing the least 
 symptom of displeasure. The villagers stood aghast ; but they im- 
 mediately destroyed their convictions by alleging that our virtue gave 
 us a great power over the gods, which they could never exercise. 
 Death, they said, would be the consequence of their inflicting a blow. 
 Thus Satan preserves them in their strong delusions. 
 
 " JUNAR, 6th January 1833. We arrived in the oldest city of the 
 Dekhan in the evening. The country through which we passed 
 appeared to be very fertile. We at first took up our abode in the 
 Chawadi, but Mr. Escombe of the civil service kindly invited us to his 
 house. In the morning I had a long debate with a learned Brahman. 
 He made a keen but very unsuccessful defence of his cause. All the sins 
 of the gods he ascribed to Maya, which he represented as the produc- 
 tion of Brahma. He thus laid himself open to the charge of blasphemy, 
 which I did not fail to urge upon him. After he left me I had an 
 interview with a Musulman Jagheerdar, to whom I presented a Persian 
 Testament. He appeared to be liberal in his sentiments, and of the 
 Shia sect. 
 
 "MARA INDIAN PLAYERS, 5th January. We found the village 
 quite crowded with people, who had come from the neighbourhood to 
 observe the tirus of a Muhammadan Peer (saint). We could scarcely 
 get any place in which we could pass the night. At length we got our 
 cot placed in a small thatched temple, in which about twenty-five 
 natives were sitting. We preached in the street in moonlight. After 
 we had lain down to sleep a company of strolling players commenced 
 operations about four or five yards from us, and fully in our view. 
 The actors were about ten in number, and three of them were men 
 dressed in women's clothes. They sang a great number of songs, using 
 various instruments as accompaniments ; and they acted a great many 
 characters. Some of their representations were licentious in the ex- 
 treme, and some of them appeared to afford a great deal of amusement 
 to the spectators ; one of them showed the real feeling with which 
 
1833.] A HINDOO COMEDY. 157 
 
 many of the Brahmans are regarded. A Maratha made his appearance 
 at the gate of a village with all the habiliments of a Bhatta. His head 
 was shaven and shorn, with the exception of the Shendi. In his hand 
 he carried the usual priestly staff and brazen vessel. His Kamarband 
 (waistcloth) was wrapt round the upper part of his hand, but one of 
 his arms was free. On his head was the' small red nightcap. He 
 strutted about with an air of great importance ; and he seemed irritated 
 when he found the gate of the village shut. He demanded admission, 
 and a voice from within was heard, Who calls. " Who calls," says the 
 priest, " I am Narayana Bhatta on my way to my Yajamdn (consti- 
 tuents)." " Your constituents have given me no intimation of your 
 arrival," quoth the village watchman. " Strange ! " said the Brahman, 
 " but who art thou ;" "I am the village Mhar " was quickly responded. 
 The Bhatta hugged up his shoulders, and turned up his nose in the 
 expression of consummate contempt. Some of the Yajaman made their 
 appearance, and forth came shlokas (verses) in abundance. They consisted 
 of nonsensical words with Sanscrit terminations ; they were delivered 
 with an air of indescribable conceit ; and the most absurd interpreta- 
 tion was made of them. The people listened with apparent gravity ; 
 but the Bhatta had no sooner collected the offerings presented to him, 
 and taken his departure, than they began to ridicule him. The sport 
 was concluded at the very genteel hour of twenty minutes past three 
 on the following morning, when the villagers, most of whom were 
 Hindoos, set out for their homes. 
 
 " KALYAN, 9th January. We passed through Kahata on our way 
 to Kallian. The villagers assembled in considerable numbers to hear 
 the Gospel ; but we remarked that the facilities for collecting them are 
 not so great in the Konkan as in the Dekhan. In the former province 
 the villages are all enclosed within walls, and their houses are not so 
 scattered as those in the villages below the Ghat. In the Dekhan, 
 moreover, there is generally an open space near one of the gates where 
 all business is transacted, and where we can always find auditors without 
 much trouble, and to which there is nothing correspondent in the 
 Konkan. The villages on the sea-coast, however, have one advantage. 
 They are on the whole more thriving and populous." 
 
 Jalna, where for the hour the military authorities opposed 
 Mr. Wilson's benevolent work even more effectually than the 
 Brahmans had done in the previous year at Nasik, has, like 
 that station, since become the scene of the very successful 
 
158 LIFE OF JOHN WILSOX. [1833 
 
 mission conducted by the Eev. Narayan Sheshadri, one of 
 the Mission converts. This tour deserves notice on its 
 European side. Chaplains, still too few for the wants of the 
 troops, or so employed that the troops are not cared for first, 
 were fewer still before the Charter of 1833 enlarged the 
 ecclesiastical establishment. A sacerdotal conflict between 
 the Metropolitan of Calcutta and the Government of India 
 first led Lord William Bentinck to decide, as had been done 
 in 1813, that the chaplains are the officials of Government, 
 just as the churches are its property. The English in India 
 were too few, and heathenism was too strong for sectarian 
 bigotry to have then shown itself. In the time of Claudius 
 Buchanan, the author of the ecclesiastical establishment, and 
 till the arrival of Bishop Middleton and Dr. Bryce in Calcutta, 
 such a spirit was unknown. Hence Mr. Wilson preached in 
 the Jalna Church, and in the same service the chaplain from 
 Secunderabad read prayers previous . to the sermon. The 
 Presbyterian's comment is "This was very liberal." But 
 when, soon after, the Bishop, Daniel Wilson, made his first 
 metropolitan tour after his defeat by Lord William Bentinck, 
 he forbade this " irregularity" in a general circular to the 
 chaplains. Long after, his noble successor, Bishop Cotton, 
 arranged with Government that the ecclesiastical buildings 
 of the State should be used, when necessary, for Presbyterian 
 _as well as Episcopalian services. 
 
 Having thus surveyed the Marathee-speaking country 
 north-west to Nasik and south-west to Poona, and thence 
 into the native State of the Muhammadan Mzam of Hydera- 
 bad, Mr. Wilson gave up the cold season of 1833-34 to the 
 southern Maratha country and the adjoining settlement of 
 the Portuguese at Goa. His colleague, the Eev. James 
 Mitchell, was again his companion. A sea passage of fifteen 
 hours took them to the old scenes at Hurnee, and thence to 
 the southern boundary of the former Konkan mission. At 
 
1833.] IITNDOOISM BEIXG UNDEKMINED. 159 
 
 the shrine of the elepharit-god Gunesh, endowed with 120 
 a year, paid at that time through the British Government, an 
 incident occurred which is a parallel to Cicero's remark on 
 the two Augurs. An old Brahman, who had come from 
 Satara to see the god, was reproved because, at the close of a 
 meal and before he had performed ablution, he had happened 
 to touch one of the officiating priests. The old man imme- 
 diately retorted, "Hullo, my religious friend, you have for- 
 gotten to wipe the sandal- wood from your forehead" in 
 other words, you have either forgotten to-day to purify your- 
 self or to remove the sign of your uncleanness. The priest 
 confessed that he stood corrected, and he gave a hypocritical 
 laugh. He had pretended holiness to gain the respect of the 
 stranger Brahman. At a village farther south, when passing 
 the tombs usually erected over widows who have burned 
 with their dead husbands, Mr. Wilson expressed his feelings 
 to a Brahman, who replied that he approved of Suttee, but 
 did not find fault with the British. Government for abolishing 
 it. To him, as to the mass of Hindoos, the order of an abso- 
 lute Government was sufficient to alter or prohibit even a 
 religious rite, when that was contrary to natural religion or 
 morality ; just as the teaching of an absolute priesthood had, 
 by a previous generation, been accepted as an authority for 
 burning widows who, if childless, otherwise enjoyed the life- 
 rent of their husbands' estates. The natural spring at this 
 shrine was believed to come, underground, from the Ganges, 
 hundreds of miles to the north, wherefore Mr. Wilson read to 
 the worshippers notes which he had taken of the lectures on 
 hydrography in the University of Edinburgh. His explana- 
 tion was confirmed by a young English-speaking Hindoo, 
 whom he had known in Bombay, and who had come from a 
 distance of ten miles to pay his respects to the missionary. 
 Thus already, in four years, the merely scientific truth radi- 
 ating out from Bombay, through English, into the jungles 
 
160 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1833. 
 
 of Maharashtra, and the notes of an Edinburgh lecture-room 
 were used to overthrow Gunesh with the aid of an educated 
 Hindoo. Farther on Mr. Wilson saved from the infamy of 
 their lives, in future, a widow and two daughters who asked 
 alms for the temple to which they were attache'd, by arranging 
 to send them to a destitute girls' school which he had opened 
 in Bombay. They proved in after years to be devoted 
 Christians. 
 
 The connection between the Government and idolatry 
 was found at almost every step. At Kampta the town-clerk, 
 a learned Brahman, " told us that the whole village belonged 
 to Bhagwati (an idol), and that the English Government was 
 so kind as to collect and pay over the revenue to the idol. I 
 expressed my deep regret to him that, in making the settle- 
 ment of the country, the Company's servants had fallen into 
 the error and sin of associating themselves with superstition ; 
 and informed him that many of them were aware of the evil, 
 and that it would probably soon be rectified. There is 
 scarcely a temple in this part of the country which has not an 
 allowance from the revenue. The Mahalkaree of Kharipatan 
 showed me a list of the sums granted in his district. I was 
 perfectly thunderstruck on reading it. Even temples that are 
 almost forsaken by the natives are not overlooked. Ten or 
 twelve of this description had allowance of five or six rupees 
 per annum. I asked how these sums were expended. ' In 
 buying light for the god/ was his reply. ' The allowance,' he 
 added, ' is charitable ; many Brahinans, also, have grants.' I 
 trust that the time is not far distant when all these sums will 
 be profitably employed in promoting the education of the 
 people." 
 
 That is the sort of disestablishment which the British 
 Government, as such, can do little directly to bring about as 
 the crowning result of its subsequent efforts to leave all man- 
 agement of the shrines to the worshippers, and all disputes 
 
1834.] GOA AND CLAUDIUS BUCHANAN. 161 
 
 about the property to the ordinary civil courts. But the time 
 is not so hopelessly distant as may appear at first, when Mr. 
 Wilson's foresight may be justified, by the educated natives 
 themselves insisting on saving from the fraudulent greed of 
 their priests the enormous endowments intended in many 
 cases to act as a poor-law, and transferring them to the edu- 
 cation of their children, for which they are now compelled to 
 pay a cess on the land-tax. 
 
 At Vingorla, a port to which the frequent famines have 
 led Government to direct their attention recently as likely to 
 be the best on the Western coast, next to Bombay itself, for 
 the import or export of grain, Mr. Wilson and his companion 
 took boat again for Teracol, the first village belonging to the 
 Portuguese. Just a quarter of a century had passed since, in 
 1808, Goa, the capital of all that was left of the once promis- 
 ing empire of Vasco de Gama and Albuquerque, which 
 Camoens had sung in his Lusiad, had been visited by a 
 Christian ecclesiastic whom, in many respects, John Wilson 
 closely resembled. Claudius Buchanan was the son of an 
 elder of the Kirk, who was the parish schoolmaster of Cam- 
 buslang during Whitefield's preaching. He was educated at 
 Glasgow University, was for some time tutor in the old Scot- 
 tish family of the Campbells of Dunstaffnage, and was about 
 to become a preacher of the Church of Scotland, when, fired 
 by the experience of Goldsmith, he determined first to see the 
 world of Europe. His wanderings ended in the completion of 
 his studies at Cambridge under Isaac Milner, whence the first 
 of the Clapham men, Mr. Henry Thornton, sent him out to 
 Calcutta as a Company's chaplain in 1*796. There his studies, 
 his travels, and his researches soon marked him out to Lord 
 Wellesley and Lord Minto as an adviser on all educational, 
 philanthropic, and scholarly questions. His writings so influ- 
 enced public opinion in England, that Parliament in 1813 
 created the ecclesiastical establishment which Charles Grant 
 
 M 
 
162 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1834. 
 
 and Wilberforce, though aided by Pitt and Dundas, had failed 
 to force on the East India Company in the Charter of 1793 ; 
 that steps were taken to prohibit self-immolation under the 
 car of Jugganath and the pilgrim-tax ; and that the Inquisi- 
 tion was for ever abolished in Portuguese India in 1812. The 
 same evangelical charity, the same scholarly research, the same 
 intellectual breadth of view, the same zeal for the propagation 
 of Christian truth in the East, marked the two Scotsmen, the 
 one Episcopalian the other Presbyterian. Mr. Wilson does 
 not fail to note in the Journal of his visit to Goa, that it was 
 " the first since the days of Claudius Buchanan expressly made 
 for the circulation of the Scriptures and other missionary 
 operations." Dr. Buchanan's visit to Goa was memorable from 
 his intercourse with Josephus a Doloribus, one of the Grand 
 Inquisitors, whose admissions are most important as to the 
 fairness of the account of his two years' sufferings under the 
 order of the tribunal by the French adventurer and physician 
 Dellon in 1673-5. 1 In 1808 there were upwards of three 
 thousand priests belonging to Goa, and those whom Dr. Buch- 
 anan saw declared they would gladly receive copies of the 
 Latin and Portuguese Yulgate from the hands of the English 
 nation. 
 
 Mr. Wilson had one advantage during his visit in 1834. 
 The recent political changes in the mother country, and the 
 absence of the Archbishop, made the authorities and priests 
 more liberal in their intercourse with him. 
 
 " TERACOL, 28th Jan. 1834. We took an early opportunity of visit- 
 ing the fort. It is in charge of an old officer, Captain de Silva. He has 
 been 44 years in India, and never expects to return to Portugal, which 
 he left when he was 14 years old. We conversed with him about the 
 political aifairs of Portugal and other subjects. He told us that Donna 
 Maria had been proclaimed in all the Goanese territories about two 
 weeks ago, and gave us some of the orders of the day to read. He 
 
 1 Relation de I 'Inquisition de Goa ; a Amsterdam, 1719 ; also, Christian 
 Researches in Asia, by the Rev. Claudius Buchanan, D.D. 
 
1834.] THE ROMISH CLERGY OF GOA. 163 
 
 represented the whole province as in a state of perfect quietness. I 
 offered a Portuguese Bible to him. He said that almost the only book 
 which he read was a short treatise on the sufferings of Christ by 
 D' Almeida ; but he intimated his readiness to accept a Bible, provided 
 his padre would allow him. The padre was sent for. I held a long 
 conversation with him in Latin. He granted permission to the Captain 
 to receive the Bible, and on my offering one to himself, he said, Habeo 
 tibi gratias. He gave me an account of the state of the Komish 
 Church in the territories of Goa, and in return I described to him 
 the state and principles of the Churches of Scotland and England. He 
 showed us his chapel, remarking parva est. Pointing to the different 
 figures near the altar, he denominated them imago Salvatoris, imago 
 mirificce Virginis, imago Sancti Antonii, etc. The following conversation 
 then took place. J. W. Usus imaginum in ecclesia est contra Dei 
 secundum mandamentum. Padre. In Novo Testamento imaginum usus 
 permittitur. J. W. In quo loco permissio invenitur ? P. Nescio, sed 
 hoc scio, Ecclesia Romano, permittit. J. W. Eclesia Romana permittit, 
 et Deus interdixit. P. Idolatria non est. J. W. Sic aiunt Brach- 
 manes. We parted on good terms, the Padre promising to call upon us 
 in the evening. He kept his word. In the course of our walk I tried 
 to ascertain his theological sentiments. He said that he believed in 
 the doctrine of predestination ante merita cognita, agreeably to the 
 principles of Augustine, I expressed my accordance with his views. 
 During our conversation on the celibacy of the clergy, he said, In hac 
 civitate Pauci Presbyteri muliebribus furtive utuntur. I urged his 
 admission as a proof of the inexpediency of the vow to observe celibacy 
 made by all the Eomish clergy. Few or none of the priests, he ob- 
 served, know either Greek or Hebrew. I referred to the Vulgate 
 translation made by St. Jerome as a proof that the Romish Church in 
 the days of old was not averse to the use of the Scriptures in the 
 language best understood by the people. He had not formerly adverted 
 to this circumstance ; and admitted that as the lingua Latino, nunc 
 Romce non in usu est, an Italian translation should be made for that 
 place. We compared the proceedings of Romish and Protestant mission- 
 aries. I admitted the learning and piety of Francis Xavier. He con- 
 demned the use of all violence in the propagation of Christianity, and 
 lamented rash admissions into the visible Church. He expressed his 
 surprise at the audiences with which we are favoured, and remarked, 
 ' Gentiles in hac regione non audiunt! I advised him to study their 
 languages, and to preach the pure doctrines of Christianity. 
 
 " Late in the evening, when the padre had retired to the fort, about 
 
164 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1834. 
 
 twenty of the inhabitants of the village came to our lodgings. We 
 examined and addressed them in Marathee, which they speak in rather 
 a corrupted form. We gave a few Portuguese tracts and two Testa- 
 ments to three or four of them who could read them. One of them 
 brought a large folio volume, which he called a Purana, to show to us. 
 It was of Marathee Prakrita, but written in the Roman character. It 
 contained paraphrases of several of the discourses of the apostles, 
 extracts from the Bible, notes on church history, refutations of Hindoo- 
 ism, etc. It is a work of immense labour, and it is creditable to the 
 learning and patience, if not to the piety of some olden missionary. The 
 owner said that he was in the habit of 'reading it, in the Brahmanical 
 style, to assemblies at his door." 
 
 Was this the work of the Jesuit Stephens, the first 
 Englishman whom we know to have landed in India five 
 years after Francis Xavier's death in October 1579, whose 
 letter to his father, a merchant of London, is found in 
 Hakluyt ? He published a Konkanee Grammar, a History 
 of Christ, and an Account of Christian Doctrine. The first is 
 in the India Office Library, but Professor Monier Williams 
 states that he has never met with the other two. 1 The 
 Madura Jesuit, Eobert de Nobili's "Fifth Veda," which 
 the French called L'Ezour V^dam, so far deceived Voltaire 
 that he appealed to it as a proof of the superiority of 
 Hindooism to Christianity ! Taking again to the boat, Mr. 
 Wilson spent the time on the way southward to Goa in 
 reading the Latin Bible " for the sake of facility in conver- 
 sation," and Cotineau's Historical Sketch of Goa. 
 
 "29th January 1834. We lay at the mouth of the. Goa river, or 
 rather firth, for about half-an-hour, till we obtained permission to go 
 up to Pangim, or New Goa. The aspect of the country, from the 
 appearance of the villages, churches, and forts, is unlike anything which 
 I have seen in India. Our landing at Pangim reminded me much of 
 Cape Town. The houses are, generally speaking, very substantial, and 
 painted white. Many have two stories, and united conical and lofty 
 roofs for every apartment in the upper story. There was only a single 
 ship, and a few patimars in the harbour. The Governor, or Vice-rey, 
 
 1 The Contemporary Review for April 1878, page 31. 
 
1834.] MORALITY AND LIFE IN GOA. 165 
 
 who had been at the Cathedral church of Goa swearing allegiance to 
 Donna Maria, drove past us, on our landing, in a very neat but humble 
 carriage. He does not maintain much style, and his pay is only 
 18,000 rupees per annum, which are, however, worth more than double 
 that sum in Bombay. A considerable number of the persons standing 
 at the beach were dressed in the European style. We took up our 
 abode in an empty house, pointed out to us by a Hindoo broker, to 
 whom I had a note of introduction from Sir Eoger de Faria. We 
 found ourselves very comfortable, and we felt grateful to God for 
 bringing us thus far on our journey in safety. 
 
 " We had not been seated for many minutes when a great number 
 of persons came to us to offer their services. Some of the proposals 
 which were made to us were calculated to impress us with very un- 
 favourable ideas of the morality of the place, and with the behaviour 
 of our countrymen who come to visit it. We met them with suitable 
 indignation and reproof. 
 
 " There are few Europeans in the colony. Most of those who are 
 here are connected with the army, which is about 4000 strong. The 
 Governor is friendly to the Portuguese constitution. He has not been 
 much interfered with by the home authorities ; and he manages matters 
 at Goa in a manner which is satisfactory to the inhabitants. Several 
 public buildings and roads are in the course of being constructed under 
 his auspices. The secretary to government is well reported of, and is 
 particularly attentive to the English who come to Goa. The priests of 
 all descriptions who are to be found in the colony amount to 1000. 
 The total of the Eoman Catholic population is estimated at about 
 200,000. 
 
 " 31 st January 1 834. We walked round the greater part of Pangim 
 in the morning. As soon as we had taken breakfast, great numbers of 
 people came to receive copies of the Portuguese Scriptures. The house 
 was crowded with them for a considerable time. Mr. Mitchell and 
 Manuel supplied the applicants, as far as our stock would permit. 
 When they were engaged in this work for several hours, I was employed 
 in conversing in Latin with the priests who called upon us. One of them, 
 a quaternarian of the Cathederal Church of Goa, introduced himself to 
 me by telling me that he was much interested in a book, Cui Titulus est 
 Historia Religionis Reformats in Anglia, auctore Gulielmo Cobbett. I gave 
 him a brief character of it by declaring, Cobbettii historia mendaciis 
 plena est, and stated my opinion of the life of its author. He was 
 neither prepared to admit nor controvert my statements. 
 
 " I obtained a good deal of information from this person respecting 
 
166 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1834. 
 
 the state of the Catholic Church in Goa. In the colleges connected 
 with the convents many young men are educated for the ministry. 
 The principal ecclesiastical seminary, however, is in the small island 
 of Chorao, to the north of Goa. The only language which is taught 
 in them is Latin. All the prelections are given in this language, but 
 they are explained in Portuguese. They are partly original and partly 
 collected from various authors. Logic, metaphysics, mathematics (to a 
 small extent), ecclesiastical history, and dogmatic and didactic theology 
 and canon law, are the branches taught. The writings of some of the 
 Fathers are perused. The Professors are, with few exceptions, natives 
 of the country. There are several elementary schools in which Latin 
 is taught in several parts of the Estado. One of the most respectable 
 of these is conducted by a presbyter in Pangim. He stated that elemen- 
 tary books are with great difficulty procured at present. 
 
 " The two parish priests of Pangim held a discussion with me similar 
 to that to which I have now alluded. They, like the other priests, were 
 anxious to procure books. We gave them, as to all the priests with 
 whom we have had intercourse, a Portuguese Bible, a Latin Bible 
 and New Testament. I offered them a copy of Calvini Institutiones. 
 Non licet nobis libros heretico legere, was the reply. Joannes Calvinus 
 vir doctus et pius fuit ; ejus opera legere vos decet, was my answer. The 
 merits of the Reformation were shortly discussed. The work of the 
 Genevese reformer was ultimately .carried away by those to whom it 
 was proffered. I had a conversation on personal religion with a young 
 lad of twenty, who is at present studying canonical law. He belongs 
 to the province of Bardes. I was much interested in him. He says 
 that his views of the doctrine of predestination were very confused. I 
 tried to remove his difficulties. He has lately obtained the quatuor 
 minores ordines of the Romish Church 
 
 " When the priests left us, we were visited by several gentlemen 
 from Portugal. They were all exiles on account of their attachment to 
 the Constitution. They were anxious to learn our views about the pro- 
 bable success of the Liberal cause. We expressed the hope to them 
 that they would see better days. We gave them copies of the .Bible in 
 Portuguese and French, and a few tracts, which they gladly received. 
 I asked one of them, Senhor Capella, to revise my Portuguese cate- 
 chism, which he very readily consented to do. He offered to accom- 
 pany us to Old Goa, and we accepted of his proposal. 
 
 " 1st February. The first sight of Goa is magnificent, although it is at 
 once evident that nothing remains but the churches and some other 
 public buildings. The walls of the city are now almost entirely 
 
1834.] OLD GOA. AND ITS CHURCHES. 167 
 
 destroyed ; but, like Dr. Claudius Buchanan, we entered the city by 
 the palace gate, over which is the statue of Vasco de Gama, the dis- 
 coverer of the passage by the Cape, and one of the first ' Vice-reys ' of 
 India. The hero stands aloft, in vestibus quce decent tempora antiqua. 
 
 " The first building which we visited was the Church of the Palace. 
 It is an exact model of St. Peter's at Rome. It is arched in the roof. Its 
 principal altar is decorated in a style surpassing anything which I had 
 formerly seen. Its convent and cloisters are small. It belongs to the 
 Theatins or order of St. Cajetan, who were instituted in Italy by 
 St. Cajetan of Thiena, and by John Caraffa (Pope Paul the Fourth), 
 Bishop of Theato. They were established in Goa in the middle of the 
 seventeenth century. The Italian founders were soon joined by many 
 of the natives. There are at present no Europeans in the convent. 
 No natives but those of Brahmanical descent are admitted. We saw 
 two of the friars seated in confessionals in the church. They were 
 lending ear respectively to a woman, and muttering forgiveness. 
 Several other persons of the female sex were prostrating themselves in 
 the church, and waiting the appointed time of disburdening their con- 
 sciences. The Cajetans are the most renowned confessors in the colony. 
 They live almost entirely on the offerings of the superstitious. They 
 seldom exceed fifteen in number, and, owing to the unhealthiness of 
 their situation, are short-lived. 
 
 " In passing from St. Cajetan's to the cathedral, we saw the ruins, 
 or rather the site, of the Inquisition, which was founded in 1560, and 
 the court of which was ordered to be suppressed in 1812. The repre- 
 sentations of the British were the cause of its destruction. 
 
 " I cordially assent to the only remark which Dr. Buchanan makes 
 on the metropolitan church ' It is worthy of one of the principal cities 
 of Europe.' There is nothing very remarkable in its exterior unless 
 the plainness of the building, but it is no sooner entered than it strikes 
 the spectator. To the top of the vault it is nearly 40 feet high, and 
 the body of the church is about 200 feet long and 80 broad, exclusive 
 of a row of chapels on each side. The principal altar is adorned with 
 images, and gilt pillars and pilasters. There are fourteen minor altars 
 in rows along the sides of the church. There are few seats in it, as 
 is the case in all the Roman Catholic churches in India. The windows 
 give light through small panes of mother of pearl. Divine service is 
 performed twice a day in the cathedral. We found about twenty-four 
 priests in two rows united in repeating the mass. The clergy of the 
 church consist of an archbishop (there is none at present), a dean, 
 cantor maximus, treasurers, archdeacon, scholastic, ten canons or pre- 
 
168 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1834. 
 
 bendaries, four semi-prebendaries, two quaternarians, twelve priests' 
 chaplains, and a variety of assistants. The total stipendiary revenue 
 of the cathedral is only Rs.15,582 per annum. Offerings and fees form 
 the other sources of the emoluments of the clergy. From the manner 
 in which they congregate together, they are saved from many expenses 
 which would otherwise devolve upon them. The dean is at present 
 their superior. The total number of communicants at Easter is stated 
 at 110. Can anything be more absurd than the maintenance of this 
 establishment on its present scale, when there are almost none to 
 profit by it ? 
 
 "We proceeded to the Aljuva, or the bishop's prison, for the 
 purpose of taking breakfast. The building is not in a state of great 
 repair. It is used for the purpose of incarcerating refractory and 
 naughty priests. As its services are not at present much demanded, 
 part of it is appropriated to civil purposes. When, after breakfast, we 
 were engaged in social worship, the quaternarian, whom I have already 
 mentioned, joined us. He listened to the reading of the Scriptures, 
 but he did not kneel with us at prayer. Exercitatio spiritualis est, he 
 observed, however, when we had concluded. Our conversation turned 
 upon several theological points, and particularly upon Purgatory and 
 Indulgences. The priests discussed the points at issue with temper 
 and ability. 
 
 " We went from the Aljuva to the Monastery of St. Monica. It is 
 the only nunnery in Goa, and was founded by the infamous Dom Fre" 
 Alexo de Menezes, archbishop of Goa, about the year 1600, and by 
 him dedicated to the mother of Augustine. The exterior of the 
 building has nothing remarkable about it. To the cloister we could 
 of course have no access. We were directed to the public hall. We 
 found the abbess and prioress seated in a room adjoining us opposite 
 an iron grating, where alone they could have communication with us. 
 They were both Europeans, and very neatly dressed in white, and 
 attended by two or three female servants. They very readily entered 
 into conversation with us. The abbess entered the convent when she 
 was fifteen years' old, and has resided within its walls for forty-four 
 years. The prioress entered it in 1818. She blushed when Sr. 
 Capella jokingly told her that, amidst the political changes which are 
 taking place, she would be permitted to leave it and to marry. The 
 abbess told us that, including novices, there are thirty nuns in the 
 establishment at present. Europeans pay Us. 1000, and natives double 
 that sum, on their entrance. The funds of the institution are much 
 reduced from the loss of its estates. It receives Rs.1000 per annum 
 
 
1834.] OLD GOA AND THE AUGUSTINIAN FRIARS. 169 
 
 from the Government. The nuns engage in making rosaries, in 
 knitting, and the preparation of sweetmeats and preserves. We bought 
 several articles from them. When we offered them a Portuguese New 
 Testament, the abbess said that she could not take upon herself the 
 responsibility of accepting it. The prioress, however, seized it besides 
 several tracts with joy, kissed it, and said that she would always pray 
 for us. 
 
 " Precisely at two we saw the doors of the Augustinian Convent 
 thrown open. We immediately repaired to it. The provincial, to 
 whom we had a letter of introduction, was absent, but he had left 
 orders for our reception. The prefect of the Augustinian College, and 
 the prior Fre Jose", oifered to show us all the buildings, which are 
 nearly as extensive as those of the University of Edinburgh. 'Few 
 cities in Europe,' says M. Cotineau, ' can boast of a finer edifice of the 
 kind ; the cloisters, pillars, galleries, halls, and cells, are all most 
 beautiful.' What struck me most was the display of portraits of the 
 martyr missionaries of the order. Many of them are well executed, 
 and represent the friars in the attitude of death. I could not but 
 think with admiration of their devotedness, and wish that more of it 
 were exhibited among Protestants. The view from the turrets is 
 magnificent. We stood almost entranced on first coming into contact 
 with it. We examined the library of the college. The books are fast 
 going to decay. They do not amount, I should think, to more than 
 1500. Many of them are very old and valuable. I noticed most of 
 the Roman Catholic Church historians referred to by Mosheim. I 
 heard the youths of the noviciate of the college read a little Latin, and 
 put a few questions to them. A European monk followed us with a 
 very anxious eye. He evidently wished to make some communi- 
 cation to us. We both felt great compassion for him. The superior 
 of the college was very free in his communications. He was much 
 pleased to find our pronunciation of Latin so much like his own. I 
 endeavoured to improve the time we were with him by making suitable 
 reflections on what passed before us. I gave him a Portuguese Bible, 
 and left some books for the provincial and prior, presented by Mr. 
 J. Wolff and Mr. Farish. Among them was a copy of Keith on Pro- 
 phecy. May the perusal of them be abundantly blessed ! It was in 
 the cloisters of an Augustinian convent that the spark of piety was first 
 kindled in Martin Luther. 
 
 "The Augustinians (twelve in number) came first to Goa in 1572. 
 They have a yearly income of Rs.15,000, independently of an allowance 
 of Rs. 15 00 made by the Goa Government. They have several missions 
 
170 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1834. 
 
 in the East under their care. Their vestments are white. They were 
 originally black, but were changed on account of the defection of the 
 German Reformer, of whom his friends were greatly ashamed. They 
 are the most respectable monks in the Catholic Church. Leaving the 
 Augustinians, we proceeded to the church of Bom Jesus. It is built 
 in the form of a cross. Though it is a noble edifice we scarcely 
 surveyed it at all. I hastened to the shrine of the celebrated Francis 
 Xavier, of which I had heard much. It surpassed all my expectations, 
 and certainly excels anything of the kind which I had before seen. It 
 is of copper, richly gilt and ornamented, and placed within a silver 
 incasement. It rests upon an altar of Italian marble highly wrought. 
 There is a vera effigies of the f Apostle of India ' on the south of the 
 tomb, and a statue of solid silver, which is not exposed to view. He 
 died in the island of Santian, in the Chinese Seas, in 1552. His body 
 was brought to Goa in 1554. It was exposed to public view till 1780, 
 when it was locked up in its present receptacle. Alas that it should 
 now be viewed as the ' sacred dust ' of a heathen Buddha ! 
 
 " We reached the Archbishop's palace at Pannelly about half-past 
 five o'clock. The quaternarian kept his appointment and introduced 
 us to the curator of the library, which I was very anxious to examine. 
 It contained about two thousand volumes. Though they are in a 
 better condition than those in the Augustinian convent, they are 
 rapidly going to decay. Few of them are modern. I observed only 
 three Protestant volumes among the whole of them. I found a MS. 
 translation of the Four Gospels in Arabic, of which it would be well 
 to procure a copy. 
 
 " 3d February. Many demands were made upon us to-day for 
 books, which we could not answer. Senhor Picao, one of the exiles, 
 offered to translate any publications for the Tract and Book Society. 
 He has commenced with Bayssiere's letter, and Senhor Capella is pro- 
 ceeding with John Knox on Prayer, and another tract. 
 
 " 4th February. The secretary introduced us to the Vice-rey, 
 Dom Manuel de Portugal e Castro, at the palace, who received us very 
 politely. He then showed us the portraits of all the Vice-reys of India. 
 Most of them came originally from Portugal. There are not many of 
 them which have not been re-touched by native artists. Mr. Nunes 
 seemed to be very familiar with the character and exploits of those 
 whom they represent. The portraits with which I was most interested 
 were those of Alfonso de Albuquerque, Vasco de Gama, John de Castro, 
 and Constantine de Braganza. Constantine refused to accept from 
 the king of Pegu the sum of 300,000 cruzados for a monkey's 
 
OLD GOA AND THE INQUISITION. 171 
 
 tooth which had been adored at Jaffnapatam as a relic of a Buddha. 
 He deserves to be had in remembrance for his firmness and deci- 
 sion, and aversion to countenance idolatry. How different was his 
 conduct from that of the Bengal Governor who sent an ambassador 
 to the Grand Lama to congratulate him on his incarnation ! A con- 
 siderable number of Brahmans called upon us to-day. One of them 
 has been in the service of Colonel Kennedy and Mr. Candy. His 
 name is Narayan Shastree. I discoursed with him and others for a 
 considerable time, and gave him a copy of Mr. Candy's tracts, and 
 of my Exposure. The Hindoos of Goa have been well supplied with 
 books during our visit, and many of them have heard the Gospel in its 
 simplicity. We guarded them against being misled by Romish cere- 
 monies. Many of them told us that they well knew that the Goakars 
 do not walk according to the Christian Shastre. In the evening we 
 sailed up to Old Goa. We took a short walk, and conversed a little 
 with several priests and friars about the public buildings, etc. One of 
 them spoke with exultation of the destruction of the Inquisition. 
 To my question, An sit in ejus loco altera curia ? he replied in the 
 negative. 
 
 " 5th February. During the course of the day we heard a good deal 
 of scolding in the Aljuva, and we saw the quaternarian sign a warrant 
 for the arrest of an individual. From these circumstances, as well as 
 from what was expressly stated to us, I have little doubt that the 
 Aljuva is a kind of substitute for the Inquisition. It is not merely 
 used for the purpose of imprisoning priests, but it is used as the place 
 of the archbishop's court. This court has the power of inflicting 
 punishment by fine and imprisonment, as well as by suspension, 
 excommunication, and penance. Its decisions are not at present 
 characterised by any great degree of severity, but it must be evident 
 that its powers are incompatible with civil and religious liberty. Dr. 
 Buchanan quotes Dellon as intimating that its proceedings were fre- 
 quently highly improper. 
 
 " When we had ordered all our baggage to be put on board the 
 boat to be conveyed to Sankali, we went to see the Church and Con- 
 vent of the Franciscans. They are worthy of inspection. They belong 
 to the most ancient order of monks in Goa. The Franciscans were the 
 chaplains of the first Portuguese ships which visited India. Those of 
 their order at present in India live entirely as paupers. Education, 
 however, is not neglected by them. The monk who showed us the 
 buildings conversed in Latin with ease. The professor of philosophy, 
 to whom he introduced us, appeared a very respectable scholar. We 
 
172 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1834. 
 
 inspected a considerable number of the books in his cell, and to him, 
 as well as to almost all the priests whom we have met in Goa, we gave 
 a few small volumes." 
 
 Eeturning through the jungle of the coast and the forest 
 of the Ghats, where they slept with only a slight covering 
 from the dew, but soundly after the fatigue of their intercourse 
 in Goa, Mr. Wilson and his companion reached the pure 
 Marathee- speaking district of Dharwar, and the London 
 mission station of Belgaum. Here he came on the border 
 line of the Tamul-speaking and the Canarese districts of 
 Madras. In preaching to the English residents he did not, 
 amid all the claims of India, forget to urge those of the Gaelic 
 School Society. He passed through Shankeswar, the residence 
 of the great Swami of Western India, where the annual fair of 
 the deified reformer Shankar Acharya was being held by ten 
 thousand people, and the god was being dragged in a car 
 forty-five feet high. After a day's incessant preaching there, 
 and at other towns and villages, Mr. Wilson thus writes 
 in his journal : 
 
 " I have often wondered how Whitefield could preach so 
 frequently in England; but it is now a considerable time 
 since I discovered that practice in public speaking makes it 
 comparatively easy. Some advocates speak four or five hours 
 daily at the bar during the press of business ; and we, who 
 are called to act as ambassadors of Christ to our perishing 
 fellow men, may well continue our ministrations during a 
 longer time. The interest with which we are heard has a 
 reflex influence in strengthening us for the discharge of our 
 duties. The impressions which we produce, though in general 
 they may not lead to any very striking visible effect, have, I 
 am persuaded, a powerful influence in weakening the hold of 
 superstition, and in enlightening and directing the conscience. 
 When the Gospel is generally preached, as I hope it soon will 
 be, through the length and breadth of the country, individual 
 
1834.] THE HOUSE OF SIVAJEE NOW. 173 
 
 conversions will become more frequent. It is the general 
 apathy of the unenlightened, which destroys the ardour of 
 individuals, on whose mind favourable impressions are pro- 
 duced. I fervently wish that evangelical agitation were "the 
 order of the day in India. Into this agitation I would of 
 course wish no unholy element to enter. I would wish it to 
 be like that of the Apostles and the Eeformers." 
 
 The town is further remarkable for the first of those inter- 
 views with one of the princes of India, to which Mr. Wilson 
 was afterwards frequently invited. The house of Sivajee, the 
 founder of the Maratha power, is now represented only by 
 the Eaja of Kolhapore, the representative of its younger, and 
 the Eaja of Satara, the head of its elder branch. Bawo Sahib, 
 who received Mr. Wilson, was " an oppressive and profligate 
 ruler," who had not many years before been compelled by a 
 British force to abstain from attacking his brother chiefs. He 
 died in 1838, four years after the visit, leaving a son, the 
 misrule of whose minority again compelled our interference. 
 But he was faithful in the Mutiny of 1857. On his death, 
 in 1866, we at once recognised his nephew and adopted son 
 Eajaram. To him a melancholy interest attaches. Well 
 educated he visited England in 1870, a gentle youth who 
 wrote a journal of his experience, presenting a significant 
 contrast to that of his grandfather, to whom Mr. Wilson 
 " opened the Scriptures " in vain, and told the story of the 
 conversion of Britain which these Scriptures had made great. 
 Eaja Eajaram died at Florence, and his body was burned with 
 Hindoo rites on the banks of the Arno, the last of that branch 
 of Sivajee's house. To perpetuate it, Lord Mayo's government 
 waived all the usual provisions in a case of adoption, and 
 another Bhonsla boy was searched out in 1871. He is now 
 fifteen years of age, and is being educated to govern some 
 800,000 tenantry, who pay him annually a revenue of the third 
 of a million sterling. 
 
174 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1834. 
 
 On reaching the confines of Kolhapore, the Scottish 
 missionaries were met by troopers, who attended them. 
 On nearing the town the Captain -General and a few 
 of the troopers and thirty sepoys formed an escort to the 
 banks of the Pandi-Gunga, where their tents had been pitched. 
 There they had presented to them, in the name of the 
 descendant of the mighty Sivajee, " great loads of fruit, sweet- 
 meats, eggs, and chickens," and they found a retinue of liveried 
 servants at their call. After examining the black marble 
 tomb-temples of Shankar, the reformer, and his first disciple, 
 and preaching for a day, the Sahebs were thus received at an 
 audience : 
 
 "26th February 1834. At four in the afternoon, two of the 
 Sirdars, attended by forty sepoys, came to conduct us to the palace. 
 The streets, as we passed along, were as much lined with people as if 
 the King of England had come to see them. We were vastly ashamed 
 of the honours which they tried to heap upon us. On our arrival at 
 the palace we were received by Haibat Kao Gwaikawar, one of the 
 most respectable of the Sirdars. He conducted us to the great room. 
 "We entered it, according to custom, without our shoes. Several hun- 
 dreds of people, including all the Sirdars, were seated in two rows 
 fronting one another. We were squatted near the Gddi (royal cushion.) 
 On the entrance of the Raja all the people stood up. He saluted us 
 very kindly and asked us to sit down. After a little commonplace 
 conversation, we directed his attention to the Christian Scriptures, 
 and gave him a brief summary of their contents. I then presented 
 him with an elegantly bound copy of the New Testament, and of the 
 Exposure of Hinduism, and with copies of Matthew bound in silk, and 
 Exposures and other tracts for his Sirdars. He expressed his pleasure 
 at receiving them. I told him about the conversion of Britain, and 
 ascribed all its greatness to the book of which I had given him a copy. 
 Mr. Mitchell recommended him to encourage education in his terri- 
 tories. He made several inquiries at us about the Governor and 
 gentlemen whom we had seen. We gave him all the information in 
 our power. The Raja is rather of a small stature, but a good specimen 
 of a Maratha. He has more show about his household than I expected. 
 It is to be regretted that he practises polygamy. He has five wives, 
 but only two sons and one daughter. 
 
1834.] SATARA. THE MAHABLESHWAR HILLS. 175 
 
 " 10th March 1834. We rose at gun-fire, and, along with Dr. 
 Young, we ascended to the celebrated hill-fort of Satara. It is about 
 3000 feet above the level of the sea, and its height from the base is 
 about 900 feet. It is strong by nature, as the rocks near the summit 
 are perpendicular. We took about twenty minutes to walk round it. 
 It commands a very fine view of the country. In descending from it, 
 we found the agreeableness of ' the shadow of a great rock in a weary 
 land.' In the afternoon we visited Satara. It is much better laid out 
 than any native town which I have seen. The streets are broad and 
 straight, and the houses are, on the whole, neat and substantial. The 
 English have the credit of forming the plan of some of them. The 
 population is variously estimated. It may be stated at from between 
 fifteen to twenty thousand, and it is reported to be on the increase. 
 The weekly bazaar, which we observed, is well attended. Native 
 cloths are plentiful and cheap. The palace is a plain quadrangular 
 building. We should have been introduced to the Eaja had he been 
 at home. His high school is also a quadrangular building. 
 
 "13th March. We set out for Malcolm - Peth on the Mahab- 
 leshwar Hills about two hours before sunset ; and we arrived at the 
 sanitarium, where we were kindly received by Captain Jameson about 
 nine o'clock. On the top of the ghat, about 4500 feet above the level 
 of the sea, we saw the fern and the willow, and heard the voice of the 
 lark, the thrush, and the blackbird. They called vividly to remem- 
 brance our native hills and groves, and made our very souls thrill. 
 We made several calls on European gentlemen throughout the day, 
 and we preached to large congregations of natives. I recognised two 
 of my Bombay native friends among our audience. They were very 
 happy to see me. 
 
 " 1 5th March. We proceeded early in the morning to Ma- 
 hableshwar, which is about three and a half miles distant from 
 the sanitarium in Malcolm-Peth, or Nehar, as it is called by the 
 natives. Our ride was remarkably pleasant. The tops of the hills 
 and mountains below us were rising above the thick white clouds like 
 islands in the ocean. The appearance of the cottages, roads, and 
 plants reminded us of the scenes in another land. The atmosphere 
 was comparatively cool and bracing. The sun was rising with glory 
 in the east. The birds were offering up their early orisons to him who 
 formed them. Mahableshwar is a religious establishment, almost on 
 the highest pinnacle of the hills, sacred to Shiva. It has no connec- 
 tion with Wai in the plains below, as has been alleged by some. It is 
 under the direction of Deshast Brahmans, while Wai, as I have said, is 
 
176 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1834. 
 
 under the direction of Konkanasts. There is a considerable spring at 
 the most sacred spot, which is said to be the source of the Krishndbai, 
 Savitri, etc., and which is denominated the Pancliaganga. There is a 
 small tank at the place where it issues from the ground, and which 
 forms the Tirtha, to which pilgrims repair. It is surrounded by a 
 small court and shed, in which there are a few idols. When we were 
 slowly walking round it, the Brahmans rushed upon us like dogs, and 
 declared that we had defiled the place, and threatened to inform the 
 Government, whose orders, they said, we had disobeyed. Mr. Mitchell 
 began to reason with them ; but the storm of their passions increased. 
 Seeing this, I adopted a different course. 'You saw us enter the 
 court,' I said, and ' you did not give us the least hint that we had 
 done wrong, or the slightest intimation to depart, till we had proceeded 
 to its extremity. All at once you spring upon us, as ready to devour 
 us, and use the most insulting epithets. You have no authority to act 
 in this manner. If you are not quiet, / shall complain of you to the 
 authorities.' They were instantly apparently as meek as lambs. I 
 then told them that, foolish and sinful as we considered idolatry and 
 all its forms, we had no wish to use the slightest violence with them, 
 or to intrude into places which we had no right to enter. They 
 expressed themselves satisfied. The fact of the matter is, that, even 
 according to the principles of Hinduism, we were not the cause of any 
 defilement ; and that gentlemen, from whom money is expected, are 
 permitted to perambulate the court ad libitum. It is only since the 
 place became a convalescent station for the English that the Brahmans 
 here have lifted their heads on high. They get many donations from 
 native servants, and sometimes from their inconsiderate masters ! They 
 received nothing from us but sound instruction. We preached to about 
 thirty of them, and to about the same number of agriculturists, under 
 a mandapa (tabernacle) which had been erected during a late festi- 
 val. When speaking of the vanity of the muntras (incantations) I 
 repeated the gayatri (the most sacred verse in the Hindu Vedas), and 
 commented on the vanity of the trust which is reposed in it. Some 
 astonishment was expressed at my acquisition of it, but no offence was 
 taken. I have uniformly found that when the most sacred writings of 
 the Hindus are appealed to, without any taunting on my own part, 
 my quotations are listened to with respect. On one occasion I quoted 
 the gayatri to silence a man who had spoken very impudently to me. 
 He and all my Brahmanical auditors put their fingers in their ears, 
 and fled from me in all directions ! I have very seldom witnessed a 
 similar occurrence. ' We must just let matters take their course/ said 
 
1834.] ATTACKED BY A TIGER. 
 
 a Brahman once to me, ' all our efforts to conceal are fruitless. The 
 end of the world draweth nigh. The very Yawans (Greeks or 
 foreigners) converse like Pundits !'" 
 
 This is our first introduction to the great hill sanitarium 
 of Bombay, which was ceded in 1829 by the Kaja of Satara in 
 exchange for other lands. The State lapsed in 1848, but the 
 British Government has continued a pension of 250 a month 
 to the adopted child of the last widow of the Kaja, who died 
 in 1874. The concluding extract from Mr. "Wilson's journal 
 of this third tour tells of that encounter with a tiger which 
 some of his Hindoo controversialists declared that he magni- 
 fied into a miracle ! 
 
 " 1 8th March 1834. We set out for Nagotanaa little before sunset. 
 On the road I experienced a remarkable deliverance, which should excite 
 my most fervent gratitude to the Father of all mercies. I had got the 
 start of Mr. Mitchell in passing through the jungle, and in order to allow 
 him opportunity of coming to me I was just about to pull up my horse, 
 when I observed an enormously large tiger about six yards from me. 
 Instead of running from me, he sprang up near my horse ; I then cried 
 out as loud as I could, with the view of frightening him. I had the 
 happiness of seeing him retreat for a little ; and I galloped from him, 
 as fast as my horse could carry me, to Mr. Mitchell, whom I found 
 walking with four or five natives. We passed together the spot where I 
 had the encounter, without seeing our enemy. He was heard, however, 
 among the trees by our horse-keepers. He has been seen by the 
 natives for some days past a short time after sunset, exactly at the 
 place (about six miles from Nagotana) where he appeared to me. The 
 men whom I found with Mr. Mitchell told me that they regularly pre- 
 sent offerings for protection from tigers to an image on Wardhan hill. 
 I showed them the vanity of their confidence ; but in their misdirected 
 devotion I saw the call to remember ' the Lord who is my refuge, even 
 the Most High.' " 
 
 Some time after this the able civilian, Sir J. P. Willoughby, 
 presented Mr. Wilson with a cottage on Mahableshwar, and 
 there, when more advanced in years, he and his missionary 
 brethren used to recruit their wasted energies during the 
 
 N 
 
1*78 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1834. 
 
 college vacation in the great heat of May and June in the 
 plains. He became closely identified with the place up to 
 the year of his death, and evangelised among its tribes right 
 down to Poona. When a part of the hill called Sydney 
 Point, after Sir Sydney Beckwith, the Commander-in- Chief, 
 had its name changed to Lodwick Point, he used humorously 
 to resent such tampering with historical and landscape associ- 
 ations. His " bungalow " was another mission centre, like 
 Ambrolie in the native quarter of Bombay. Not a day passed 
 even there without vernacular preaching and examination 
 of schools, while the ever increasing arrears of his extensive 
 correspondence were cleared off. The climate and the 
 scenery alike tempted to literary labours. To the compara- 
 tively small and select society of European officials, civil and 
 military, and to the educated native gentlemen who began to 
 frequent the spot, Mr. Wilson often delivered those lectures 
 which afterwards attracted crowds in the Town Hall of the 
 capital. In close and constant intercourse with the Governor, 
 the Commander-in- Chief, and the members of Council, he 
 brought his wide information and high principles to bear on 
 political questions, especially when these concerned the native 
 princes and people. Thus Mahableshwar became to him the 
 scene not merely of well-deserved rest but of more varied 
 work and wider social influence. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1835. 
 
 TOUR TO DAMAN, SURAT, BARODA, KATHIAWAR, KUTCH, 
 DWARKA, AND SOMNATH. 
 
 First Exploration of the Goojaratee Country and its Native States The 
 Portuguese in Daman A Catch of Zand MSS. Surat Fruitful in Facts 
 British Government and Idolatry Hindoos and Muhammadans denouncing 
 each other An Eclectic Rationalist Mr. Wilson's Journal, a Love-Offering 
 to his Wife Baroda Church Consecrated by Heber Audience of the Gaikwar 
 described Correspondence between the Gaikwar and Mr. Wilson The Mad 
 Gaikwars Cambay to Bhownuggur A Hill of Shrines Satan's Celestial 
 City Mr. Wilson's Letter to the Jain Priests Rajkote A King Punished 
 for Murdering his Infant Daughter Kutch Work of the Rev. James Gray 
 A Good Raja Schwartz and Raja Serfojee The Land of Krishna Beyt and 
 Dwarka, their Pirates and Priests Mr. Wilson anticipates James Prinsep at 
 Girnar The Historical Temple of Somnath Lord Ellenborough Death and 
 Separation in the Mission Family of Ambrolie Mrs. Margaret Wilson's Last 
 Hours Memoir by her Husband. 
 
" Such was the talk they held upon their way 
 Of him to whose old city they were bound; 
 And now, upon their journey, many a day 
 
 Had risen and closed, and many a week gone round, 
 And many a realm and region had they passed, 
 When now the ancient towers appeared at last. 
 
 " Their golden summits in the noonday light 
 
 Shone o'er the dark green deep that roll'd between, 
 For domes, and pinnacles, and spires were seen 
 
 Peering above the sea a mournful sight ! 
 Well might the sad beholder ween from thence 
 
 What works of wonder the devouring wave 
 
 Had swallowed there, when monuments so brave 
 Bore record of their old magnificence. 
 
 And on the sandy shore, beside the verge 
 Of ocean, here and there, a rock-hewn fane 
 
 Eesisted in its strength the surf and surge 
 That on their deep foundations beat in vain. 
 
 In solitude the ancient temples stood, 
 Once resonant with instrument and song, 
 
 And solemn dance of festive multitude; 
 Now, as the weary ages pass along, 
 
 Hearing no voice save of the ocean's flood 
 
 Which roars for ever on the restless shores; 
 Or visiting their solitary caves, 
 
 The lonely sound of winds that moan around 
 Accordant to the melancholy waves. 
 
 " Wondering, he stood awhile to gaze 
 Upon the works of elder days. 
 
 " High over-head sublime 
 
 The mighty gateway's storied roof was spread, 
 Dwarfing the puny piles of younger time 
 With the deeds of days of yore 
 That ample roof was sculptured o'er, 
 And many a godlike form there met his eye, 
 And many an emblem dark of mystery. " 
 
 SOUTHEY : The Curse of Kehama. 
 
1835.] MISSIONARY SURVEY OF WESTERN INDIA. 181 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 HAVING now completed such a detailed survey of the central, 
 eastern, and southern districts of the province, including Portu- 
 guese Goa, as was possible in three cold weather seasons, Mr. 
 Wilson prepared for the longest and most fruitful of all his 
 early tours, that through the northern half of Bombay. 
 Familiar first of all with the varied elements of the popula- 
 tion of a quarter of a million in the capital city itself, he had 
 now carried his elevating message to Hindoo, Muhammadan, 
 and jungle or robber tribe, over the whole Maratha country 
 from sacred Nasik to only less holy Shankeswar, and from 
 the Jews and Parsees of the Konkan to the Muhammadans of 
 Jalna. All he had studied with a keen interest and a never- 
 failing memory. There remained the Goojaratee country, 
 with its great native states of Baroda, Kathiawar, and Kutch, 
 stretching up, to the Indus- washed delta of Sindh and the 
 deserts of Eajpootana. In the rich cotton-fields of Goojarat 
 the Parsees found an asylum before the English attracted 
 them to the island of Bombay, and Mr. Wilson had fairly 
 given himself to that study of their literature and religion 
 with which, more than with any other, his name is identified. 
 Not only there, but in the native States are the half-Buddhist, 
 half-Hindoo communities of the Jains to be found, and it was 
 his task to understand in order that he might influence them. 
 So the closing weeks of the year 1834 saw him, his wife (as far 
 as Surat), and his attached friend Dr. Smyttan of the Govern- 
 ment service, set out in that modest " shigram," or one-horse 
 vehicle, which for half a century was familiar to all natives 
 
182 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1835. 
 
 and Europeans in Bombay as the great missionary's. Past 
 Mahim and Bassein, and along the shore washed by the 
 Arabian Sea to still Portuguese Daman, the travellers crept, 
 taking a week to accomplish the distance now achieved by 
 railway in a few hours. Of Daman, conquered in 1831, we 
 read in the Journal " A Parsee gave us no favourable idea 
 of the Portuguese Government. The soldiers were represented 
 as helping themselves to whatever articles they need. Justice, 
 it was said, is an article which requires to be purchased at a 
 dear rate. The sun of Daman, which Juliao, the late 
 Miguelite Governor, denominates on a triumphal arch, cele- 
 berrima urbs in oriente, appears to have reached its meridian. 
 There is something very instructive in the decline of the 
 Portuguese power in India and the rise of that of the British. 
 Camoens represents Vasco de Gama as describing the whole of 
 Europe to the lord of Melinda. The hero makes no mention 
 of England ! But observe the ways of Divine Providence. 
 The country which was too contemptible to be noticed three 
 hundred years ago, is now the most powerful in the world, and 
 it is under its favour that the Portuguese exercise sovereignty 
 over their remaining small territories in India." Here Mr. 
 Wilson purchased, for Ks.300, a copy of the Vendidad Sade 
 and of all the sacred books of the Parsees in the original 
 Zand, Pahlavi and Pazand tongues, but in the Goojaratee 
 character, and with a Goojaratee commentary and transla- 
 tion. Of this work, in five folio volumes, he remarks " Of its 
 use to a missionary there can be no doubt. I procured along 
 with it copies of all the narratives calculated to throw any 
 light upon the history of the Zoroastrians in India, and some 
 other curious pamphlets connected with their religion." 
 
 Continuing their journey northwards, the party passed the 
 most ancient fire temple in India, at Umarasaree, and inspected 
 the extensive fire temple of Nausaree, the streets of which 
 were, at that early time, regularly lighted at night by lamps 
 
1835.] SURAT AND THE E. I. COMPANY'S IDOLATRY. 183 
 
 with oiled paper shades. Surat, 177 miles north of the 
 capital, 1 first of English settlements in India, was found to be 
 declining as Bombay supplanted it, and the decay has gone 
 on till the present time, if we may judge from the visit of the 
 Governor, Sir Eichard Temple, to its deserted buildings, and 
 half-obliterated tombs of Oxenden and others this year. Mr. 
 Fyvie was the only (London) missionary there, and he after- 
 wards joined Mr. Wilson on his tour. But Surat has ever 
 been marked by the intelligence of its native inhabitants, 
 whose spirit has shown itself more than once in rioting against 
 taxes imposed in an unpopular form. Here Mr. Wilson 
 collected much information regarding the eighty-four castes 
 of Goojaratee Brahmans, the early settlements of the Parsee 
 refugees from Muhammadan intolerance, and the three Bohora 
 sects of Muhammadans. He learned that half the great fire 
 temples of India had been erected only within the previous 
 twelve years. The relation of the British Government to 
 those cults he thus describes : 
 
 " The English government has still the responsibility, and 
 a fearful one it is both for rulers and their agents, of directly 
 and publicly countenancing idolatry and superstition. The 
 new moon, except during two months of the year, is 
 regularly saluted by five guns to please the Mussulmans! 
 Two thousand rupees, I was told, are annually contributed to 
 the same people to assist them in the celebration of their eeds ! 
 The chief of Surat, and the British administrator of justice in 
 its province, commits the cocoa-nut to the river on the day of 
 the great heathenish procession at the break of the monsoon ! 
 How all this folly originated amidst the ungodliness of many 
 of the olden servants of the Company I can easily understand ; 
 but how it has been so long continued I am puzzled to know. 
 The day was when, I suppose, one would have got a free 
 passage to Europe, via China, for noticing it. I certainly 
 1 Pronounced Soorut, the Sun city of the Ramayun epic. 
 
184 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1835. 
 
 thought, without making a reference to higher and more 
 solemn considerations, that after the order came from the 
 Court of Directors, 'That in all matters relating to their 
 temples, their worship, their festivals, their religious practices, 
 and their ceremonial observances, our native subjects be left 
 entirely to themselves/ our late excellent Governor would 
 have put an extinguisher upon it. Surely the son of CHARLES 
 GRANT will perform the right honourable act." 
 
 After nine days in the old city, Mr. Wilson was received 
 at the next stage northwards by Mr. Kirkland, the civilian 
 in charge, to whom Dr. Chalmers had given him an intro- 
 ductory note. The march from the Taptee, which almost 
 encircles Surat, to the Nerbudda, was spent in discussing 
 a census of the " Pergunna " or " Hundred " of the district, 
 from which the fact of the murder of female children became 
 evident. A visit to Broach, the ancient Barygaza, the com- 
 mercial glory of which has given place to a great agricultural 
 prosperity under British rule, resulted in further work among 
 the Parsees and Jains, and on the 17th January 1835 Baroda 
 was reached. The bruit of the discussions with Hindoos and 
 Muhammadans in Bombay seemed to have everywhere pre- 
 ceded Mr. Wilson. At one village belonging to one of the 
 Gaikwar's feudatories, Mussulmans and Hindoos " commenced 
 denouncing the faith of each other in no very measured 
 language," after the statement which they had invited from 
 the missionary. Before he could rest on the Saturday of his 
 arrival at Baroda he had to grapple long with a really 
 earnest Brahman, who, having become the secretary of a 
 neighbouring Muhammadan Nawab, was an eclectic rationalist, 
 seeking truth in accordance with reason only, and rejecting 
 his own scriptures as inspired. The following very human 
 extract from one of the letters which generally covered the 
 instalments of his journal, may serve as an introduction to 
 its more formal narrative. He preached twice in the English 
 
1835.] IN THE TRACK OF BISHOP HEBER. 185 
 
 Church to the European residents, who were rarely visited by 
 chaplain or missionary. Bishop Heber had consecrated it 
 ten years before, when he was " both amused and interested," 
 though a little fatigued, by his purely ceremonial visit to the 
 Gaikwar, whose invitation to witness the cruel sport of 
 elephant-baiting he declined. The good Bishop's narrative 
 of his visit to Baroda, in 1826, presents a striking contrast to 
 Mr. Wilson's Journal in 1835, but the difference is due 
 chiefly to the knowledge which the Presbyterian " Bishop " 
 had acquired of the language and religion of the Gaikwar. 
 
 "BA.RODA, IQth January 1835. 
 
 " MY DEAREST LOVE Surely you do not wish me to detain my 
 Journal for the mere purpose of having it accompanied with a letter which 
 I may not always find time to write. You must view the Journal as a 
 communication. I should get on very poorly with it if I had not you 
 in my eye. It is inter alia a love-offering. I question if Mrs. Webb 
 had it that she would think of rejecting it. She was very proud about 
 the journal which her excellent brother Eichard Townshend sent to 
 her, and very justly so. Tell you her this. 
 
 " I write to you from Kadical Hall. Captain S is over head 
 
 and ears in an Irish bog ; and how he will get out I know not. He 
 has drawn in several young men to him. Irish bogs move, it is said. 
 Do you think that they will ever move to the land of liberty ? 1 
 trow not. I am quite tired of their bawlings. Perhaps I may have 
 done something to stop the spread of the mania. 
 
 " Tell Mr. Webb that Bishop Heber consecrated the Baroda Church ; 
 and that Bishops Fyvie and Wilson have reconsecrated it. Mr. Fyvie 
 read the prayers of the Church of England in it. Colonel Burford 
 gave the church to us. We had the sacrament privately in the evening 
 yesterday, twelve communicants including two natives. I thought 
 much of you and the dear children. Surely I may commit you all to 
 the care of Him who died on the cross for my sins." 
 
 " 23c? January. I spent the morning with Mr. Williams, the Political 
 Commissioner. About eleven o'clock I proceeded with him and Colonel 
 Burford, Dr. Smyttan, Mr. Malet, and Major Morris, to the palace of 
 the Gaikwar. We were all mounted on an elephant, and attended by 
 the guard of honour which accompanies the Political Commissioner on 
 his visit to the king. We were introduced to the Gaikwar at the door 
 
186 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1835. 
 
 of the Durbar ; and we walked up with him through the ranks of his 
 courtiers, to the Gadi. Mr. Williams sat next to the great man, and I 
 next to Mr. Williams. After conversing with his Highness for a little 
 on the late frosts, I asked whether or not I should be permitted, as a 
 minister of the Gospel, to give a statement of the principles and 
 evidences of Christianity, the religion professed by the inhabitants of 
 Britain and many other countries, and which demands the acceptance 
 of mankind throughout the world. His Highness informed me that he 
 would be very happy indeed ; and I proceeded. I gave a view of the 
 Scripture account of the character of God, of the natural state of man, 
 and of the means of salvation ; and contrasted this account with those 
 given in the Hindu Shastres. When I had concluded, his Highness 
 called upon Venirama, his minister, to come forward, and assist him to 
 form a judgment of what had been said, which was entirely new to 
 him. Venirama obeyed, and declared that Jesus was an incarnation 
 similar to Eama and Krishna, who has received from God as a war 
 (boon) the power of saving all those who believe in him. l Rama and 
 Krishna,' I observed, 'were no incarnations of God at all. They 
 might have been great warriors, like the forefathers of the Gaikwar, 
 who were deified by the poets ; but most assuredly their characters 
 forbid the entertainment of the idea that they were incarnations of the 
 divinity. It is evident that they were sinners. Krishna is spoken of 
 in the tenth section of the Bhagavat as having been guilty of 
 murder, adultery, theft, and falsehood ; and Rama is described by 
 Valmiki as a person who perjured himself to Mandedari, the wife of 
 Ravana, who banished his wife, though innocent of the charges 
 brought against her, at a time when she was pregnant, and thus proved 
 himself a bad husband and a bad father ; and troubled his poor 
 brother Lukshmun so much that he destroyed himself, and thus proved 
 a bad brother. Christ Jesus, however, committed no sin, and acted 
 in every way suitable to his claims as God manifested in the flesh.' 
 
 " Our conversation then proceeded as follows : Venirama. Don't 
 allege that the seeming evil acts of our Gods were sinful. God can do 
 what he pleases, and who is to call him to account 1 J. W. God is 
 not responsible to any, but He will act always according to His nature, 
 which is perfectly holy. Even Krishna is represented in the Geeta as 
 admitting the propriety of his regarding moral observances. ' If I 
 were not vigorously to attend to these (the moral duties), all men 
 would presently follow my example, etc.' Judging Krishna by what 
 is here said, I am bound to condemn him. The legend, moreover, says 
 that he felt the effects of his sin. When Jugannath was asked 
 
1835.] DISCUSSION BEFORE THE GAIRWAR OF BARODA. 187 
 
 why he had no hands and no feet, he declared that he lost them 
 through his mischief at Gokula. Venirama. God can sin. He is the 
 author of all sin. /. W. Do not blaspheme the Self-existent. Venirama. 
 This is no blasphemy. If God is not the author of sin, pray who is 
 the author of it 1 J. W. The creatures of God are the authors of it. 
 You must admit that God has given a law to men. Venirama. I do 
 admit this, and say that this law is good. /. W. Now, I make an 
 appeal to his Highness. Will the great king first make laws for his 
 subjects, then give them a disposition to break these laws, and last of 
 all punish them for breaking them 1 Gaikwar (laughing heartily). 
 Verily I will do nothing of the kind. I am always angry when my 
 subjects break my laws. /. W. And is not the King of Kings and 
 Lord of Lords angry when his laws are broken ? Why does He send 
 disease and death into the world, and why has He prepared hell unless 
 for the punishment of the wicked ? Venirama. I know not ; but who 
 is there to sin but God ? He is the only entity. J. W. So, I suppose, 
 you have no objections to say Aham Brahmasmi 1 (I am Brahma). V. 
 It is not lawful for me to repeat these sacred words. /. W. Not lawful 
 for God to declare his own existence ! You were saying a little while 
 ago that it was lawful for God to do anything, even to sin. I think 
 it presumption for any man to declare that he is God in any form of 
 words. Never let the weakness, ignorance, sin, suffering, and change 
 of men, be attributed to God. V. God in the form of men is apparently 
 weak, and so forth. Suppose the Divine nature to be a tree. Men are 
 the leaves of that tree. Now, the leaves differ from the branches and 
 the stalk and the root ; and men, growing out from the Godhead, differ 
 in some respects from the Godhead from which they grow. J. W. But 
 my position is that men are in no sense part of the Godhead. Their 
 weakness, ignorance, sin, suffering, and so forth, to which I have 
 alluded, prove this. They are the workmanship of God. V. But what 
 is the creation but the expansion of God. J. W. It is the product of 
 the Divine word and power. I cannot admit for a moment the theory 
 of God's swelling and contracting, and contracting and swelling. V. 
 There are differences in religion you observe. Your religion, I admit, 
 is good for you. J. W. My religion professes to be the only one which 
 is given by God, and to be good for all men. God never would give 
 such contradictory accounts of Himself and His will as are to be found 
 in the Christian and Hindoo religions. Both of them cannot be true ; 
 for, in a thousand points which I can enumerate, they are directly 
 
 1 One of the four great sentences of the Veda. 
 
188 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1835. 
 
 opposed to one another. Pray, on what grounds do you believe in 
 Hindooism ? You say that evidence is of four kinds pratyash (sensation), 
 shdbda (testimony), anumdna (inference), and upamdna (analogy). What 
 kind and degree of these species of evidence have you for Hindooism ? 
 V. We have our religion as we got it from our forefathers. It was 
 their business to inquire into its evidence. J. W. What a strange 
 evasion ! If you be in the wrong, will the errors of your forefathers 
 excuse you for neglecting to seek the truth ? Don't the Bheels plead 
 the custom of their fathers as an excuse for their thefts and robberies ? 
 Gaikwar (laughing). Most certainly they do. J. W. Surely your 
 minister will not listen to their plea ! Venirama. But what have you 
 got to say for Christianity ? /. W. Your question is very proper. I 
 have got much to say for it. Suppose the Christian Shastra to be a 
 letter. I peruse it. I find nothing inconsistent with its claims to 
 Divine inspiration. It is, in every respect, worthy of the holiness and 
 wisdom of God. It bears the impress of the Divinity. I can no more 
 believe it to be the unassisted work of man, than I can believe the 
 sun to be the fabrication of a blacksmith. I behold it producing the 
 most marvellous results, particularly in communicating sanctification 
 and happiness to those who believe in it. I find from authentic history 
 that it was published to the world at the time which it alleges ; and 
 that it testifies as to miraculous transactions, which, if unreal, could not 
 have been believed at the time when it was published, etc. I shall be 
 delighted to give you a copy of it, that you may judge for yourselves. 
 The more you peruse it the more will you discover its excellence. The 
 more that you inquire into its history the more will you discover its 
 credibility. 
 
 " When we had proceeded thus far, his Highness began to compliment 
 me on my Dakliani boli (accent), and to declare that he and his ministers, 
 though possessed of a spice of the rerum terrestrialium prudentia, knew 
 little about the affairs of the other world. He then turned to Mr. 
 Williams, and told him that he ought to have given him warning, that 
 he might have the Brahmans in readiness. ' There is no lack of 
 Brahmans here,' said Mr. Williams. ' I never dreamt, when you 
 requested leave for the Padre to visit me,' he said, ' that he would act 
 otherwise than the Lord Padre Saheb, who, after looking at every 
 object in the Durbar, went out to see the artillery yard. This is a 
 guru vishesha? 
 
 " After declaring myself unworthy of the compliments which his 
 Highness paid me, I offered him a finely-bound copy of the New 
 Testament in Marathee. This, however, he declined to receive, as he 
 
1835.] SAYAJEE RAO, GAIKWAR OF BARODA. 189 
 
 had not yet seen reason to wish to abandon Hindooism. I recom- 
 mended him to take the earliest opportunity of reflecting on what had 
 been advanced, and stated to him that his acceptance of the Testa- 
 ment was not tantamount to abjuring Hindooism. Mr. Williams sported 
 a joke or two as to his fears, but I thought it proper not to be too 
 importunate, particularly as he would probably not refuse the gift if 
 offered to him privately. The Gaikwar cautioned me against mis- 
 understanding him, and, after again complimenting me, he insisted on 
 my accepting from him, as a token of his good- will, a couple of shawls 
 and a gold ornament. I decidedly refused the offering for some time ; 
 but, on being informed by Mr. Williams that my refusal would probably 
 give offence, I yielded. I then received a letter from the Gaikwar to 
 the authorities at Dwarka ; and, after a little miscellaneous conversa- 
 tion, we took our leave. The Kaja, as on our entrance, walked with 
 us through the Durbar. He is rather a good-looking Maratha, and 
 superior in point of talent to most of the great men with whom I have 
 come into contact. His dress was plain, but his ornaments were 
 .splendid. His son, a young lad of about sixteen years, who was 
 present during the interview, seemed modest and placid. The Muham- 
 madan Sirdars made rather a good appearance. The Marathas were 
 scarcely to be distinguished from the plebs of their tribe. 
 
 " Leaving the Durbar, we examined the artillery-yard and other 
 curiosities, and then proceeded homewards. After dining with Mr. 
 Williams, Dr. Smyttan and I proceeded on our journey in the direction 
 of the Gulf of Cambay." 
 
 " 24th January. We rode from Padrea to Gwasad early in the 
 morning. I distributed, as usual, some tracts to the natives whom we 
 met on the roads, and preached in the village. We rode to Jambusar 
 in the evening. After our arrival, I received the following letter from 
 Mr. Williams relative to the visit to the Gaikwar: 
 
 ' Camp Baroda, January 24, 1835. 
 
 * My Dear Sir His Highness sent for my head clerk this day, 
 and desired him to explain to me that his reason for not accepting 
 the Testament from you yesterday was, that his ministers, relations, 
 and the whole Durbar, would have considered it as a kind of avowal 
 of his inclination to desert his own creed; that he was very much 
 pleased with what he heard yesterday, and requested that I would 
 send the Testament, and other books, to him by my men. I shall do 
 so, either through the Nawab, or , whichever channel his High- 
 ness prefers. His Highness further wishes to receive a letter from 
 
190 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1835. 
 
 yourself to his address, stating that you are not offended at his appa- 
 rent incivility in not receiving the book from your hands when offered 
 to him in the Durbar yesterday ; and desires me to offer you his best 
 wishes, and to say that he has directed all the authorities under him 
 to afford you every aid.' " 
 
 " 25th Junuary. To-day I despatched a Marathee letter, of which 
 the following is a translation, to the Gaikwar : 
 
 ' Shri Eaja Chhatrapati Akela Praudha Pratap Sayaji Rao Gaiakwad 
 
 Sena Khas Khel Shamsher Bahadur. To his Highness Sayaji Rao 
 
 Gaikawad, etc., John Wilson, the Servant of Jesus Christ, with all 
 
 respect writeth as follows : 
 
 ' The illustrious Mr. Williams having communicated to me your 
 Highness's wish to receive a few lines from me, I have the greatest 
 pleasure in addressing you. 
 
 1 1 was much gratified with the interview which I had with your 
 Highness in the Durbar on Friday last, and I am duly sensible of the 
 kindness and condescension which you evinced in granting it to me. 
 I shall always remember it with much satisfaction. 
 
 * As the Christian religion appears to me to be possessed of supreme 
 importance, I embraced the opportunity afforded me while in the 
 presence of your Highness, and by your Highness's inquiries, of giving 
 a summary of its principles, and of the evidence on which it rests its 
 claims to universal reception ; and it was with a view to afford your 
 Highness an opportunity of judging of the merits of that religion that 
 I proffered to your Highness a copy of the Christian Shastra. For the 
 patience and interest with which your Highness and your ministers 
 listened, I am truly grateful. Your declining to receive the Christian 
 Shastra in the Durbar, proceeding, as it did, from an apprehension that 
 the public reception of it might be viewed as giving a public testimony 
 in its favour without examination, has given me, I assure you, not the 
 least offence. Nothing is farther from my wish, and that of other 
 Christians, than that Christianity should receive any countenance 
 which does not proceed from the perception of its own merits. We 
 wish it, in every case, to receive the fullest inquiry. 
 
 ' I return my best thanks to your Highness for the favours given 
 to me in the Durbar, and I shall preserve them as memorials of your 
 kindness. 
 
 ' Why should I enlarge ? That your Highness may long hold the 
 chhatra (umbrella) of protection and shelter over a happy people, and 
 enjoy every blessing in this world and that which is to come, shall ever 
 be my most fervent prayer to Almighty God. JOHN WILSON.' " 
 
1835.] THE MAD GAIKWARS. 191 
 
 Baroda is one of the three great principalities Sindia's, 
 Holkar's, and the Gaikwar's which Maratha soldiers carved 
 out of the debris of the Moghul empire under the flag, first 
 of Sivajee's house, and then of his Mayor of the Palace, the 
 Peshwa. The first Gaikwar, or " cowherd," held the position 
 of the Peshwa's commander-in-chief till 1721. In the sub- 
 sequent century the Gaikwars achieved such independence 
 as was possible under the gradually growing suzerainty of 
 the East India Company. In 1819 Sayajee Eao, whom Mr. 
 Wilson describes, had succeeded his brother, and was from 
 the first, unhappily, left to his own devices under certain 
 vague guarantees. Misrule, financial insolvency, and dis- 
 loyalty were the inevitable consequences, till in 1839 he was 
 threatened with deposition by the paramount power, which 
 could no longer share the guilt of maintaining his oppression 
 over a population of two millions, who paid him above a 
 million sterling a year. Sayajee managed to keep his power 
 till his death in 1847, after which the boy whom Mr. Wilson 
 saw, Gumpert Eao, reigned till his death in 1856. He was 
 succeeded by his brother, Khundee Eao, in 1856, and he by 
 the youngest brother, Mulhar Eao, in 1870. The maladminis- 
 tration, which had steadily increased, then became so 
 intolerable and even criminal, that his deportation to Madras 
 in 1875 was the result, and the succession of a boy adopted 
 by Khundee Eao's widow. In his Journal, published in the 
 Oriental Christian Spectator, "specially for the benefit of 
 the natives," Mr. Wilson gives no indication of the facts 
 that he learned on the spot regarding the Gaikwar's family 
 and misrule. But his intimate acquaintance with the whole 
 history and with the successive Gaikwars, led Lord North- 
 brook's Government to consult him during the events of 
 1874-5. This slight sketch of the house of Peelajee Gaikwar 
 must be borne in mind when we come to these later times. 
 From Daman to Cambay the Gulf of Cambay runs up 
 
192 LIFE OS, JOHN WILSON. e -_ . [1835. 
 
 into the heart of Goojarat, dividing from Surat and Baroda 
 the cluster of native states in wild Kathiawar and marshy 
 Kutch. Mr. Wilson .crossed the^.Gulf to Gogo, the port of 
 the principality of Bhownuggur, in which State is the famous 
 Jain hill of temples at Palhfana. Mr. Burgess, now Archaeo- 
 logical Surveyor to the Bombay Government, who in 1868 
 first adequately measured and described the temples and 
 caused photographs of them to be published, remarks 
 that the great orientalist .Colebrooke knew so little of 
 Shatrunjaya as to write of it as " said to be situated in the 
 west of India." Colonel Tod, of Eajasthan fame, was the only 
 visitor of note previous to Mr. "Wilson, and that in 1822. The 
 Chinese pilgrim of the seventh century, Hiuen Thsang, seems 
 to have passed it by, although he was so near it as Girnar. 
 " The sovereign of places of pilgrimage," as the old annals 
 call it, was transferred from the Buddhists to their Hindoo 
 friends, the Jains, in 421 A.D. After Mr. Wilson's visit the 
 wealth of the Jain merchants of the cotton capital covered 
 the hill with fanes which even Mr. Fergusson allows to rival 
 the old temples not only in splendour, but in the beauty and 
 delicacy of their details ; so that a local writer remarks 
 " one almost feels the place a satanic mockery of that fair 
 celestial city into which naught may enter that defileth !" 
 
 " &th February. I arrived in Palitana about 9 o'clock, and after 
 examining a Mussulman's tomb and mosque of superior workmanship 
 ascribed to Muhammad Ghori, and situated in the suburbs, I proceeded 
 to read to and address the people till Mr. Fyvie came up. We took 
 up our abode in a kind of dharmshala, to which we were directed 
 by the agent of Hemabhai, a rich Jain merchant of Ahmedabad, in 
 whose favour the village is sequestrated till such time as the Kaja dis- 
 charges the debts which he owes to him. We had as usual large 
 audiences throughout the day. Many of those who came to hear the 
 Gospel were Shravaks (laymen of the Jain order). They strongly 
 remonstrated with us on the intention of our servants to kill a lamb 
 for a supply of animal food. After vindicating our rights and refuting 
 the errors of the Jaina system as to the life of brutes, we set the 
 
1835.] A HILL OF JAIN TEMPLES. 193 
 
 animal at liberty, lest we should give unnecessary offence. Observa- 
 tion has since made me doubt the propriety of a concession of this 
 character, which can easily be misunderstood and misrepresented. 
 
 " About 3 o'clock P.M. we commenced the ascent of the Shatrunji 
 hill, which is about a mile and a half distant from the village, with 
 the view of inspecting the far-famed Jain temples. On arriving at the 
 summit I thought it right to look at the works of God before examining 
 the works of men, which they have impiously placed in his stead. The 
 view of the adjoining country is very extensive, stretching over the 
 Thalaja hills, with the Shatrunji river winding between them to the 
 sea on the south-east ; to the mountain of Girnar on the west, which 
 is distant at least seventy miles ; and to the Sihor hills on the 
 north. Exclusive of the elevations now mentioned, it is principally of 
 a level character, but sufficiently fertile. The voice of nature unequi- 
 vocally proclaims ' God that made the world, and all things therein, 
 seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples 
 made with hands ; neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though 
 he needed anything ; seeing he giveth to all, life, and breath, and all 
 things.' The ear of man, however, has, for many centuries at least, 
 been deaf to this voice in this place. The very place where the view 
 of the Divine workmanship is the most glorious is that which has been 
 chosen for the sanctuary of those who are no Gods, who are even 
 allowed by their votaries to be nothing else but mortals who have 
 obtained nirwana, absorption into the Great Spirit, or a freedom 
 from all the incidents common to mortality and change. l 
 
 " The temples are the most splendid, and, with the exception of the 
 cave temples of Elora, the most costly which I have seen connected 
 with heathenism in India. They are principally built of a coarse- 
 grained sandstone from Gopinath, or of the basalt rock of the hill, and 
 in many places are neatly chunamed. The floors and doorposts are 
 of variegated marble, a good deal of the workmanship being 
 mosaic. The departments and shrines are numerous ; but the two 
 most worthy of notice are devoted to Rishabha Deva and Parasanatha, 
 the first and twenty-third of the emancipated Jains or Adinath. 
 That which includes the image of the former lord is sometimes ascribed to 
 Kumara Pala, the great sovereign of Goojarat, who was converted to 
 
 1 I have found it very difficult to arrive at the precise notion which the 
 Jains attach to this term. Most generally they speak of it as equivalent to 
 the Sayujyata (absorption) of the Brahmans. Sometimes they speak of the 
 twenty-four emancipated Jainas as having a separate existence in the state in 
 which they now are. 
 
 
 
194 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1835. 
 
 the Jaina faith in the year 1174, but an inscription upon it gives it no 
 date. The images are colossal, and, with the exception of that of 
 Niminatha which is black, they are of white or yellow marble, and of 
 the kind denominated Swetambar, decorated with ear-rings, necklaces, 
 armlets, and footlets (nepur), of gold or precious stones. They lately 
 invited the attention of some thieves, who robbed them, according to 
 the native account, to the amount of ten thousand rupees. The wonder 
 is that in such a country as this, where honesty is not much regarded, 
 and where the inhabitants are distinguished among Hindoos for their 
 daring, such a quantity of treasure has been suffered to remain so long 
 unmolested. The gods, it must be remembered, however, are under 
 the protection of a small military or police establishment. Several 
 cannons stand along the outer walls with open mouths, ready to speak 
 terror to all enemies who are disposed to give due warning of their 
 approach. It is rather a curious circumstance that the guards of the 
 temples are Muhammadans from Arabia, Mekran, etc., who are thus 
 quite ready to compromise their principles for a piece of bread. They 
 often regale visitors with music as they go round the temples. A corner 
 of the hill is consecrated to the memory of a Mussulman, Pir Hengar. 
 This is analogous to the Mussulman Masjid in the convent of Mount 
 Sinai. 
 
 " Extensive as are the temples on the Palitana hill, they must be 
 considered insufficient for the purpose for which they have been erected ; 
 for a most extensive work, to cost five lakhs of rupees (50,000), is 
 going on under the auspices of Motichand Amichand of Bombay. 
 About five hundred persons are engaged in forwarding it. All the 
 stones are brought from a distance, and carried up the hill with great 
 difficulty. 
 
 . " The natives who showed us the temples informed us that we 
 might enter the sanctum sanctorum provided we would take off our 
 leather shoes. This, however, we declined to do, fearing that com- 
 pliance might be mistaken for an admission of the divinity of the 
 place. All the Jaina priests whom we saw had cloth shoes. They 
 carried an ugha, or besom, to sweep the road as they advanced into the 
 interior, and thus put all insects out of the way of harm ; and a 
 mohomati, or mouth cloth, to prevent insects from entering their mouths 
 when praying. Tenderness to life is what they much attend to. 
 They believe that all life, however diffused, is uncreated ; and that the 
 matter in which it is wrapped up is uncreated. They make no dis- 
 tinction between the life of vegetables, brutes, men, and God essentially 
 considered, and thus fall into the grossest religious errors. An active 
 
1835.] EPISTLE TO THE JAIN PRIESTS. 195 
 
 Providence they do not admit, and their religious services, conse- 
 quently, have no reference to the adoration of the Supreme. They are 
 gone through merely because they are believed to have certain bene- 
 ficial effects on those who practise them. The following letter I 
 prepared to the Yatis of Palitana, in reference to the errors in which 
 they are involved. 
 
 'To ALL THE YATIS OF PALITANA, TWO SERVANTS OF JESUS 
 CHRIST, THE ONLY SAVIOUR OF MEN, WRITE AS FOLLOWS : 
 
 'Though we have no acquaintance with you we wish your welfare. 
 It is the desire of our hearts, in the presence of God, that you may be 
 happy in this world and that which is to come. We have surveyed 
 the splendid temples which are on the Shatrunji hill ; and however 
 much we admire them as buildings, we do regret the object for which 
 they have been erected. They are not, as they ought to have been, 
 places in which God is worshipped. They are filled with images of 
 men whom you suppose to have obtained Nirwana. These images, or 
 those whom they represent, are the objects of your supplications ! We 
 do mourn over the errors into which your fathers fell respecting 
 the divine nature, and from which you have not yet been delivered. 
 It is lamentable to think that you do not admit a creating and super- 
 intending Providence. You cannot but see in the world on which you 
 move, and in the worlds above you, decided marks of design and 
 wisdom and, if you reason correctly, you cannot but attribute this 
 design and wisdom to a being who exercises it. When you look to 
 your own temples, you say that they have been built. Why do you 
 not admit, when you look to the temple of the Universe, that it 
 must ha^e an Architect, whose wisdom and power and goodness 
 are infinite ? It is the height of folly to attribute what you see to a 
 necessitous fate. 
 
 ' You are wiser than the Brahmans when you say that there is an 
 essential distinction between matter and spirit. Of neither matter nor 
 spirit, however, have you correct ideas. All spirit is not, as you 
 imagine, uncreated. God, whose existence and attributes are proved 
 by his works, is uncreated, but all other spirit has been created by 
 him, not from his own spirit as the Brahmans imagine, but from 
 nothing, by his powerful word. In that spirit which has been created 
 there are essential differences. The spirit of man differs from that of 
 all the spirits with which we are acquainted on earth. It alone is 
 capable of knowing, loving, and serving God, and it alone has a moral 
 responsibility in the sight of God. It will continue either in a state of 
 suffering or of happiness after death, while the spirit of the beasts, etc., 
 
196 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1835. 
 
 shall have perished. Matter is not, as you imagine, uncreated. God 
 made the whole of it, not from his own substance, by the word of his 
 power and, whenever he pleases, he can destroy it. To suppose it to 
 exist independently of the creation of God is to make of it a God.' " 
 
 The letter proceeds to show that the worship of the 
 twenty-four Tirthankars, and the performance of good works, 
 cannot remove that sin the existence of which the Jains admit, 
 and it then expounds the salvation offered by Christ. It 
 was largely circulated in the Goojaratee form. Mr. Wilson 
 reasoned with the Kaja of the place, and with the Jains of the 
 puritan Dhoondra sect, one of whose religious duties is to 
 keep out of the way of the wind lest it should blow insects 
 into the mouth. Their confidence in their tenderness towards 
 life makes them very conceited. " How many lives are there 
 in a pound of water ? " asked Mr. Wilson of a Dhoondra. 
 D. "An infinite number." W. "How many are there in 
 a bullock?" D. " One." W. "You kill thousands of lives, 
 then, while the Mussulman butcher kills one." The Hindoos 
 laughed, and the Dhoondras joined them. 
 
 At Kajkote, in the heart of the Kathiawar peninsula, Mr. 
 Wilson came fairly face to face with female infanticide. The 
 young Eajpoot chief of the Jhadeja tribe he found under 
 sequestration, because of having been accessory to the murder 
 of his infant daughter. The long-neglected precautions and 
 regulations of the benevolent General Walker had been 
 revived by Sir. J. P. Willoughby, a civilian who afterwards 
 adorned the Council of the Secretary of State for India. Mr. 
 Wilson expounded to the Kaja and his court the Ten Com- 
 mandments, "not overlooking the sixth, which he has so 
 daringly violated," while regarding him "with deep com- 
 passion." This agreement, 1 signed by every Jhadeja chief in 
 General Walker's time, presents a curious contrast to recent 
 legislation on the same subject. 
 
 1 Aitchison's Collection of Treaties, Engagements, and Sunnuds, vol. iv. 
 p. 129, and also p. 109, second edition, 1876. 
 
1835.] NATIVE DENUNCIATION OF INFANTICIDE. 197 
 
 " Whereas the Honourable English Company, and Anund Bow 
 Guikwar, Sena Khas Kheyl Shamsher Bahadoor, having set forth to us 
 the dictates of the Shastres and the true faith of the Hindoos, as well 
 as that the ' Brumhu Vy wurtuk Pooran ' declares the killing of children 
 to be a heinous sin, it being written that it is as great an offence to 
 kill an embryo as a Brahman ; that to kill one woman is as great a sin 
 as killing a hundred Brahmans ; that to put one child to death is as 
 great a transgression against the divine laws as to kill a hundred women ; 
 and that the perpetrators of this sin shall be damned to the hell Kule 
 Sootheeta, where he shall be infested with as many maggots as he 
 may have hairs on his body, be born again a leper, and debilitated 
 in all his members ; we, Jahdeja Dewajee and Kooer Nuthoo, Zemin- 
 dars of Gondul (the custom of female infanticide having long prevailed 
 in our caste), do hereby agree for ourselves, and for our offspring, for 
 ever, for the sake of our own prosperity, and for the credit of the 
 Hindoo faith, that we shall from this day renounce this practice ; and, 
 in default of this, that we acknowledge ourselves offenders against the 
 Sircars. Moreover, should any one in future commit this offence, we 
 shall expel him from our caste, and he shall be punished according to 
 the pleasure of the two Governments, and the rule of the Shastres." 
 
 " 22d February Sabbath. I have never travelled on this day since 
 I came to India, but in order that we might have an opportunity of 
 preaching to our countrymen in a camp where the face of a minister 
 has not been seen since the death of Mr. Gray, we rode into Bhooj early 
 in the morning. We found that arrangements for public worship had 
 been made by Colonel Pottinger, the Resident, with whom we took up 
 our abode." 
 
 The Eev. James Gray a chaplain worthy as man and 
 orientalist of Henry Lord, the first of the Company's ecclesias- 
 tical establishment at Surat had died five years before, and 
 there were 140 Europeans at this remote station. His story 
 is another added to those romances of an Indian career with 
 which our history in the East is so plentifully and heroically 
 strewed. A shoemaker of Dunse, not far from Mr. Wilson's 
 birthplace, he educated himself to be the second best teacher 
 of Greek in Scotland, as the senior master of the High School 
 of Edinburgh. He was the friend of Burns, the tutor of his 
 boys, the correspondent of "Wordsworth, and himself a poet 
 
198 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1835. 
 
 and classical critic in Ulackwood's Magazine. His elegy 
 appears in Hogg's Queen's Wake as that of one 
 
 " Bred on southern shore, 
 Beneath the mists of Lammermore." 
 
 Intenser views of Christian truth led him to accept an 
 East India chaplaincy, and in the solitude of Bhooj he gave 
 the close of his life to service to the natives, from the young 
 Eaja whom he taught, to the simple folk whose dialect of 
 Kutchee, a transition from Goojaratee, he reduced to writing. 
 These were days when our native feudatories were left to 
 themselves, and the millions whom they ruled had no such 
 guarantees against oppression as Lord Dalhousie and Lord 
 Canning established when the empire became consolidated. 
 Mr. Gray's good work has often been repeated since, but after 
 Schwartz he was the first, from 1826 to 1830, to aim at such 
 an object as this " I shall be able to make him one of the 
 most learned kings that ever were in India, as he promises to 
 be one of the most humane. Oh ! that I may be enabled to 
 impart to his mind a portion of that wisdom that cometh 
 down from above." A few months after that Mr. Gray passed 
 away, his death officially declared by Sir John Malcolm to be 
 " a public loss," and his name associated in the journals with 
 those of Carey, Leyden, and Morrison. Like Schwartz's royal 
 pupil, Maharaja Serfojee of Tanjore, the grateful Eao Daisul 
 of Kutch erected a monument to Mr. Gray. From 1833 to 
 1860 Rao Daisul ruled his half million of people with loyalty 
 to the British Crown, fidelity to the teaching of his Christian 
 tutor, and the best results to the people. Slavery he abolished 
 the year after Mr. Wilson's visit. Infanticide he suppressed 
 by new regulations, so that the proportion of females to males 
 in the Jhadeja tribe in Kutch rose from 1 to 8 in 1842 to 1 
 to 1*04 in 1868. His son more recently helped Sir Bartle 
 Frere to stop the slave trade from Zanzibar to Muscat, which 
 
1835.] THE HUMANE PRINCE OF KUTCH. 199 
 
 Kutch capitalists had encouraged, and his grandson is now a 
 boy of eleven under training for power at the usual age of 
 Indian majority, eighteen. This was Mr. Wilson's experience 
 of the Eao Daisul. 
 
 " 23d February. Colonel Pottinger kindly introduced Mr. Fyvie 
 and me to the Rao Daisuljee. He received us at the palace with much 
 cordiality, and proved very affable. In 1819, when only three years 
 of age, he was elected to the throne by the brotherhood of the Jhadeja 
 Rajpoots, in room of his father, whose oppressive conduct, and his 
 infidelity in the engagements which he had made with the British, had 
 led to his deposition. His Highness's acquaintance with the English 
 language is considerable. Of its vocables he has a creditable store, and 
 a tolerably ready, though not a very correct, use. While of the English 
 literature and science, properly so called, he has little knowledge, he 
 has a general acquaintance with English manners and customs. As an 
 oriental linguist he is deserving of much praise. With the Kutchee, 
 Goojaratee, Hindostanee, and Persian he is familiar ; and he is able to 
 speak and read them with fluency. He is distinguished for his good 
 sense ; and manifests a vast deal more of correct and amiable feeling 
 than I have seen among any of the grandees in India. There are few, 
 indeed, of the natives in Bombay whom I could prefer before him in 
 this respect. There is a modesty on the one hand, and a self-respect 
 on the other, which I have seldom seen united in a native of Asia. 
 He is represented by those who know him as free from the prominent 
 vices for which many of his predecessors were so lamentably dis- 
 tinguished, and which led to the misery of their subjects and their 
 own ruin. He is much respected and beloved by his people, as well 
 he may ; and, under God, he may prove to them the source of the 
 greatest blessings. He has commenced his reign by declaring his 
 determination to suppress infanticide ; to prevent an increase of the 
 Pawayas (Eunuchs and Sodomites), who have formerly not only been 
 tolerated in the country, but received from it state-endowments, and 
 been recognised as entitled to receive per annum a loaf of bread and four 
 pice (Ijd.) from every inhabitant of the land, and to discourage other 
 evil practices. In reference to infanticide he has brought all the 
 Jhadejas under new and strict engagements, and an offender he has 
 signally punished by depriving him of his property. We took an 
 opportunity of commending him for what he has done, and encouraged 
 him to persevere. He expressed himself in a very satisfactory manner 
 
200 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1835. 
 
 on the subject ; and clearly showed that the common feelings of 
 humanity had full play in his breast. I cannot say so much for any 
 other Jhadeja whom we have seen, either in Kathiawar or Kutch. 
 
 " The Rao is certainly superior in some respects to the superstitions 
 of the country. He seemed to ridicule the deference which is paid to 
 the Brahmans ; and he laughed heartily when, in reply to an observa- 
 tion of one of his ministers, we related some of the evil deeds alleged 
 to have been committed by Rama and Krishna. His suspicions, how- 
 ever, of the vanity of idolatry are not sufficiently strong to lead him 
 directly to discourage its practice. He lives in an atmosphere of 
 contagion ; and he has not escaped infection. He observes heathen 
 rites ; and he lately yielded to the solicitations of his mother, and 
 repaired a temple which had been long neglected. The horrid practice 
 of Suttee he has not yet opposed. A poor deluded woman of the town 
 burnt herself with the body of her husband about two months ago. 
 
 " His Highness seemed aware that Christians profess to worship 
 only the great Creator, and that the English have no images in their 
 temples. We regretted to find, however, that of the principles of 
 Christianity he had no knowledge. His curiosity on the subject it was 
 not difficult to awaken. He readily received the books and tracts 
 which we gave to him, questioned us as to their contents, and promised 
 to read them. I have little doubt that he will act according to his 
 declaration. He observed that he was convinced that the English 
 could not have attained to their present greatness without a good 
 religion. The books with which I presented him were Mr. Gray's 
 translation of the Gospel in Kutchee, and my two Exposures of Hin- 
 dooism, and Refutation of Muhammadanism. The Gospel is not only 
 the first book printed but the first book written in Kutchee. It was 
 viewed as a great curiosity. The Rao declared that while the language 
 in which it is written is generally understood, and spoken by the lower 
 orders of the people, it is never used even for a single note, and, of 
 course, never taught in schools. 
 
 " When we were about to leave the room in which His Highness 
 received us, he begged of us to wait to see a gigantic Zanzibarian slave 
 whom he had lately obtained as a present. We sat till the African 
 Hercules came to make his saldm, and in the interval conversed with 
 the king on the subject of slavery. We were delighted to hear him 
 announce, that he not only treated his few slaves with kindness, but 
 that he had given them to wit, on the occasion of the desertion of two 
 of them, that they might all take their departure whenever they might 
 feel inclined. The Rao, on our rising to return home, after a long 
 
1835.] ' UNNATURAL CRIMES AND HINDOOISM. 201 
 
 interview, proposed to show us all the curiosities of his palace and 
 palace-yard. He personally pointed out to us every object of interest. 
 What struck us most was the Durbar room of Kao Rakha. It is con- 
 structed with a taste highly creditable to the workmen of Bhooj ; and 
 it contains many ornaments brought from Holland by a Kutchee who 
 had visited that country. The Eao has an excellent collection of 
 horses ; and he evidently takes great delight in inspecting them. Those 
 of the breed peculiar to the country are very superior as Indian steeds. 
 We saw for the first time specimens of the lions found in Kathiawar 
 and Parkur, etc. They are as large and fierce-looking as any which I 
 have seen elsewhere. 
 
 " The Pawayas form, probably, the most abominable class of 
 people on the face of the globe. Colonel Pottinger gave me an account 
 of them to peruse. They seize upon destitute boys, constitute them 
 eunuchs, and train them up as professional Sodomites. They have a 
 considerable piece of land held in indm (free) at Kotara near the coast ! 
 They are to be found in most of the large towns, and particularly in 
 Bhooj, alluring to the practice of the sin spoken of by the Apostle 
 Paul in Romans i. 27. They are believed by many of the people to 
 be natural hermaphrodites, and to have something divine about them, 
 and to be entitled to their regard and support ! There is surely no 
 limit to human wickedness. Emphatically, said the Prophet, ' The heart 
 is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it ' ?" 
 
 Turning back from Bhooj, the most northerly part of the 
 tour, Mr. Wilson took boat at its large port of Mandvee for 
 the famous shrines of Krishna on the south coast of the Gulf 
 of Kutch. Here, at the island of Beyt and the fortress- 
 temple of Dwarka, a mixed race of Muhammadans and Hindoos 
 have long added to the plunder of deluded pilgrims the profits 
 of organised piracy. Sanguinary wars and sieges, before 1835 
 and since, have given a horrible notoriety to the Waghurs, 
 whom their lord and employer, the Gaikwar, failed to control. 
 The more direct administration of political officers so vigorous 
 as Colonel Keatinge, has in recent days given peace to the 
 land of jungle and of idol shrines which forms the most 
 westerly point of Goojarat. Such merit as temporary absorp- 
 tion into " the prince, the intoxicator " as Krishna, the lasci- 
 
202 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1835. 
 
 vious, is called can give, is now to be obtained without the 
 risks of 1835 and previously. But the island and the castle 
 of Krishna, the Lord of Dwarka, are not so attractive as they 
 were save for the conch shells which Beyt, " the door of the 
 shell," exports to supply the uses of every Krishna temple, 
 and also for purposes of art. Dwarka is to the west what 
 Pooree, the shrine of Jugganath, the Lord of the World, is 
 to the east of India. 
 
 " 2d March. In the evening we essayed to see the great temple of 
 Dwarakanatha, of Ranchod. We were conducted round the walls of 
 the fort in which it was situated, and which are, with some of the holy 
 buildings, fast falling to decay. When we arrived at the gate of the 
 1 sacred court,' we asked admittance ; but it was refused to us in no 
 very respectful terms. I then produced the order of the Gaikwar, but 
 it was unavailing. ' You have seen all that any European can see ; no 
 European has been within the gate/ was the reply. As we saw nothing 
 very attractive about the place, and much in its dirt and filth which 
 was disgusting, we prepared to leave it. We were told, however, that 
 the god dwelt originally at Dwaraka ; that he fled for bare life from 
 that place at the approach of the Mussulmans; that the discerning 
 spirits of the Brahmans discovered him in this village, originally 
 denominated Eamandi ; that he condescended to enter the idol when 
 brought hither: and that, defended by powder and cast-metal worked 
 by foreign Makaranees, he had maintained his existence to this hour, 
 and captured many a richly laden vessel on its voyage round the point 
 of Dwaraka. In an unhappy moment he forsook his followers so far 
 as to allow them to yield to the force of the English, when they 
 captured his abode a few years ago. These Mlechas had sold him to 
 the Gaikwar, who, from the poor returns obtained from the pilgrims, 
 is beginning to find that he had been led to strike a bad bargain. The 
 god, however, though now comparatively forsaken by men, is not left 
 solitary. A host of sacred beings dwell beside him, to wit, Baldeva, 
 Kalyanji, Madhavaji, Keshavaji, Devakiji of old his mother, Garuji, 
 on whom his father was accustomed to take his aerial flights, Satya 
 Bhamaji, Jambauvati, Lakshmi, Radhaji one of his beloved spouses, 
 Gopalji and Gowardhanji his own precious self in the days of his 
 infancy. Whether they have occasionally music and dancing among 
 themselves, or have even simple conversation, we did not hear. Though 
 
1835.] THE GREAT WESTERN SHRINE OF KRISHNA. 203 
 
 they are less than nothing and vanity, thousands make them the occa- 
 sion of their eternal ruin. 
 
 " The temple has a lofty steeple, but there is nothing otherwise 
 remarkable about such parts of its exterior as we were permitted to see. 
 It cannot, I should think, be more than four or five hundred years old 
 at the most. The Brahmans would fain claim for it a higher anti- 
 quity. It stands upon an elevated piece of ground, and a flight of 
 steps leads from it to the creek of the sea denominated Gomati from 
 its many windings. At the foot of this flight there is a small dharmottar, 
 where each of the mendicant pilgrims receives from the Gaikwar a 
 ' gowpin ' of dried rice, and a benediction instead of water, on which 
 to subsist for a day. The creek is a place of sacred ablution, and the 
 poor deluded natives imagine that they can really wash away their 
 sins in it. Its celebrity is, I rejoice to say, greatly on the decline. 
 Neither its attractions, nor that of the idol, are successful in inviting 
 the visits of one-fourth of the pilgrims who used to come to it a few 
 years ago. The proceeds do not cover a sixth part of the expense to 
 which the Gaikwar is subjected in supporting this idolatrous establish- 
 ment. All this speaks favourably as to the decline of superstition 
 among the natives. The Brahmans seemed disposed to admit the fact. 
 
 " 5th March. After having seen all that is to be seen in Dwaraka, 
 and made many inquiries respecting its history, we find nothing con- 
 nected with it which can at all support the fables of the Puranas. It 
 is not even alleged on its behalf that it is the town said to have been 
 built by Krishna. This place is declared to have stood to the south of 
 Mangrol, and to have perished shortly after the death of its founder by 
 a bursting forth of the ocean, whose waves, very conveniently for the 
 Brahmans who ever hate the light, now cover it. The present Dwaraka 
 is not even alleged to have been the Mul-Gomati. The place seems 
 not only to float like an Irish bog, but its honours also seem to be 
 very evanescent. About six centuries ago, as mentioned by Captain 
 M'Murdo and admitted by all here with whom we have conversed, the 
 valued image of the god Ranchod, by a manoeuvre of the priests, was 
 conveyed to Dhakur in Goojarat, where it still remains. After much 
 trouble the Brahmans at Dwaraka substituted another, the pran (life) 
 of which, as I have already noticed, fled to Bet on the approach of the 
 Mussulmans. Surely nothing is too absurd for the faith of a Hindoo. 
 
 " Being on the spot most sacred to Krishna, we took an oppor- 
 tunity to-day of exposing to our many visitors the absurdity and sin- 
 fulness of the legends respecting him which are found in different 
 Puranas, and particularly in the tenth section of the Bhagavata. 
 
204 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1835. 
 
 " 7th March, POREBUNDER. We preached, apart from one another, 
 both morning and evening in the bazaars; and we had many visitors 
 throughout the day, whom we addressed and supplied with books. 
 The report of our proceedings in other parts of the province had 
 reached the town, and contributed not a little to the interest with 
 which our ministrations were viewed. I am more and more persuaded 
 that long missionary tours are by far the most beneficial. Had we 
 confined ourselves on this occasion to a small district, there would 
 have been little or none of this ardour, which procures us numerous 
 and interested auditors. ' I must hear,' say many, ' what every person 
 in every place hears.' There has been too much overlooking of human 
 sympathy in the conduct of many Missions. If the Hindoos are to be 
 wrought upon, they must be roused. The ministry of excitement, 
 both of John the Baptist and our blessed Lord, preceded the ministry 
 of conversion through the Apostles in the land of Judaea. Something 
 similar may be the case in India." 
 
 Sailing down the coast, Mr. Wilson reached Jooriagurh, a 
 Muhammadan principality, in the court of which he had long 
 discussions till past midnight, first with Hindoo and then with 
 Mussulman scholars. He found the Hindoo prime minister 
 well acquainted with Arabic. But his visit has a peculiar 
 interest because of his the first attempt, in 1835, to 
 decipher the famous Asoka inscriptions on the granite rock of 
 Girnar, discussed in a subsequent chapter. The classical 
 hill, ten miles from the town, Mr. Wilson reached through 
 the surrounding jungle at daybreak. 
 
 " 1 2th March. The ascent is very difficult, and in some places, 
 from the precipitousness of the mountain, rather trying to the nerves. 
 The rock is of granite, containing, particularly near the summit, a 
 large quantity of mica. There is scarcely any vegetation upon it, and 
 indeed, from its steepness, no possibility of the formation of a soil. 
 The greatest temples are at an elevation, I should think, of about 3000 
 feet, estimating the greatest height at 3500. They are built of the 
 granite, though some of the steps and staircases are formed of sand- 
 stone from the plain below. They are works of prodigious labour, 
 and are executed in excellent taste. They are at present appropriated 
 by the Jains, but the most ancient and remarkable of them appear to 
 me from the Dhagob, and other arrangements, to be undoubtedly 
 
 
1835.] PARTIALLY DECIPHERS THE ASOKA EDICTS. 205 
 
 Buddhist. The most remarkable Jain images in them are those of 
 Neminatha, not much exceeding the size of a man, black and orna- 
 mented with gold, and at present worshipped; and Bishabhdeva, of 
 a colossal size, of granite covered with white chunam: and Paras- 
 natha. In the inferior parts there are the images of all the twenty- 
 four Tirthankars. There are numerous cells in the courts of the 
 temples, and places adjoining, which were probably formerly used by 
 the priests. At present the only persons who live on the hill are the 
 sepoys who guard the temples, a few pujaris (beadles), and pilgrims 
 who come to worship and who may sojourn for a night or two. I was 
 allowed to go through all the temples, and even to enter the shrines 
 and measure the idols. 
 
 " There are two other peaks on the hill, from one of which the 
 Hindoos who get tired of life throw themselves down in the hope of 
 making a speedy journey of it to heaven. I did not think of visiting 
 them on account of the difficulty of reaching them. There was, how- 
 ever, a staircase leading to them, as to the peak on which I stood. 
 The view from the top of Girnar is one which is not dearly purchased 
 at the expense of ascending it. It embraces the adjoining hills, one 
 of which the Dhatar vies with it in height, and an immense range 
 of low country extending in all directions, and, toward the west, 
 reaching to the sea. There is much jungle on the lower hills: and 
 cultivation, from the want of water, is not very extensive in the low 
 country. Villages appear scattered only here and there. 
 
 " I made as quick a descent of tjie mountain as possible, that I 
 might reach, before the darkness of night settled upon me, the block 
 of granite near Joonagurh, which contains the ancient inscriptions which, 
 though never deciphered, have attracted much attention. I was able 
 to accomplish the object which I had in view. After examining the 
 block for a little, and comparing the letters with several ancient Sans- 
 krita alphabets in my possession, I found myself able, to my great joy, 
 and that of the Brahmans who were with me, to make out several 
 words, and to decide as to the probable possibility of making out the 
 whole. The taking a copy of the inscriptions, I found, from their 
 extent, to be a hopeless task; but, as Captain Lang had kindly 
 promised to procure a transcript of the whole for me, I did not regret 
 the circumstance." 
 
 But one spot of historical and. idolatrous interest remained 
 to be visited that Somnath which the iconoclast Muhammad 
 of Ghuznee stripped of its treasures, and the so-called gates 
 
206 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1835. 
 
 of which Lord Ellenborough dreamed that he would restore as 
 an act of political and religious justice which the Hindoos 
 must appreciate. Lord Ellenborough, lashed by Macaulay's 
 satire in the House of Commons, has made Somnath more 
 famous than did even the first Muhammadan conqueror of 
 India. Having sailed from the port of Joonagurh, Verawul, 
 Mr. Wilson rode two miles to the Phallic shrine of the old 
 temple. 
 
 " 18th March. I proceeded to both the new and old temples of 
 Somnath. The former was built by the famous Alya Bai about fifty 
 years ago, and it is now under the care of the Sompada Brahmans, 
 with one of whom I conversed. The latter is that of which the image 
 (a linga) was destroyed by Muhammad of Ghuzni, and of which the 
 most extravagant accounts have been published. The greater part of 
 the building (of sandstone) is still standing, and the remains of its 
 external ornaments, though much defaced by the violence of the 
 Mussulmans, show that, as pieces of art, they had been well executed. 
 Some are not very decent, and it is not to be wondered at that the 
 attempt was made to destroy them. The Mussulman conqueror might 
 find treasure about the premises, but most certainly it was not within 
 the god, who had neither head nor belly." 
 
 Thus, unconsciously, was Mr. Wilson qualifying himself 
 for those political references to him on the subject of 
 Lord Ellenborough's Somnath Gates' Proclamation, which 
 in 1843 caused the laughter of Europe, the indignation of all 
 Christian men, and its author's recall. Bombay was safely 
 reached, by sea, on the 20th March, after an absence of 
 above three months. The survey of the whole Province 
 of Bombay proper was now complete. 
 
 The one, the only one, intolerable trial of European life 
 in India had already begun to cast its shadow over the 
 otherwise unbroken happiness of the mission family at 
 Ambrolie. Eour children had been born to Mr. and Mrs. 
 Wilson, and of these one had died in infancy, while another 
 
1835.] DEATH OF MARGARET WILSON. 207 
 
 was soon to follow him. During Mr. Wilson's absence on 
 his tour to Goa in 1834, it had been necessary to send home 
 their eldest boy, Andrew, who has since distinguished himself 
 as a traveller and author in India, China, and Great 
 Britain. Very pathetic are the references, in the correspond- 
 ence of husband and wife, to these deaths and that separation. 
 But now the close of the tour of 1835 was to be marked by 
 the greatest blow of all. Dr. Smyttan had urged Mrs. Wilson 
 to return to Scotland, after her visit to Surat, as the only 
 means of saving her life. "It seems worse than death to 
 part from my husband; but if I must indeed go the Lord 
 will give me strength for the hour of trial. Dr. Smyttan 
 has not yet mentioned it to Mr. Wilson; he is afraid of 
 distressing him, and he wished me first to give my consent. 
 This I can never do." That was written on 31st March, 
 just after Mr. Wilson's return, to a lady friend the baptism 
 of whose child she had attended the day before. On the 
 8th April she wrote to her boy at home "the last letter 
 that your dearest mamma will ever write to you;" and as 
 she laid down the pen exclaimed, " Now I am ready to die." 
 But not till the struggling spirit had cared for the Marathee 
 girls also, for she ever spoke in the agony of dissolution to 
 them, Anandie, Yeshu Christiavar phar priti theva, "0 
 Anandie, I beseech you, greatly love Jesus Christ ! " " The 
 prospect of death is sweet," she could say in her last words. 
 After that, and on the 19th April, the Sabbath morning saw 
 her freed from the body. 
 
 It is all such a tragedy, and on its human side so common 
 a tragedy, in the land of which Great Britain has taken pos- 
 session, by the dust of its noblest women as well as bravest 
 men. But to her it was a triumph. Margaret Wilson was 
 the first, as she was with Ann Judson the greatest, of that 
 band of woman - missionaries whom Great Britain and 
 America have ever since given to India, till now they number 
 
208 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1835. 
 
 some two hundred who are living and dying for its people. 
 Her sisters soon after took up her work, and her husband 
 published a very popular Memoir of her life, 1 which the 
 perusal of her papers enables us to pronounce within the 
 truth in the representations it gives of her intellectual ability 
 and her gracious force of character. To her, more than to 
 any other, is due the rapid progress of female education in 
 Bombay, not only in Christian schools but in Parsee, Hindoo, 
 and even Muhammadan families. 
 
 1 A Memoir of Mrs. Margaret Wilson, of the Scottish Mission, Bombay. 
 Third edition, enlarged. Edinburgh, 1840. 
 
CHAPTEK VII. 
 
 1836-1842. 
 ZAND SCHOLAESHIP AND THE PARSEE CONTROVERSY. 
 
 Degree of D.D. from University of Edinburgh First Marriage in Native 
 Church of Bombay Dr. "Wilson first English Scholar to master Zand Texts 
 Fall of the Persian Empire Migrations of the Parsee Fugitives Sanjan and 
 Nowsaree, "a City of Priests" First Parsee Settlers in Bembay Frater 
 Paulinus on the Lingua Zendica Anquetil du Perron's Adventures Professor 
 Rask's visit to India Dr. Wilson's first Zand Studies in 1831 Burnouf s 
 and Westergaard's Researches Origin of the Parsee Controversy An Unhappy 
 Editor "Goosequill" and " Swanquill " The Parsee Sects Dr. Wilson's 
 Lectures on the " Vandidad " The Parsee Sanhedrim enter the Lists E. B. 
 Eastwick's Translation of the " Zartusht-Namah " Dr. Wilson's Work on 
 "The Parsi Religion "First Zand and Pahlavi types Wilkins and Ward 
 Conversion of Dhunjeebhoy Nowrojee Hormasdjee Pestonjee follows 
 Persecution of Framjee Writ of Habeas Corpus First Vindication in India of 
 Civil and Religious Rights of the Natives The Bombay Secular Press on the 
 Trial League of the Parsee Priests against the Missionaries Appeal to the 
 Court of Directors and Decision in Dr. Wilson's favour Anti- Conversion 
 Memorial to Governments of Bombay and India Answered by Dr. Wilson 
 Hormasdjee receives his Wife and Daughter at last. 
 
"I saw a book in Khiisrau's royal hall, 
 Writ in the Pahlavi, for so they call 
 That ancient tongue ; the great arch-priest of fire 
 Had placed it there chief of the learned choir. 
 Within the book in varied tale were told 
 The deeds of ancient kings and heroes old. 
 There too the Zandavasta's sacred line, 
 Was traced, holy Zartusht's book divine ; 
 And there the story of his wondrous birth, 
 And all that marked the sage's stay on earth. 
 Time-worn the volume, and the mystic page 
 Was veiled in doubt, and dim with mists of age. 
 Said, then, the priest, ' This sacred volume see ! 
 By this in heaven's pure faith instructed be.' 
 Then to my listening ear a part he read, 
 And strong emotion through his bosom spread. 
 ' Learning,' he cried, ' herein would much avail, 
 For mark this long-forgotten lore this tale 
 Of whom none knows the source this ancient creed 
 May perish, since but few this page can read. 
 'Tis best that you this tale in verse should dress, 
 And in fair Persia's tongue its words express. 
 
 The infant Zartusht, rescued from the tomb, 
 Again is sheltered in his mother's womb. 
 Her wound is healed, by mercy from above, 
 And Hell's fierce rage is foiled by heavenly love. 
 To Daghdii, then, the heavenly stripling said ; 
 ' Arise, nor let thy heart grow faint with dread, 
 Comfort thee, for from thee a child shall spring, 
 On whom shall rest the favour of heaven's king. 
 The world beholds the glad event with joy, 
 And future ages hail the promised boy." 
 
 E. B. EASTWICK'S Translation of Zartusht- Namah. 
 
 11 Behold ! Magi from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, ' Where is He 
 that is born King of the Jews ? for we saw His star in the East, and are come 
 to worship Him.' " ST. MATTHEW'S Gospel. 
 
1836.] HONORARY DEGREE FROM EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY. 211 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WHEN, on the 7th July 1836, Mr. Wilson wrote that pleasant 
 letter to his old friend and benefactor, Mr. J. Jordan Wilson, 
 in which he expressed satisfaction at " Mr. Duffs elevation 
 to a Doctorship" by the vigorous University of Aberdeen, 
 and hinted that his own policy of vernacular preaching 
 would probably lead the Modern Athens to pronounce him a 
 " babbler," like Paul, he was about to be surprised by the 
 receipt of the parchment diploma from his own University of 
 Edinburgh, of D.D., or " Sacrosanctae Theologian Doctor." 
 The learning and the piety of his native country were as 
 ready to mark with academic approval the six years' career 
 of the young scholar who preached and wrote, in season and 
 out of season, to wise and simple, in the vernacular and 
 classical tongues of Western India, as to honour the briefer 
 and more brilliant work of his fellow-missionary who, in 
 Eastern India, had begun an intellectual as well as spiritual 
 revolution which was already affecting even Bombay itself. 
 Dr. Duff, driven home by an almost fatal disease, was 
 restored to feed the flame of apostolic Evangelism in the 
 churches of Great Britain and America, so that soon Bombay 
 and Goojarat, as well as Madras, Nagpore, and Calcutta, 
 were to see the result in new missions and fresh missionaries 
 worthy of such pioneers. Dr. Wilson, in spite of the com- 
 parative solitude of bereavement, and not unfrequent sick- 
 ness from overwork and exposure, was to be enabled to carry 
 on his loved work among the people of India without inter- 
 ruption till the close of 1842. Thus, at every successive 
 
212 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1836. 
 
 period the gifts and the labours of each supplemented those 
 of the other, while specially adapted to the local peculiarities 
 of the provinces and the communities to whom they gave 
 their lives; and both combined to form an almost perfect 
 ideal of Christian evangelisation among the races of the East. 
 Certainly the diploma of the University of Edinburgh, as 
 it was given to Wilson after the old fashion, long before 
 the modern and most desirable custom of bestowing such 
 academic degrees personally and in public had originated, 
 well described his previous function as a teacher of divine 
 Theology, and could hardly confer on him any new power or 
 virtue in that capacity. The interest of the already yellow 
 parchment lies rather in the names of some of the men who 
 signed it, among whom we find, besides Principal Baird, such 
 medical professors as Alison and Traill, Ballingall and Syme, 
 and Sir Eobert Christison still spared to the city; Thomas 
 Chalmers and David Welsh; Sir William Hamilton and 
 James D. Forbes; Macvey Napier, and that other John 
 Wilson who taught poetry, criticism, and all the humanities, 
 under the name of Moral Philosophy. Such men declared : 
 " Testatum volumus Eeverendum virum, Joannem Wilson, 
 apud Bombay, hujus Academiae olim Alumnum, Sacrosanctaa 
 Theologiae Doctoris titulum consecutum esse ; eique amplis- 
 simam potestatem Sacrosanctam Theologiam ubique gentium 
 Legendi, Docendi, Profitendi concessam, aliaque omnia 
 Privilegia, Immunitates, Jura," etc., etc. Never before, and 
 probably never since, has the honorary degree of Doctor of 
 Divinity, even when conferred by the University of Edin- 
 burgh, had so honest a significance as this, which was signed 
 on the 4th of May 1836. He thus acknowledged it, in a 
 letter to Professor Brunton, which also gives us some glimpses 
 of the progress of female education and society : 
 
 "BOMBAY, 1 6th September 1836. I received your letter of the 
 28th May, on the fiftieth day after its date! I am quite overwhelmed 
 
1836.] FIRST MARRIAGE IN NATIVE CHURCH, BOMBAY. 213 
 
 with your kindness ; and I shall not attempt to express my sense of 
 the obligations under which it has placed me. The diploma was 
 unexpected by me ; and I fear that it will prove only a generous pay- 
 ment in advance for work which may never be performed. I desire 
 to view it, however, as a new call to cultivate personal humility, to 
 abound in the proclamation of the Gospel, both by writing and speech 
 to the perishing multitudes around me, and to unfold for the compas- 
 sion of the benevolent, as opportunities offer, the systems of transcen- 
 dental speculation and gross superstition, which exercise such a 
 destructive sway in the regions of Asia. I have already used my new 
 title in a Persian pamphlet which I have just published, entitled 
 Raddi-i-Din Musalmdnl, or Kefutation of Muhammadanism. My grate- 
 ful acknowledgments are due to the University of Edinburgh. 
 
 " The School for Destitute Poor Native Girls now contains fifty-five 
 scholars, who are all making satisfactory progress. The eldest of the 
 two girls connected with it, whom I lately baptised, has been married 
 by me to one of the Brahman converts, and this, the first virtuous 
 union of natives formed in the bosom of the Protestant Church in 
 Bombay, promises to promote the happiness of both the parties. The 
 marriage was honoured by the attendance of several friends of the 
 mission, and by many natives. I embraced the opportunity which it 
 afforded me of entering into a contrast between the injunctions of the 
 Christian Scriptures and the Hindoo Shastres relative to the treatment 
 of females. The Parsee inhabitants of a street in the neighbourhood 
 of the mission-house, have placed under me the whole disposal of the 
 juvenile population, including sixteen girls, for instruction through the 
 medium of Goojaratee, a circumstance which has afforded me the 
 highest delight. Altogether, there are upwards of 180 girls educating 
 in connection with the mission." 
 
 To his discussions with Brahmans and Moulvies, Jains 
 and Jews, in the central seat of Bombay, and in many 
 of its districts and feudatory principalities, Dr. Wilson had 
 added that which proved to be the most important of all. 
 Alike as a scholar and a missionary, his writings on the 
 Zand language and literature, and his spiritual and social 
 influence among the Parsees, take the highest place. He 
 was the first English scholar to master the original Zand 
 texts, according to the admission of the " irritabile genus " of 
 
214 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1836. 
 
 pure Orientalists, as represented by the late Dr. Haug, 1 
 who would in no wise give due credit to his German rival, 
 Spiegel, the present able representative of Zand scholarship 
 in Europe. And Dr. Wilson was the first missionary to 
 educate and admit to the Christian Church two converts 
 from the faith of Zoroaster, who still adorn the Free 
 Church of Scotland and the Baptist Church respectively, 
 as ordained ministers. 
 
 The Parsees, the people of Pars or Ears which the Greeks 
 called Persis, after having ruled Western Asia from the Black 
 Sea to the Indus from before Kai Khoshru, or Cyrus the 
 Great, fell victims to the same intolerance which they had 
 shown against every other faith, whether idolatrous or Chris- 
 tian as in the case of the long-suffering Armenians. In 
 A.D. 658, Yezdijird III., the last of the Sassanian kings, saw 
 his army spoiled of its sacred banner, the jewelled apron of 
 Kawa, on the fatal field of Kadseah. That palladium gone, a 
 few years more left the empire of Cyrus extinguished at Naha- 
 vand, not far from that capital of Hamadan, to which the 
 Jewess Esther has given an immortality greater than that of 
 Cyrus or of Artaxerxes her husband. The mound is still seen at 
 Toorkman Merv where Yezdijird found a grave after miserable 
 wanderings, while all of his surviving host who did not apos- 
 tatise bore with them the sacred fire to the hills of Khorassan. 
 Thence the Kaliph Omar and his successors drove them south 
 to the sea, to the caves of Ormuz of which Milton sings, 
 though its wealth and splendour were of later date and Por- 
 tuguese origin, on to Diu off Kathiawar, and so to Sanjan in 
 Goojarat. There, in 717, they found an asylum for three 
 centuries, and became partially Hindooised. Eor, explain it 
 away as their Anglicised descendants may, "the fair, the 
 fearless, the valiant, and the athletic Parsees," obtained pro- 
 
 1 Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings, and Religion of the Parsees, 
 by Martin Haug, Dr. Phil. : Bombay, 1862, page 28. 
 
1836.] ARRIVAL OF THE PARSEES IN INDIA. 215 
 
 tection from the Eana Jadao by a denial of that very mono- 
 theism from which, in its Muhammadan form, they had fled, 
 and which in controversy they now claim to hold. In six- 
 teen distichs of corrupt Sanscrit, drawn up after some days 
 of deliberation, they professed to worship the sun, the five 
 elements, Hormuzd, chief of the Suras or angels, and the 
 cow; and described their ritual and customs. Eegarding 
 them, evidently, as only another sect of Hindoos, the Eana 
 assisted them to build their fire-temple, and there they con- 
 tinued to flourish, sending forth settlements to the neighbour- 
 ing districts. As the Muhammadan power grew in Western 
 India their old enemy found them out, and they fled with 
 their sacred fire to the jungle of Wasanda from the assault 
 of Sultan Mahmood Begoda of Ahmedabad, in 1507, though 
 not without showing a courage in defence of their Hindoo 
 protectors worthy of their fathers. When the danger passed 
 by they sought a resting-place in that Goojaratee town of 
 Nowsaree, where Dr. Wilson found their earliest temples and 
 MSS. during his northern tour. Surat was not far off, and 
 thither not a few Parsees carried their intelligence and enter- 
 prise to the service of the European traders. Sir Nicholas 
 Waite's Parsee broker, for instance, still lives in the early 
 annals as a clever but by no means honest fellow. The 
 family of Ardeshir Dhunjeesha of Surat was founded by a 
 Parsee whose ability made him the favourite of the Great 
 Moghul at Agra, and enabled him to obtain commercial 
 privileges for his English friends. Muncherjee Seth did 
 similar service to the Dutch. As Surat rose into importance 
 Nowsaree became, what it still is, the city of the Parsee 
 priests. 1 At an early period the community attracted the 
 attention of Kerridge, the English Governor of Surat ; and in 
 1616 he urged Henry Lord, the first English chaplain there, 
 
 1 See The Parsees : Their History, Manners, Customs, and Religion. By 
 Dosabhoy Framjee, who is a valued official of the Government of Bombay. 
 
216 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1836. 
 
 to study thoroughly the religions of both Hindoos and Par- 
 sees. Lord's materials were used by Sir Thomas Herbert in 
 his valuable work ; and by the French traveller Bernier, in 
 his letter to M.Chapelain, on "Lord's Discovery of Two Foreign 
 Sects." 
 
 When Bombay became English, and was opened as a free 
 city to all the native communities of Western India, Asia, 
 and Eastern Africa, as we have seen, the Parsees were the 
 first to take advantage of English rule there. Three years 
 after its settlement, Dr. Fryer found, on the top of Malabar 
 Hill, "a Parsee tomb (or tower of silence) lately raised." 
 Indeed, one Dorabjee Nanabhoy had held office there during 
 the Portuguese occupation, and his services were found in- 
 valuable when the English took possession. His son drove off 
 the Seedee pirates, and received the hereditary distii;ction of 
 Patel or lord of the fishermen whom he led on that occasion, 
 an honour still valued by the family, who have become great 
 merchants from China to London. The English shipwright 
 who built the East India Company's vessels at Bombay 
 tempted one Lowjee to leave Surat, and his descendants have, 
 ever since the foundation of the dockyard in 1*735, held the 
 position of master builder. The great and wealthy clans of 
 Shet Khandans, Dadyshets, and Banajees, still trace their 
 prosperity to the happy day when their ancestors settled 
 under the Company's flag in the Fort of Bombay. It was in 
 1*780 that a Dadyshet built the first of the three fire-temples 
 in the island. The latest census shows that the whole Parsee 
 community under British rule number 70,000, of whom a 
 third are in the city of Bombay. There are some in Persia. 
 
 For a community with such a history, language, and 
 sacred literature, whose influence, in spite of their compara- 
 tively small number, was half a century ago far beyond that 
 of the leading men of all the other races and sects in India, 
 nothing had been done in a high educational sense before Dr. 
 
1836.] ZAND SCHOLARS PREVIOUS TO DR. WILSON. 217 
 
 Wilson's arrival in Bombay. Save a few of their priests 
 they themselves were ignorant of their sacred books. 
 The little that Lord had been able to communicate to 
 Europe regarding them in the beginning of the seventeenth 
 century had been independently followed up by a Jesuit 
 missionary, whose undoubtedly rich contributions to early 
 Zand and Sanscrit scholarship Dr. Haug overlooks in his 
 history of the researches into the sacred writings and religion 
 of the Parsees. John Philip Werdin, born of peasant parents 
 in 1748 in South Austria, went out in 1774 to the Malabar 
 coast as Prater Paulinus, devoted himself for fourteen years 
 to the study of Sanscrit and Zand, as well as the languages of 
 South India, and returned to Eome, from which, when secretary 
 to the congregation of the Propaganda, he issued at least 
 twenty great works, mostly quarto volumes, on the classical 
 languages, literatures and customs of the peoples of India. 
 Of these the smallest was his De, Antiquitate et Affinitate 
 Linguae Zendicae et Samscradamicae Germanicae Dissertatio. 1 
 The examples of Paulinus, and many previous Jesuit mission- 
 aries like Hanxleden, go far to justify Cardinal Wiseman's 
 assertion that the Hindoo languages and literature were first 
 systematically studied in Eome. But in Eome, also, the 
 researches, or the manuscripts on which they were based, were 
 as carefully buried as the documents in the case of Gallileo 
 Gallilei, till the first Napoleon carried these off from the 
 Vatican, and restored them only on the promise that they 
 should be published. 
 
 Not less a polemic than Paulinus was Anquetil du Perron, 
 the young theological student of Paris, who first brought the 
 Zand texts to Europe, and translated them, after a fashion, 
 into French. Stumbling on a manuscript of the Vandidad in 
 
 1 See my sketch "India and Comparative Philology," in the Calcutta 
 Review, vol. xxix. (1857). His Italian work, Viaggio alle] Indie Orientali, 
 was translated into German, and thence into English, in 1800, and deserves 
 perusal still. 
 
218 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1836. 
 
 the king's library, one of the few probably brought to Europe 
 by Bourchier or Dr. Eraser, he abandoned the church for the 
 life of a private soldier, that he might find his way out to 
 India. He sailed in the French expedition of 1745. Know- 
 ing Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian, he set himself to Sanscrit, 
 and such a study of the people as could best be made during 
 long journeys on foot from Chandernagore to Pondichery on 
 the east coast, and from Mahe to Surat on the west coast. 
 At Surat the support of the French government enabled him 
 to fee Dustoor Darab, one of the most learned high priests 
 of the Parsees, to instruct him in both Zand and Pahlavi, and 
 to sell him manuscripts. Suspecting that he was being 
 deceived, as later scholars like Wilford were, by the Brah- 
 mans, he bribed other priests also, till he was satisfied as 
 to the honesty of Darab. For six years, during which he 
 collected a hundred and eighty MSS. in all the sacred 
 languages of the country, he pursued his researches, and then 
 he determined to settle at Benares for the composition of a 
 work on the whole history, literature, and antiquities of India. 
 The fall of Pondichery to the English arms forced him to 
 return to France. He visited Oxford on the way, where he 
 laid the foundation of a quarrel with Sir William Jones, and 
 so led the learned of Europe into the error, which Dr. Wilson 
 was the first completely to dissipate, that Zand, instead of 
 being the elder sister of the Sanscrit, was that monstrous 
 impossibility an invented or forged language. 1 France 
 honoured the scholar, as, since Colbert, she had always perse- 
 cuted the soldiers and statesmen who would have given her 
 
 1 At so late a period as the year 1855 Mr. Homer, an experienced Bombay 
 civilian, who ought to have known better, wrote a monograph with the title 
 Zend ; Is it an Original Language ? Strictly Zand is the commentary on the 
 Avasta or "Word" of the Parsee scriptures, and hence the language of the 
 commentary. Pahlavi, probably at first the language of the province of 
 Pahlav, is the language of the Sassanian inscriptions. Pazand is applied to 
 the purely Iranian versions of Pahlavi texts in Avasta or Persian characters. 
 See Haug's Essays, second edition. 
 
1836.] HIS EARLIEST ZAND RESEARCHES. 219 
 
 an eastern empire, and in 1771 lie published his Zend-Avesta. 
 The Kevolution drove him into that obscurity which alone 
 was safety, and when he died in 1805 he was occupied on a 
 new French edition of the Viaggio of his old rival Paulinus. 
 A century before, Hyde had published his learned apology for 
 Zoroastrianism, in his Historia Religionis Veterum Persarum 
 Eorumque Magorum, but he could not read the MSS. of which 
 he professed to give a criticism. Du Perron's manuscripts, 
 the dictations of Darab and the other priests, as still to be 
 found in the National Library of Paris, and, above all, the 
 two quartos of his Zend-Avesta, became the stream from which 
 all subsequent scholars drank, till the Danish Eask and the 
 Scottish Wilson went to the fountain-head. 
 
 In the course of a philological tour of Europe, Africa, and 
 Asia, the Scandinavian scholar Eask visited Bombay to study 
 Zand. In 1826 he used the collection which he had purchased 
 for the Copenhagen Library in the production of his small 
 work on the age and genuineness of the Zand language. In 
 that he justified by new proofs the conclusions of Paulinus 
 and Du Perron as to its relation to the Sanscrit, but refused 
 to follow the latter in his conclusions as to the antiquity of 
 Zoroaster. For Eask was the first to make out the law of the 
 transposition of sounds with which Bopp's name is con- 
 nected. Five years afterwards Dr. Wilson, prompted by the 
 scholar's enthusiasm, but, along with that, by the more con- 
 suming fire which inflamed all his life, thus wrote to the 
 secretary of the Scottish Missionary Society, the first of his 
 draft letters which we can find specially referring to the 
 Parsees : 
 
 "BOMBAY, 24^ July 1831. . . . I have now regularly delivered a 
 lecture on Systematic Theology on Wednesday evenings during the last 
 sixteen weeks. My audience, which consists partly of Europeans and 
 partly of Natives, has been respectable. Ten of my lectures were 
 devoted to the consideration of the testimony which is afforded by the 
 
220 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1836. 
 
 light of Nature to the existence, attributes, and moral government of 
 God ; and to the duty and destiny of man. Two of them were 
 occupied in forming an estimate of the discoveries of the light of Nature, 
 and in evincing the possibility and desirableness of a direct Revelation. 
 I am at present engaged in the consideration of the inquiry, Where is 
 a direct Revelation to be found ; and I have spent four evenings in the 
 discussion of the claims of the Parsee religion. I have been requested 
 to publish my observations upon it ; but I have agreed only to the 
 present printing of such of them as refer to the "Vendidad Sade," 
 which is the most authoritative work acknowledged by the followers of 
 Zoroaster. I intend, God willing, to comply with the wishes of my 
 friends by preparing a work embracing an analysis of all the sacred 
 books of the Parsis, a particular view of their religious history so far 
 as it can be ascertained, and a description of their manners and customs. 
 I have for a long time been prosecuting inquiries connected with these 
 subjects ; and I have lately procured some documents which throw 
 great light upon them. When I last wrote to you I had not the 
 intention which I now avow ; but many circumstances have conspired, 
 and especially the encouragement which I have received from some of 
 my friends to whose judgment I bow with deference, the readiness 
 of the natives to make communications to me the probable useful- 
 ness of the work in leading them to inquiry and in assisting future 
 missionaries which they have hitherto withheld from other Europeans, 
 have led me to come to a determination on the subject. I have access 
 to most of the books published in Europe which treat of the Parsees. 
 There is one little work which I cannot find here which I should like 
 to see. It is The Sacred Oracles of Zoroaster, published in Greek, at 
 Amsterdam, in 1689. It is not considered genuine ; but some of the 
 passages which I have seen objected to as inconsistent with the opinions 
 of Zoroaster appear to me to be consonant with them. If you should 
 see a copy advertised in any of the catalogues I shall feel much obliged 
 to you if you will purchase it for me." 
 
 It was not till 1833 that there appeared the Commentary 
 on the Yasna, or Parsee prayer-book, based on Neriosingh's 
 Sanscrit translation, by Eugene Burnouf, whom we shall 
 meet again as one of Dr. Wilson's correspondents. Nor was 
 it till 1841 that the other Danish scholar, Westergaard, arrived 
 in Bombay, where he was long Dr. Wilson's guest, and 
 received that self-sacrificing assistance which enabled him to 
 
1836.] OCCASION OF THE PARSEE CONTROVERSY. 221 
 
 give to the world the first complete edition of the still extant 
 text of the Avasta, "translated with a dictionary grammar, 
 etc.," in 1852-54. There were two men in Bombay on Dr. 
 Wilson's arrival who further stimulated him to vindicate the 
 reputation of the capital in which most of the Parsees were 
 to be found. Sir John Malcolm, in one of his earliest 
 addresses to the Asiatic Society there, had declared that, in 
 the first instance, Bombay must be specially looked to for an 
 elucidation of the ancient Zoroastrian faith. Mr. William 
 Erskine, son-in-law of Sir James Mackintosh, and historian of 
 Baber and Hoomayoon, had frequently contributed to its 
 " transactions " papers on the ancient religion of Persia, which, 
 indeed, had led the king of Denmark to send Professor Eask 
 to India. 
 
 The occasion of Dr. Wilson's first encounter with the 
 Parsees was his publication in 1831 of a review of the work 
 of Elisaeus on the History of Vartan and the Battle of the 
 Armenians, containing an Account of the Religious War between 
 the Persians and Armenians, translated by that accomplished 
 Christian Jew, Karl Friedrich Neumann, who had just visited 
 China, and who died at Berlin a few years ago. It was 
 necessary for the critic to give a very brief and general 
 account of the religious works of the Parsees, and not without 
 the hope that the statement would rouse some apologist on 
 the other side. Two weeks after a Parsee appealed to the 
 editor of the Samachar, a respectable Goojaratee newspaper, 
 to say whether, as the writer believed, the account of the 
 Parsee religion was incorrect. " Do the Shets," he asked, the 
 respectable native gentlemen, " and those skilled in the 
 knowledge of our belief, intend to say nothing in refutation ? " 
 The cautious editor declined the challenge for himself, but 
 added, " if it be thought advisable by the intelligent of our 
 tribe, we shall give it a reconsideration." This led Dr. 
 Wilson to acknowledge that he was the author of the review, 
 
222 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1836. 
 
 and to declare his willingness to publish whatever might be 
 written in reply to it. " Tell me your whole mind. . . . You 
 say that we reproach the Hindoo and Parsee religions, but 
 we declare only what is true respecting them. We reason, 
 but we use no violence. We enter into discussion that truth 
 may appear, and we say to all, ' Inquire/ " The unhappy 
 editor did not like the trouble of such rationalism. " Permit 
 us, permit us to follow the road on which we have been 
 travelling, for at last all roads meet in one point ; there is 
 no Eedeemer of any," he said. " If our friend the writer, 
 John Wilson (may the grace of God be upon him!), is 
 desirous of drawing us into a discussion of this character, we 
 plainly say to him that it is not suitable to us." But " if 
 any pundit, religious officer, or intelligent person of one of 
 the castes to which he has referred should fulfil his wish, we 
 are perfectly indifferent in the matter, and feel neither joy 
 nor sorrow." In the next number Dr. Wilson slew the slain 
 delusion with the same kindly but uncompromising sympathy 
 that marked all his relations with the natives, and not in 
 vain. All native Bombay was talking of this new challenge, 
 when a bold printer, who had issued the prospectus of another 
 journal, promised to publish and circulate gratuitously all 
 that should be sent to him on either side till he could estab- 
 lish his paper. So Nowrozjee Mobed Darabjee a moled 
 being the middle priest, as a dustoor is above him and a Jierlad 
 below him printed on excellent paper a series of pamphlets 
 in royal quarto form. The champion of Zoroaster signed him- 
 self, " Nauroz Goosequill," which he changed to " Swanquill," 
 when he realised that he exposed himself to the jocular 
 charge of being a goose. It was sometimes to Dr. Wilson a 
 matter of doubt whether his opponent was in real earnest as 
 regards much which fell from his pen. GoosequuTs denial 
 that the Bundeshne or Cosmogony, which Dr. Wilson had 
 exposed, was one of the Parsee scriptures, brought down 
 
1836.] HIS PKOGRESS IN THE STUDY OF ZAND. 223 
 
 upon him his co-religionists, and the most sacred of all, the 
 Dustoor Eduljee Darabjee, who had translated it into the 
 vernacular Goojaratee. Believing the would-be defender of 
 Parseeism to be a Sadducee of the opposite sect of the Kad- 
 mees, the high priest became a challenger in his turn. 
 Goosequill was equal to the work of destruction, and exposed 
 the puerile book in a style which astonished the community 
 who had accepted it as a popular digest of their faith. It was 
 not difficult for Dr. Wilson to intervene at this stage and 
 show that all his objections to the Bundeshne applied to the 
 Vandidad. His reply covered sixteen chapters, which 
 appeared in as many numbers of the Goojaratee paper, and 
 these he afterwards condensed into a lecture on the Vandi- 
 dad, which he delivered to both natives and Europeans, and 
 published at their request. 
 
 We find this account of his progress in Zand research in 
 his great work on The Parsi Eeligion, in which that lecture 
 is incorporated, and the whole writings and system of the 
 Parsees are submitted to a critical analysis :* 
 
 " My remarks on the Yandidad were founded principally on the 
 French translation of Anquetil du Perron, published in 1771. ' From 
 his version,' I observed, ( and with an occasional reference to the 
 Goojaratee translation and original [Zand], which I was enabled to 
 inspect through the assistance of a learned Parsee, I have made an 
 English version, to which I shall appeal. I have a considerable degree 
 of confidence that, in all essential points, my quotations will be found 
 correct.' Since the publication of my lecture I have been enabled to 
 devote considerable attention to the Zand language, the key to which I 
 obtained in the interlineary Goojaratee Translation and Paraphrase of 
 the late Framjee Aspandidrjee, in the Commentaire sur le Yagna of M. 
 Burnouf, and Bopp's Comparative Grammar of the Sanskrit, Zand, and 
 OtJier Languages, and by following out the philological inquiries which 
 the language itself suggests. Though I have found that it is not 
 difficult to improve upon Anquetil's version, I have also seen that, for 
 the purpose of ordinary theological discussion, it is, generally speaking, 
 sufficiently accurate. The principal object of my lecture is to prove 
 that the Vandidad has no claim to be considered a divine revelation. 
 
224 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1836. 
 
 The position which I lay down respecting it I endeavour to support by 
 the following remarks : There are no proofs of its authenticity, 
 genuineness, or credibility. The Vandidad Sade is very defective as a 
 rule of faith. The Vandidad robs God of all his glory, inasmuch as 
 it represents the supreme God as inactive, as disregardful of the con- 
 cerns of the universe, and as having surrendered the administration of 
 affairs to Hormazd. The Vandidad gives a highly irrational account 
 of the origin and operations of natural good and evil ; teaches and 
 recognises the deification of the elements, and other inanimate objects ; 
 gives an erroneous view of the natural state of man ; contains gross 
 scientific blunders ; prescribes an immense number of absurd cere- 
 monies ; ascribes an absurd power or influence to the ceremonies 
 which it recommends ; represents ceremonial observances as more 
 important than moral observances ; contains some passages directly 
 opposed to morality : does not propose a reasonable scheme of salva- 
 tion ; does not give a becoming account of the future state. The 
 doctrines of the Vandidad on the matters here adverted to are con- 
 trasted throughout with those of the sacred Scriptures." 
 
 Had not Gibbon, with all his desire to exalt Zoroastrian- 
 ism at a time when his knowledge was necessarily imperfect 
 and not derived from the texts themselves, confessed that 
 " in that motley composition, dictated by reason and passion, 
 by enthusiasm and by selfish motives, some useful and 
 sublime truths were disgraced by a mixture of the most 
 abject and dangerous superstition ? " 
 
 The discussion was now anxiously taken up by the 
 Parsee Sanhedrim, known as the Punchayat etymologically, 
 council of five a body of from fifteen to twenty members, 
 empowered by Governor Hornby in 1778 to deal with purely 
 tribal offenders to the extent of beating them with shoes. 
 The Dustoors attacked Dr. Wilson's lecture in the Jam-i- 
 Jamshid, the reformers and Dr. Wilson replied in the Har- 
 karah and Vartaman. The former adopted the position that 
 the names of the dual principles of good and evil in the 
 Zoroastrian system, Hormuzd and Ahriman, are purely para- 
 bolical : that they have an esoteric meaning not intended for 
 the ignorant, and that the childish and worse than Talmudic- 
 
1836.] MIRACLES OF CHRIST AND LEGEND OF ZOROASTER. 225 
 
 miracles ascribed to Zoroaster are as well authenticated as 
 those of Christ. One of Dr. Wilson's brief rejoinders con- 
 tains this passage, of striking significance in the light of the 
 conversion of the two Parsee young men soon after : 
 
 " ' It appears wonderful to the Zoroastrian that God should have so 
 loved the world as to give his only-begotten Son, that whosoever 
 believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. If he 
 will inquire into the evidences of Christianity, which are neither few 
 nor small, he will find that what is wonderful in this instance is also 
 true. If the Zoroastrian will reflect on the nature of sin he will 
 perceive that it is an infinite evil ; that no efforts of his own can of 
 themselves remove that sin which has been already committed ; and 
 that, if salvation be obtained at all, it must be through the merit of a 
 divine substitute. Christ, he will find on inquiry, delivers from the 
 punishment of sin, and saves from the power of sin, all those who put 
 their trust in his name. Men's works are imperfect in every case, and 
 in many instances positively sinful ; and if the Zoroastrian looks to his 
 works for his acquittance, he will find himself miserably disappointed. 
 The danger of trusting in our self-righteousness I have exposed at 
 length in my lecture.' The Zoroastrian boastingly said, ' With regard 
 to the conversion of a Parsee you cannot even dream of the event, 
 because even a Parsee babe, crying in the cradle, is firmly confident in 
 the venerable Zartusht.' ' The conversion of a Parsee,' I allow, ' is a 
 work too difficult for me to accomplish. The conversion of any man is 
 a work too difficult for me to accomplish. It is not too difficult, however, 
 for the Spirit of God. It is my part to state the truth of God ; and it 
 is God's part to give it his blessing.' " 
 
 One of the Parsee apologists had appealed to the Zartusht 
 Namah, or the History of Zoroaster by Zartusht Behram, as 
 an authority for the alleged miracle that when the emperor 
 heard of Zoroaster's birth, and unsheathed his sword to behead 
 the child, his hand became benumbed and he was seized with 
 convulsions. As Zartusht Behram, according to the date given 
 by himself, wrote about the year A.D. 1277, his testimony to 
 the reputed miracle is pronounced "not worth a cowrie." 
 Zartusht Behram, moreover, represents himself as "intoxi- 
 cated " on the day between that on which he commenced and 
 
226 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1840. 
 
 finished his history. The word is mast, and the occasion is 
 given as the feast of Aban, so that he must have referred not 
 to inspiration but to a real debauch. Mr. E. B. Eastwick 
 made the partly verse and partly prose translation, published 
 in The Parsi Religion, from Dr. Wilson's Persian copy of the 
 Zartusht Namah, upwards of two centuries old. For some 
 five years after these early attacks on Dr. Wilson's Varididad 
 Lecture the controversy almost ceased. 
 
 But in 1840 a quarto of 268 pages appeared, bearing this 
 title, " Talim-i-Zurtoosht, or The Doctrine of Zoroaster, in the 
 Goojaratee Language, for the Instruction of Parsee Youths, 
 together with an Answer to Dr. Wilson's Lecture on (the) 
 Yandidad, compiled by a Parsee Priest." The avowed author 
 was Dosabhoy Sohrabjee, a respectable Moonshee, well known 
 to the native and European communities of Bombay. He 
 confessed himself the hireling of the Parsee sanhedrim. He 
 adopted the old line of representing Ahriman, the evil prin- 
 ciple, as a mere personification of the evil qualities inherent 
 in man, and the sacred fire adored in the Yasna ritual as only 
 a centre of worship. His advocacy was soon disowned by 
 the high priest of the large Easamee sect, Dustoor Edal 
 Daroo. Agreeably to the " orders," and at the expense of Sir 
 Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, he published the Maujazat-i-Zartoshti^ 
 or, The Undoubted Miracles of Zoroaster, in 127 quarto pages. 
 The author, who had lived for many years in a state of seclu- 
 sion at the principal fire-temple, expounded the Zoroastrian 
 faith to aid its followers in their discussions with the Jud-din 
 or Gentiles. Dr. Wilson describes him as having to a con- 
 siderable extent escaped the untoward march of intellect in 
 his seclusion, but as most creditably preserving his temper. 
 
 A third assailant of the Yandidad Lecture, in the same 
 year, 1840, was one who signed himself Kalam Kas, and pro- 
 
 1 As Dr. Wilson pointed out to the Dustoors, the correct form is either 
 Maujazat-i-Zartusht, or Maujazat Zartushti. 
 
1841.1 " THE PARSI RELIGION." 22*7 
 
 posed a series of questions under the title of Nirang-Jia. So 
 stupid was he that some of the respectable Parsees begged Dr. 
 Wilson not to hold them responsible for the writer's ignorance. 
 The fourth attack, in English as well as Goojaratee, was the 
 Hadie-Gum-Rahan, a guide to those who have lost their way, 
 written by Aspandiarjee Framjee in 1841, at the special 
 request of a rich Shet, Jeejeebhoy Dadabhoy, Esq. Of this 
 last Dr. Wilson remarks 
 
 " Its appeals to the Zand writings are pretty numerous, but the 
 translations and interpretations made of them are much more inaccurate 
 than those of Anquetil du Perron, on which, nine years ago, when I 
 published the pamphlet on which its animadversions are made and 
 before I devoted myself seriously to the study of the Zand, I was 
 almost wholly dependent for my knowledge of the sacred books of the 
 Parsees. The author, when he finds my arguments insuperable, gene- 
 rally retreats, like Dosabhoy, into a parabolical sanctuary, which his 
 imagination has called into being as a dernier place of resort for 
 Zoroaster and his foiled followers. In the ruins of this sanctuary, if 
 I mistake not, he has found a place of sepulture." 
 
 This is a fair illustration at once of the stage in Zand 
 scholarship reached in 1841 by Dr. Wilson, of the keen yet 
 well-tempered strokes which he dealt at error which debased 
 man and sought to dishonour God, and of the tactics of his 
 priestly assailants. It was not as a scholar however, but as a 
 Christian apostle, that, as we have before seen, he rejoiced to 
 raise and to engage in the controversies which should let in the 
 true light. Hence, believing it " manifestly desirable that the 
 Parsee system should be exhibited in the light of Christianity, 
 and " as he modestly expresses it, " with a view to aid in this 
 attempt," he left as a legacy to India when illness drove him 
 home at the close of 1.842, and he presented to his native 
 country and to Europe, his greatest work "THE PARSI 
 EELIGION : as contained in the Zand-avasta, and propounded 
 and defended by the Zoroastrians of India and Persia, Un- 
 folded, Eefuted, and Contrasted with Christianity." The 
 
228 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1839. 
 
 volume, long since out of print, was published by the 
 American Mission Press of Bombay from the first Zand and 
 Pahlavi metallic types cast in the East. The Eev. Dr. Allen 
 sent forth from the foundry of that Press for Western India, 
 as Carey, Marshman, and Ward had produced at the Seram- 
 pore Press long before for all India and China, the first metal 
 types for the regeneration of the East. But it was in 1778 
 that the earliest critical student of Sanscrit, the Bengal 
 civilian Charles Wilkins, cut with his own hand the types 
 from which the elder Halhed's Grammar was printed, and 
 then a set of Persian types. " He gave to Asia typographic 
 art," may well be written on the tomb of Wilkins, the friend 
 of Sir William Jones. 
 
 The Parsi Religion soon brought down on its author, as 
 we shall see, the highest honours of most of the learned 
 societies of Europe, while the lofty honesty, unalterable kind- 
 liness and even warm affection of its author for the Parsees as 
 individuals, established his position more firmly than ever in 
 Bombay. Dr. Hyde's Latin work, on the other hand, pub- 
 lished more than a century before, though very much an 
 apology for Zoroastrianism, was so ill received that he is said to 
 have boiled his tea-kettle with nearly the whole impression. 
 
 In 1833 the " Zoroastrian " controversialist had taunted 
 Dr. Wilson that the conversion of a Parsee was not to 
 be even dreamed of. In 1835 the central college of the 
 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland was opened by 
 Dr. Wilson, then the only Scottish Missionary in Bombay, 
 and in 1839 three Parsee students made there spontaneous 
 and very solemn statements previous to receiving Christian 
 baptism. This was the result of Dr. Wilson's work, and 
 especially of the Vandidad Lecture ; and this accounts for the 
 sudden outburst of controversy against it. 
 
 Dhunjeebhoy Nowrojee was sixteen years and a half old, or 
 six months beyond what was supposed to be the legal age of 
 
1829.] FIRST VINDICATION OF RIGHTS OF NATIVES. 229 
 
 discretion. His mother was living, and his nearest male 
 relative was an uncle. Hormasdjee Pestonjee and Framjee 
 JBahmanjee were above nineteen ; the former was married and 
 the father of one child. The case occurred in the island of 
 Bombay, within the jurisdiction of the purely English law 
 as administered by the Supreme Court and English barrister 
 judges. The most suspicious or hostile could allege no such 
 motives as worldly gain or advancement, for the youths belonged 
 to the best families and were the most intelligent in the college. 
 Altogether, whether we look at the position of the converts, 
 at the character of their teachers, or at the conceited intoler- 
 ance of the community who believed that a change of 
 religious belief from the doctrines of Zoroaster was as im- 
 possible as it would be impious, it was well that the question 
 of religious toleration and civil liberty should thus be tried 
 for the first time in the history of British India and of Asia. 
 Very slowly had the Court of Directors been compelled 
 by the public voice of England through Parliament to 
 concede, first in 1783, English tribunals with jurisdiction over 
 all within the Presidency cities of Calcutta, Madras, and Bom- 
 bay, and then in 1813 completed by the Charter of 1833, to 
 withdraw the restrictions which prevented the ministers of the 
 Christian faith alone from peaceably preaching and teaching. 
 Now, six years after that charter, and four years after Lord 
 William Bentinck had taken the first step to protect 
 Christian converts from the loss of all their property as well as 
 their families, and the Court of Directors had issued orders 
 that its Government should no longer support Hindoo temples 
 and Muhammadan mosques, which were not obeyed it 
 fell to Dr. Wilson to vindicate the civil and religious rights 
 of the natives of India above sixteen years of age. The 
 similar cases that have occurred since, in the Supreme or High 
 Courts, as well as in the ordinary territory subject to Indian 
 law, have raised issues of greater moment, and have been on 
 
230 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1839. 
 
 the whole attended with less scandal than are involved in 
 the occasional suits between Eoman Catholics and Protestants 
 in this country, as to the rights of conscience of minors. In 
 spite of urgent appeals from both Christians and non-Chris- 
 tians to the Government of India for a declaratory law on the 
 subject, jurists like Sir Henry Maine have not found it 
 possible to go beyond the English precedents, which leave it 
 to the judges in each case, after examination of the minor, to 
 decide what is the age or stage of discretion short of sixteen. 
 Unhappily, in states like Mysore, where English precedents 
 are not recognised, oppression of the most atrocious kind may 
 take place without a remedy, as in the case of the well 
 educated woman, Huchi. And, even before the Queen's tri- 
 bunals there may be a failure of justice from an ignorance of 
 procedure in the lower courts, as in a more recent Lucknow 
 instance, that of the widow Keroda. But in the Dhunjeebhoy 
 trial the age of sixteen was passed, and it only remained for 
 the judge to satisfy himself of the fact. Then too, as in so 
 many other instances, the defeated bigots, for so they must 
 be called while all allowance is made for parental caste and 
 superstitious feeling, carried off and vilely treated Framjee, 
 so as effectually to prevent his baptism, though not to alter 
 his convictions. 
 
 Dhunjeebhoy was not the first Parsee who had sought 
 baptism. Like all the Scottish missionaries Dr. Wilson kept 
 inquirers longer under observation and instruction than those 
 of a more ritualistic custom think it right to do, thus present- 
 ing an extreme contrast to the wholesale baptism of crowds 
 by Xavier as described by himself in his letters. Dr. Wilson's 
 official communications to Dr. Brunton thus tell the story : 
 
 "BOMBAY, 6th October 1838. On the 9th of last month, after I 
 had administered the ordinance of baptism to two children of the con- 
 verts, I had the satisfaction of enrolling in the list of catechumens the 
 names of five new candidates for admission into the Church two 
 
1839.] FIRST PARSEE CATECHUMENS. 231 
 
 Mussulmans, one of whom is a Sayad, or reputed descendant of 
 Muhammad ; two young Catholic Armenians, and one young Hindoo. 
 A Parsee, the first who has intimated his wish to be baptized in Bom- 
 bay, appeared along with them, but I declined to allow him to come 
 forward at present on account of his very partial knowledge of Chris- 
 tianity, and my ignorance of his character. I have been obliged, for 
 reasons which will immediately occur to you, to give him shelter in my 
 own house ; but respecting his case in a spiritual point of view, I am 
 not yet able to express a favourable opinion. A short time will pro- 
 bably cast some light on his feelings and motives. I have reason to 
 believe that he is a fair specimen of a considerable class, whose connec- 
 tion for some time past with the Zoroastrians has been maintained 
 more by the strength of their social arrangements than by regard to 
 their religious tenets and practices." 
 
 " 1st November 1838. You will be deeply interested to learn, 
 what I rejoice with trembling to state to you, that there are several 
 hopeful symptoms of the true conversion to God of one of the most 
 advanced and promising Parsee pupils of our institution. He morning 
 and evening reads the Scriptures and prays with Johannes Essai, our 
 Armenian monitor ; and he has expressed to me his wish to be baptized. 
 He gives a very simple and satisfactory account of the origin and pro- 
 gress of his impressions and convictions. Were we now to receive him 
 into the Church he would immediately be removed from our care and 
 protection. By remaining in his present position he is exposed to 
 many temptations, and he will be in danger when his views and 
 feelings become known to his relatives. A gracious Providence may 
 soon enable us to come to a decision respecting his case. When an 
 open step is taken there will be a great commotion among the Zoroas- 
 trians, of whose pride and power you can scarcely form an idea. 
 They are mightily incensed at present on account of the man whose case 
 I mentioned to you last month; and they have, alas! succeeded in 
 frightening him into heathen compliances. 
 
 " You will see, I doubt not, in the English papers, the declaration 
 of war against Afghanistan and Persia. It is not my province to 
 make on it any comment. I only express the hope that the covenant 
 of offence and defence entered into with Runjeet Singh will ere long 
 prove favourable to the introduction of the Gospel among the inde- 
 pendent Sikhs." 
 
 " 7 /& May 1839. Intelligence of these defections from the faith 
 of Zarthust having spread among the native community, the clouds 
 began to gather. Our first concern, of course, was the personal safety 
 
232 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1839. 
 
 of our dear children in the faith ; and we lifted up our hearts in prayer 
 that they might be preserved from all danger. On the evening of the 
 28th of April they were all with me in the mission-house, Ambrolie, 
 engaged in devotional exercises; and Hormasdjee and Framjee on 
 parting with me said that they had great apprehensions as to their 
 treatment by their connexions. I offered them an asylum should they 
 see reason at any time to place themselves under my protection. 
 Dhunjeebhoy remained with me to assist me in examining some 
 Goojaratee manuscripts, and as it was too late for us when we had 
 concluded our business to proceed to my bungalow on Malabar Hill, 
 where we have generally slept since the commencement of the warm 
 season, and where Dhunjeebhoy had been staying for some days with 
 the view of assisting one of .our friends in her studies, we mercifully 
 resolved to rest in the mission-house. All was quiet during the night, 
 but the morning showed too plainly that the elements had been put in 
 motion by the fears and alarms of the families more immediately con- 
 nected with the youth. One messenger came after another calling on 
 Dhunjeebhoy to return to his friends ; and one attempt after another 
 was made to decoy him from my roof. Different bands began to col- 
 lect near my premises, and different persons were seen to be on the 
 watch. We were informed that there was great consternation among 
 the Parsees in the Fort ; and we had the most serious apprehensions 
 about Hormasdjee and Framjee, who lived in that locality. When they 
 were at their height the former made his appearance with a man car- 
 rying his clothes, and declared that he had heard that Framjee had 
 been put under restraint by his friends, and that he himself had made 
 a narrow escape. I had scarcely given him the promise of protection 
 when two Parsees rushed into the room in which he was sitting, laid 
 violent hands upon him and me, and attempted to carry him off by 
 force. My domestics had some difficulty in overpowering them, but 
 we ultimately succeeded in freeing my house from their unlawful 
 intrusion. 
 
 " The baptism of Dhunjeebhoy took place under the protection of 
 the European and native police, 1 on the evening of the 1st of May. . . 
 Hormasdjee was baptized by me in the mission-house on Sabbath 
 last. ... On the preceding Saturday I was served with a writ of 
 habeas corpus with reference to Dhunjeebhoy, and a rule nisi with 
 reference to Hormasdjee. The affidavits which I lodged apparently 
 
 1 Mr. Forjett, the Police Commissioner, states the circumstances of this 
 and subsequent cases fairly, in his recent book, Our Real Danger in India. 
 
1839.] THE LEAGUE AGAINST CHRISTIANITY. 233 
 
 completely upset the design of our adversaries, but as they solicited 
 time to answer them my counsel consented. The case will again be 
 heard in about eight days. Thousands of pounds have been subscribed 
 to distress us, and if possible to destroy our glorious cause ; but our 
 righteousness will speedily shine forth clear as the noon-day. 
 
 " Of our appearance in Court, the following is a correct notice from 
 the Bombay Times : ' Since our last the case of the Parsee youths who 
 have abandoned the religion of Zoroaster and embraced Christianity 
 has continued to grow in importance and serious interest. A second 
 youth, Hormasdjee Pestonjee, aged nineteen, was baptized on Sunday 
 (5th May) in the Scotch Mission-house. There were few Parsees pre- 
 sent ; but this was not the consequence of apathy, for on Friday last we 
 understand a meeting of the members of the Punchayat and some of 
 the leaders of the Hindoo community was held at the house of Framjee 
 Cowasjee for the purpose of deliberating upon the extraordinary crisis 
 which they consider as impending on their respective creeds, and con- 
 certing measures to avert it. We understand the following to be the 
 result of this and previous meetings. In the first place, all the Parsee 
 boys have been withdrawn from the General Assembly's and all other 
 missionary schools, and a decree has been passed by the Punchayat 
 forbidding any parent or guardian, under pain of utter outlawry from 
 the Parsee religion and society, ever to send a child to any educational 
 establishment with which missionaries are connected, or where the 
 Bible is read. Secondly, a fund is to be raised to establish in the Fort 
 an opposition school, where religion is to be excluded. Thirdly, a 
 petition is in course of preparation to the British Parliament, praying 
 that no more missionaries may be permitted to come out to India, or, 
 if permitted, that they be strictly prohibited from any attempts at 
 proselytism, and a sum has been appropriated for the purpose of sending 
 one or two European gentlemen to England to advocate this petition. 
 Lastly, the leading Hindoos of the place have been prevailed on to 
 join this league against the missions, and negotiations have been opened 
 with the Muhammadans for the same purpose. A writ of habeas 
 corpus, issued last week to Dr. Wilson to produce the person of 
 Dhunjeebhoy Nowrojee, one of the youths recently baptized, alleged 
 to be a minor, was returnable on Monday morning at eleven o'clock, 
 and the court-house was crowded by Europeans and Parsees to hear the 
 result. The Chief -Justice sat in chambers. The Advocate -General 
 and Mr. Montriou appeared on behalf of the youth's uncle, to claim 
 custody of his person, and at their side were arranged the members of 
 the Punchayat, and all the principal Parsees and Hindoos of the island, 
 
234 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1839. 
 
 most anxious for the success of his application. Mr. Campbell appeared 
 for Dr. Wilson, who brought into Court the two youths, Dhunjeebhoy 
 Nowrojee and Hormasdjee Pestonjee, and stated in his return to the 
 writ that he exercised no restraint over them, but that they of their 
 own accord sought protection in his house, not deeming their persons 
 or lives safe among their own relatives and countrymen. The Advocate- 
 General requested time to prepare counter affidavits to disprove the 
 assertions regarding the danger which Dhunjeebhoy would be exposed 
 to if restored to his uncle's custody, and other matters contained in 
 those now read. The Chief-Justice granted till Friday, or, in case that 
 were not sufficient, till Monday next ; and ordered that, in the mean- 
 time, Dhunjeebhoy should be at liberty to go where he chose ; any 
 attempt to interfere with his liberty would be punishable, not only by 
 the ordinary process before a jury, but, if circumstances render it 
 necessary, summarily as a contempt of Court. Dhunjeebhoy on this 
 came forward, and, in the face of all that was powerful, wealthy, 
 venerable, or dangerous among his own countrymen arrayed against 
 him ; the dignitaries of the Punchayat expressing a calm condemnation 
 of his conduct, and a thousand other Parsees betraying scorn or hostility 
 in their looks, he modestly and firmly declared his determination to 
 remain with Dr. Wilson. The appearance of this youth is singularly 
 interesting ; a more ingenuous or happy countenance we have never 
 seen ; and while we fully appreciate and allow for the natural feelings 
 of anger which his countrymen must feel at his renunciation of their 
 ancient faith, and the still bitterer regrets which his relations must 
 suffer from a step which in their view estranges for ever a once beloved 
 youth from their society, we could not behold his conduct in this try- 
 ing crisis without being strongly impressed with the moral elevation 
 which distinguished his position. As soon as the Court rose Dr. Wilson 
 walked down with the two Parsee youths to his carriage. The crowd 
 made a rush upon them, but as several European gentlemen were 
 present they were allowed to enter the carriage. As soon as the door 
 was closed a Parsee put his head in and said, ' Dhunjeebhoy ! your 
 mother will come and dash out her brains at your feet, and then you 
 and these missionaries will be liable for her murder.' As soon as the 
 carriage attempted to drive off several of the Parsees caught hold of the 
 wheels and endeavoured to stop it ; on its moving on the whole Parsee 
 mob followed, shouting out, 'seize, kill;' a few called out to the others 
 ' stop, don't pursue the carriage, don't act fools ; ' but many declared 
 loudly they would willingly sacrifice their own lives in order to take 
 Dhunjeebhoy's. In these violent proceedings, however, none of the 
 
1839.] DECISION OF SUPREME COURT IN HIS FAVOUR. 235 
 
 respectable Parsees joined. In noticing this fact, so creditable to these 
 latter gentlemen, we take the opportunity to express a hope that they 
 will use their influence to calm the excitement of their poorer country- 
 men, and impress them with the dangerous consequence of breaking the 
 law or attempting anything against the persons of the converts. They 
 have a perfect right to withdraw their children from the mission schools 
 to establish other schools to petition Parliament if they choose. 
 These are perfectly legitimate means, and, while they confine themselves 
 to such, no one can blame them, but any attempt at violence to the 
 persons of the converts or the missionaries, without producing the 
 slightest good, will only lead to a violation of the law and a collision 
 with the authorities, whose duty it is to punish such violation. For 
 our own part we would respectfully suggest that the wisest and best 
 plan in regard to these youths is to let them follow their own wishes, 
 and consider them as no longer belonging to their community. What 
 are three youths among 40,000 Zoroastrians, that for their sake the 
 peace of the whole should be endangered ?' 
 
 " The number of our pupils on our roll the day before the disturb- 
 ance was 285. The attendance yesterday was 75. The Parsees with- 
 drawn amount to 104. Not one is left ; but to-day a youth asked 
 admission. A very interesting young Persian pupil from Shiraz has 
 been led to take the decided step of asking baptism in consequence of 
 what has occurred. Two very promising Armenian youths, to whose 
 case I shall afterwards allude, were admitted into the church along 
 with Hormasdjee." 
 
 "20/t May 1839. Notwithstanding all the wrath, persecution, 
 bribery, and perjury practised by our opponents of which the enclosed 
 affidavits will give you too sure evidence a decision has been pro- 
 nounced in our favour on the writ of habeas corpus commanding me 
 to bring up the body of Dhunjeebhoy Nowrojee ; the rule nisi, in 
 the case of Hormasdjee Pestonjee, has been abandoned by the parties 
 in whose behalf it was granted, without a hearing; and both the 
 interesting converts are now living under my protection, in the undis- 
 turbed enjoyment of all the means of grace which are fitted to 
 enlighten, comfort, strengthen, and purify their souls. 
 
 " The judgment of Sir John Awdry, you will perceive, decidedly 
 acquits me of 'the imputation of clandestine proceedings;' and less 
 than this it could not possibly have done. In common with the whole 
 Christian community of Bombay, you will be grieved to observe that 
 in the conclusion of his verdict he has expressed himself so indefinitely 
 regarding the effects of intrusting the education of youth to our charge. 
 
236 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1839". 
 
 What, I doubt not, he intended as a mere statement of his opinion, 
 supposing himself, for the moment, to hold the principles of a Parsee, 
 has been construed and held up by many of them as an expression of 
 his own view of the right and wrong of the change of religious prin- 
 ciple ; and the most injurious effects, which I am sure no man will 
 more regret than Sir John himself, will, I fear, be the consequence. 
 
 " We now clearly understand that all questions connected with the 
 personal liberty of the Parsees will be determined, within the bounds of 
 the island of Bombay, by English law and not by Hindoo law or their 
 own variable customs ; and we are far from being sorry to find that 
 this will be the case. The writ of habeas corpus, as in the prosecution 
 now closed, will secure the liberty even of minors when in danger ; the 
 only circumstance which would lead us to interfere with the parental 
 control, is actually proved. Another form of prosecution, at the 
 instance of the minors themselves, will secure for them the right of 
 choosing guardians after the age of fourteen years. No very great 
 difficulties will, we trust, be experienced connected with other transac- 
 tions in which we may be afterwards engaged. Our dispensation of 
 the ordinance of baptism, in any case, must of course stand on moral, 
 and not on legal, grounds, which we see vary in the case of Hindoos, 
 Mussulmans, and Parsees. When we see that the Holy Spirit has per- 
 formed His work in any soul, we must not refuse to acknowledge it by 
 declining to baptize in His name, and that of the Father and the Son. 
 
 " We have had some tidings, on which we think we may depend, 
 of Framjee Bomanjee, the other dear convert whom the Parsees 
 succeeded in apprehending. On the morning of the 29th of April he 
 was carried before some of the members of the Parsee Punchayat, who 
 used all their influence to induce him to renounce Christianity. That 
 he yielded neither to the threats nor promises which were addressed to 
 him, is proved by the fact that when he returned to his father's resi- 
 dence all the female members of the household were heard beating 
 their breasts and making lamentations as if he had died. It is said 
 that a few days ago he was removed from Bombay, and sent under a 
 convoy along the road to Nowsaree, in the south of Goojarat ; and that 
 at Banganga he was tied to a date tree and cruelly beaten. I am just 
 about to dismiss a trusty messenger in search of him ; and it is not 
 improbable that, if necessary, I myself may go in disguise to the place 
 where he is said to be. He has completed his nineteenth year, and 
 appeared to be much under the influence of divine truth." 
 
 The Hon. Mr. Farish was interim Governor, and because 
 
 
1839.] PARLIAMENT AND COURT OF DIRECTORS. 237 
 
 of his Christian character and work as a private citizen, he 
 also became an object of suspicion and attack. In a letter 
 to Mr. Poynder, Dr. Wilson thus defended him from mis- 
 representation : " Although the Hon. Mr. Farish would not 
 shrink from the responsibility of any of his acts as a private 
 Christian, it so happens that he took no share whatever in 
 the instruction of the Parsee converts ; that his class in the 
 Sunday School, which met in the Town Hall before he was 
 Governor, has consisted entirely of professing Christians ; and 
 that the troops were called out by the Government on the 
 requisition of the superintendent of the police, who very 
 properly considered his civil establishment inadequate to the 
 preservation of the peace." Sir Charles Forbes laid all the 
 papers in the case before the Court of Directors, which trans- 
 mitted them to Sir James Bivett Carnac, the new Governor. 
 He was rash enough to declare, on landing at Bombay, that 
 he would give neither official nor private countenance to 
 educational or ministerial labours calculated to interfere with 
 the native religions. Dr. Wilson personally experienced from 
 him, as from all the Governors, " much politeness and atten- 
 tion," and hoped that a knowledge of the country and its 
 needs would make him a successor worthy of Sir Bobert 
 Grant, whose sudden death had added private as well as 
 public sorrow to Dr. Wilson's many cares in the year 1839. 
 Anticipating an appeal to the Judicial Committee of the 
 Privy Council against Sir John Awdry's judgment, and 
 desirous that the question should be debated on its merits in 
 both Houses of Parliament. Dr. Wilson submitted the papers 
 to Lord Glenelg, the worthy son of Charles Grant, and Lord 
 Bexley, and to Sir George Sinclair and Mr. J. C. Colquhoun, 
 members of the House of Commons. Meanwhile poor Framjee, 
 after being kept for weeks under restraint by the Mobeds of 
 Nowsaree, was allowed to return to Bombay, with the con- 
 fession that they could not break his attachment to Chris- 
 
238 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1839. 
 
 tianity. There he was strictly watched, so that he could not 
 even write. At last, seven months afterwards, writes Dr. 
 Wilson to Dr. Brunton 
 
 " I had an interview with Framjee Bomanjee. He had secreted 
 himself in a cellar below our Institution, and took means to call my 
 attention to him. Our conversation lasted about an hour; and I 
 received from him a particular account of all the treatment which he 
 has received, and of his present feelings and purposes connected with 
 Christianity. His perils are imminent; but he says that, through 
 God's grace, he will yet enter the Church. He conveyed to me some 
 special warnings, and I fear that there is too good ground for them. 
 One of the sons-in-law and a nephew of Framjee Cowasjee, one of our 
 principal persecutors, occasionally visits me as a professed inquirer. 
 His case I do not yet understand. There are several very influential 
 Parsees here, in whose friendship I have every confidence ; and they 
 will give our Institution their aid as soon as they can do so with safety." 
 
 The Parsee panic spread to Poona, whither Dr. Wilson 
 went for rest, and Mr. J. Mitchell's mission-school there was 
 also emptied for a time. The course which the Punchayat 
 finally resolved on was the most foolish they could have 
 selected. An appeal to the Privy Council would have raised 
 and settled many still undecided questions of importance as 
 to minors, discretion, and the age of majority under English 
 law and for non-European British subjects, which must have 
 led to wise legislation, and have prevented subsequent and 
 still existing cases of persecution and hardship. But, as is 
 usual in such cases, they sought and found an English officer 
 to take payment as their agent in London, and they caused 
 to be drawn up a document which soon proved so notorious 
 as the Anti-Conversion Memorial, that it was scouted by 
 every newspaper in India save their own. 
 
 "BOMBAY, 1th October 1839. Before I left Poona I received a 
 confidential letter from Bombay, informing me that some of the Parsees 
 were busily employed in the preparation of a memorial addressed to 
 the authorities in India, praying them to ' take measures to put a stop 
 to the rapid innovation of the religious rites and ceremonies of the 
 natives now attempted to be made by the missionaries/ and complain- 
 
1339.] THE HIGHEST PHILANTHROPY. 239 
 
 ing in the most unmeasured language of all gentlemen in the Com- 
 pany's service, who, either in their public or private capacity, have 
 aided in the conversion of the people. On my return to Bombay I 
 have found the intelligence to be correct ; and having observed various 
 illegal efforts in the course of being made to impede our operations, I 
 have remonstrated against them through some influential organs, in the 
 kindest and at the same time the firmest terms which I could employ. 
 Amongst other observations which I have made, I have said of the 
 persons to whom I refer, ' They ought to remember that the right to 
 propagate religion, by doctrine and moral suasion, is an essential part 
 of religious liberty, as well as the right to practise religion. They 
 ought to see that it is philanthropy and not selfishness, which leads 
 Christians to desire their conversion, and to spend so much of their 
 worldly substance, and mental energy, and spiritual anxiety for the 
 accomplishment of the object. While they see no violence or deceit 
 resorted to to effect a change of faith, they should avoid the practice, 
 or threat, or appearance of it, to secure a maintenance of present 
 belief.' My appeal, in the different forms in which it has appeared, 
 will, I doubt not, accomplish good. Other measures we have been 
 required to adopt. 
 
 " The last overland mail has brought most important communica- 
 tions from the Court of Directors on the subject of the conversions, the 
 proceedings in the Supreme Court, and the part taken by Mr. Farish's 
 government for the preservation of the peace. These, by a particular 
 favour, which of course must not be publicly alluded to, I have been 
 permitted to see, and I am most happy to inform you that, though 
 decided efforts for explanation and defence are incumbent upon us, the 
 probable issue will not be even temporarily hostile to our progress. 
 The foundation of the Despatch of the Court is a letter from Sir 
 Charles Forbes to the Chairman, inclosing the disgraceful and outra- 
 geous representation which was forwarded to England by the Parsees. 
 The despatch approves of the measures adopted by the Bombay Govern- 
 ment for the preservation of the peace ; expresses the confidence of the 
 Directors that Mr. Farish did nothing inconsistent with the mainten- 
 ance of neutrality during the pending of the trial ; solicits an 
 explanation of the charges of the Parsees relative to his alleged bribing 
 and decoying of the youth ; and recommends the servants of the Com- 
 pany to be careful in the use of their legitimate influence in the con- 
 version of the natives, lest their efforts should be misrepresented." 
 
 To the .Anti-Conversion Memorial, after several months 
 canvassing and misrepresentation, the Parsee priests ob- 
 
240 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1839. 
 
 tained the signatures of only 2115 persons, who professed to 
 ask Government to prohibit the establishment of missionary 
 schools, to fix the age of discretion for all natives at twenty- 
 one, and to deny to such natives above twenty-one as might 
 become Christians, wife, children, and heritable property, 
 while fining them for the support of the families thus to be 
 denied them. Sir James Eivett Carnac's Bombay Govern- 
 ment, and Lord Auckland's Government of India, neither 
 favourable to Christian missionaries, fell back on the position 
 of neutrality, which would have been impregnable if the 
 Bishop of London had not in the previous session of Parlia- 
 ment shown, amid the applause of the Peers, that the East 
 India Company was neutral only to Christianity, while still 
 saluting idols and administering temple and mosque 
 revenues. The Bombay Government pointed out the incon- 
 sistency of the Parsees' request with their professed desire for 
 education. The Government of India declined to pass enact- 
 ments at variance with Lord William Bentinck's Regulation 
 7 of 1832, with the rights of civil and personal liberty, and 
 the principles of the British Parliament. Dr. Wilson's duty 
 was difficult ; he had to enlighten British opinion, but above 
 all to reason in the spirit of the very toleration for which he 
 pled with the misguided leaders of the Parsees. He did both 
 in an able resume and exposition of the principles and the 
 custom of toleration in British India, which may still be read 
 with advantage side by side with the noble state-paper on 
 the same subject which the now venerable Lord Lawrence 
 wrote after the close of the Mutiny of 1857, when he was 
 Chief Commissioner of the Punjab. 
 
 In a brief Journal, kept for a few weeks at the end of this 
 conflict, we obtain these glimpses into the daily life of Dr. 
 Wilson, whose indomitable courage and vigorous constitution 
 enabled him to pass through depression and sickness, still 
 abounding in the work of his Master. 
 
1839.] FAINT YET PURSUING. 241 
 
 " 2d June 1839. Considerably indisposed. Letter to Mr. Little on 
 the improvement of the death of Mr. Graham. Preached at the Poors' 
 Asylum. Examined the male boarders of the mission. Read account 
 of the persecutions in Persia, given by Socrates and Theodoret, etc. 
 Visited twice the house of Bai, the convert, to administer medicine and 
 pray. Confined a good deal to my couch. 
 
 " 4th. Attended the examination of the Byculla Schools, where 
 Sir James Carnac delivered his maiden speech, which, as far as missions 
 are concerned, was very unpromising. When I heard him uttering 
 great swelling words of vanity on this subject, which he does not 
 understand, I thought of Him who has on his vesture and on his 
 thigh a name written, " King of kings and Lord of lords," and felt 
 that our cause was safe, even though all the powers and principalities 
 of earth and hell were to combine against it. Attended the Institution. 
 
 " 5th. Attended the Institution. Delivered an address in Marathee 
 to my domestics and 40 girls of the Schools, in connection with the death 
 of one of the boarders of the School for Poor and Destitute Native 
 Girls, which took place in the morning ; and delivered a lecture on the 
 Testimony to the Divinity of Christ furnished by the Old Testament. 
 The girl was six years old, and distinguished for her intelligence. 
 When I told her to trust in and pray to Christ, she nodded assent, 
 while the little tears rolled down her cheeks. Her disease was cholera. 
 
 " 6th. Much distressed ; but obtained some relief after visiting 
 Malabar Cliff. 
 
 " 8th. Attended the public levee of Sir James Carnac, because I 
 view it a duty to render him official respect, and because I have no 
 wish to nurse his prejudices against missionaries. Visited my sisters 
 at Malabar Hill, who comforted me much in my afflictions." 
 
 On the 23d March 1840, Dr. Wilson thus reported : 
 
 " The offending parties have suffered so much from the universal 
 rebuke of their European friends, and they have been so. seriously 
 remonstrated with by their legal advisers (especially by a gentleman 
 who lately arrived from England with the view of giving them any 
 assistance which their circumstances might justly claim), that they 
 are understood to have resolved for the present to resort to no ulterior 
 measures calculated to give us offence, or to interfere with the observ- 
 ance of the sacred principles of religious liberty. Some individuals, 
 indeed, have gone so far as to declare that they have all along 
 dissented from the measures which have been adopted to give ns 
 distress, and attached their names to the adverse documents solely 
 
 R 
 
242 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1840. 
 
 with the view of preventing internal discord among the heads of their 
 own community. For their professions we feel grateful, but we must 
 not permit them to throw us off our guard. Their sincerity will soon 
 be brought to a practical test ; for it is very probable that shortly 
 after our return to Bombay the ordinance of baptism will be adminis- 
 tered to a Parsee youth, in the progress of whose religious inquiries, ex- 
 cited principally by my preaching in Goojaratee, and the perusal of the 
 Scriptures and tracts, I have for many months taken a great interest." 
 
 The numbers in the schools slowly returned to their former 
 level, and even rose higher, though the Parsees long held 
 aloof. While continuing his aggressive work with no less 
 zeal and courtesy than before, Dr. Wilson soon proved that 
 lie had conquered the Parsee community not only by the 
 weapons of discussion but by his lofty charity and his un- 
 conquerable disinterestedness. They trusted him; all of 
 them who knew him loved him ; and their merchant leaders, 
 and even some of their most sacred priests, were his warm 
 friends to the day of his death. In the field of Truth he 
 knew no compromise ; in the region of a courteous charity he 
 was, like a greater, all things to all men that he might win some. 
 
 The growth of toleration has been so very slow in Chris- 
 tendom that we need not be surprised if persecution for con- 
 science sake died hard among the Parsees even under English 
 law and British rule. Not till 1843 did Hormasdjee succeed 
 in rescuing his wife and daughter from the Punchayat. His 
 wife they had married to another man, although she was be- 
 lieved to be desirous to live with her Christian husband. Such 
 a case is now provided for by a law which permits divorce only 
 after two years, during which the convert has failed to influence 
 his wife. As the daughter grew up to girlhood her father 
 applied to the Supreme Court, which at once made her over 
 to him. This raised the ire of the Parsee leaders for the last 
 time. Mr. Nesbit admirably managed the case, for Dr. Wilson 
 had left Bombay on his first furlough. We must follow the 
 course of his history till his departure for Syria and Europe. 
 
CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 1836-1842. 
 DEVELOPMENT OF THE MISSION. 
 
 Civilians and Officers raise a special Fund for the College Correspond- 
 ence with Dr. Marshman of Serampore First and Sixth Public Examina- 
 tion of the College Domestic Slavery in India Negro Boys captured 
 from the East African Slavers An Abyssinian General and his Sons 
 Joseph "Wolff again Dr. Wilson on the Government College Two Princes 
 from Joanna What Converts should be supported by the Mission 
 First Proposal of a Scottish Mission at Madras Projected Missions to Runjeet 
 Singh and Independent Sikhs To Kathiawar by Irish Presbyterian Church 
 Sir Robert Grant's Death Dr. Wilson's Report on his Educational System 
 for Lord Elphinstone when Governor of Madras, and for Ceylon Help to the 
 Gaelic Schools in the Highlands of Scotland Proposal to Dr. Candlish to 
 send Missionary to the Jews of Arabia and India First Meeting with Mr. 
 David Sassoon Female Education and the Misses Bayne Major Jameson 
 establishes the Ladies' Association in Edinburgh The Afghan Policy of the 
 Government of India Intercourse with the Heir- Apparent of Dost Muhammad 
 Khan Dr. Murray Mitchell arrives Dr. Duffs Visit Encouraging Pastoral 
 from the General Assembly Dr. Wilson's Work as a Translator Dr. Pfander. 
 
" How, then, stands the case ? We have to educate a people who cannot 
 at present be educated by means of their mother-tongue. We must teach 
 them some foreign language. The claims of our own language it is hardly 
 necessary to recapitulate. It stands pre-eminent even among the languages of 
 the West. It abounds with works of imagination not inferior to the noblest 
 which Greece has bequeathed to us ; with models of every species of eloquence ; 
 with historical compositions which, considered merely as narratives, have 
 seldom been surpassed, and which, considered as vehicles of ethical and 
 political instruction, have never been equalled ; with just and lively repre- 
 sentations of human life and human nature ; with the most profound specula- 
 tions on metaphysics, morals, government, jurisprudence, and trade ; with 
 full and correct information respecting every experimental science which 
 tends to preserve the health, to increase the comfort, or to expand the intellect 
 of man. Whoever knows that language has ready access to all the vast intel- 
 lectual wealth which all the wisest nations of the earth have created and 
 hoarded in the course of ninety generations. It may safely be said that the 
 literature now extant in that language is of far greater value than all the 
 literature which three hundred years ago was extant in all the languages of 
 the world together. Nor is this all. In India, English is the language 
 spoken by the ruling class. It is spoken by the higher class of natives at the 
 seats of Government. It is likely to become the language of commerce 
 throughout the seas of the East. It is the language of two great European 
 communities which are rising, the one in the south of Africa, the other in 
 Australasia ; communities which are every year becoming more important, 
 and more closely connected with our Indian Empire. Whether we look at 
 the intrinsic value of our literature, or at the particular situation of this 
 country, we shall see the strongest reason to think that, of all foreign tongues, 
 the English tongue is that which would be the most useful to our native 
 subjects." MACAULAY : Calcutta Minute of2d February 1835. 
 
 " Christ, Saviour, by Thy coming bless this earth of ours with love ; 
 
 The golden gates, so long fast barred, do Thou, Heavenly King, 
 Bid now unclose, that humbly Thou, descending from above, 
 Seek us on earth, for we have need of blessing Thou canst bring. 
 
 With fangs of death the accursed wolf hath scattered, Lord, the flock 
 That with Thy blood, in time of old, Master, Thou hast bought ; 
 
 He has us in fierce clutch ; we are his prey, his mock, 
 
 He scorns our soul's desire ; wherefore, to Thee is all our thought. 
 
 Thee, our Preserver, earnestly we pray that Thou devise 
 For sad exiles a speedy help ; let the dark spirit fall 
 
 To depths of hell ; but let Thy work, Creator, let man rise 
 Justly to that high realm whence the Accursed drew us all. 
 
 Through love of sin he drew us that, bereft of heaven's light, 
 
 We suffer endless miseries, betrayed for evermore, 
 Unless Thou come to save us from the slayer, Lord of Might ! 
 
 Shelter of Man ! Living God ! come soon, our need is sore." 
 
 CYNEWULF'S Christ : Modernised by H. Morley. 
 
1833.] EVANGELISATION THROUGH EDUCATION. 245 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 IN Bombay, as in Calcutta, the Parsee conversions had 
 established the value of an English college as an agency for 
 evangelising the educated native youth no less than as a 
 means of disintegrating the old faiths of Persia and India. 
 The English laymen, chiefly officials, who had helped to set 
 up the English school in the Fort in 1832 under Dr. Wilson's 
 superintendence, and who gladly formed the corresponding 
 committee of the General Assembly's Mission in 1835, did 
 not fail to urge the importance of English as the medium of 
 teaching and preaching to this special class. At the end of 
 1833 eighteen of the best men and highest officials in Bom- 
 bay combined to raise a fund for the support of another 
 missionary who should devote his whole attention to this 
 work ; and they instructed Mr. Webb and Captain Candy, who 
 had gone to England, to select a missionary of learning and 
 zeal. Civilians like Messrs. Farish, Townsend, and Campbell ; 
 scholars like Captains Molesworth, Shortrede, and Jacob ; and 
 physicians like Drs. Smyttan and Campbell ; with not a few 
 purely military officers who were an honour to the Bombay 
 army, used this language : " In gratifying this desire of the 
 natives to learn our language, we would most solicitously 
 provide against the horrors of irreligion by communicating 
 and recommending the religion of God. We need, for this 
 object, a man qualified for the instruction of the natives in 
 the English language, and for the teaching and preaching, 
 through this medium, the Gospel of Christ. We need a man 
 qualified to assist the mind now emerging ; to draw it forth 
 
246 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1834. 
 
 and lead and direct it ; to mould and form and abidingly fix 
 it. We need a man devoted to the Lord ; a man of talent, 
 and intelligence and general information ; of a vigorous and 
 energetic, yet patient mind ; of a sober and sound judgment, 
 of steady and strong self-denial ; of a prayerful and hopeful 
 spirit, and of great and catholic love we want a Missionary. 
 Oh! how should we rejoice to behold such a man; how 
 glowingly should we welcome him ! " The transfer of the 
 Scottish Mission to the Church of Scotland had rendered the 
 need less urgent ; and Dr. Wilson, while fortunately continuing 
 to hold unshaken his view of the importance of using the 
 classical and vernacular languages, threw the whole weight of 
 his culture and energy for a time into the new Institution. 
 Mr. ISTesbit's absence at the Cape and Ceylon, from ill-health, 
 made the help of a colleague more than ever necessary, and 
 for this the special fund was ready. He studied carefully 
 the experiment of the Baptist missionaries at Serampore, 
 which was of the same oriental type as his own, and he was 
 in close correspondence with the Scottish missionaries at 
 Calcutta. We find Dr. Marshman, just after Dr. Carey's 
 death, explaining the constitution of the Serampore College 
 according to the prospectus of its establishment on 24th 
 August 1818, in a letter dated 23d September 1834, which 
 contains this passage : 
 
 " SERAMPORE. The assertion of the founders of the College is fully 
 justified, that their object in planning it was ' the enlightening of 
 India, and the propagation and final establishment of the Gospel 
 therein.' All the operations of the College, from the beginning to 
 this day, have been in harmony with the original plan. Limited funds 
 have prevented the accomplishment of some of its minor parts, and 
 experience has led to some modification of others. In particular, the 
 Sungskritu has fallen back to a mere secondary place ; and the English 
 has been raised to greater prominence. But as to the religious character 
 of the Institution, if there be any alteration it is that it has become 
 every year more decided. The Professors of the College, as well as its 
 Directors, are Christian missionaries, who hold that character the 
 
1836.] DESCRIPTION OF SERAMPORE COLLEGE. 247 
 
 dearest to them of any they can sustain, and who would not consent to 
 sustain any other which did not naturally coalesce with it. 
 
 " Our students are of two classes Christian and Heathen. The 
 former alone are supported as well as educated by the College. They 
 are partly East Indian, and partly native in the more ordinary accepta- 
 tion of the term. Some of both are properly theological students, 
 preparing for, and already in part engaged in, the Christian ministry. 
 The others may hereafter be the same ; but for the present they are 
 receiving a general education in which religion takes a large part. 
 The heathen students are all under my own care in the English 
 department, and are classed with their Christian countrymen without 
 any distinction but what may arise from their various degrees of pro- 
 ficiency in all their studies not purely theological. All of them who 
 are sufficiently advanced read and study the Scriptures two days in the 
 week ; and all their other studies, whether in science or history, are 
 conducted after a Christian manner. At morning worship, indeed, the 
 Christian students alone are required to attend ; and nothing either in 
 profession or practice is required of any heathen which is inconsistent 
 with his own faith ; but the whole controversy between Christianity 
 and idolatry, and the whole contrast between religion and irreligion, 
 are before them continually ; and we leave the result with God. 
 What more can be necessary to make the College a religious Institu- 
 tion?" 
 
 The first examination of Dr. Wilson's college has a curious 
 interest, as described in the public journals of 1836. All the 
 dignitaries of the island were present, even the leading priests 
 of the Parsee, Hindoo, and Muhammadan communities, for the 
 conversion case had not yet occurred on its public side. Dr. 
 Wilson alluded to the difficulties he had only partially over- 
 come in securing qualified teachers and monitors, and a 
 sufficient supply of unobjectionable text-books and scientific 
 apparatus. He anticipated the time as not far distant when 
 the knowledge thus communicated would bring many natives 
 with their children " within the pale of the Church." By the 
 hope of this he defended his connection with the Institution 
 as a missionary, and his determination " to devote to it a large 
 share of my attention without neglecting other important 
 
248 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1836. 
 
 duties which harmonise with its objects." From the reading 
 of the Gospel of Mark in their native tongue by ten Marathee 
 boys selected from the primary schools to be educated as 
 teachers, to a theological examination in the English Shastres, 
 and on natural history and mineralogy by the highest class, 
 the work of the college was passed under review. The 
 same Goojaratee papers, which a few months later denounced 
 the college at the bidding of the sanhedrim because of its 
 necessary and publicly avowed results in the baptism of its 
 students, were unqualified in their eulogies. The Chdbuk 
 or Whip declared that " all were fully satisfied that no such 
 progress as that made by the boys of this school within the 
 eleven months of its existence has ever been exhibited in any 
 institution in this place." A knowledge of the Christian 
 Shastres was liberally put side by side with that of arithmetic, 
 "man, and other objects of natural history." In reporting 
 the examination to Dr. Brunton, Dr. Wilson wrote : 
 
 "I Oth November 1836. .... You will observe that we secure 
 the religious instruction of all the pupils, even of the boys who have 
 not made so much progress in English as to use it freely as the medium 
 of communication. It is my intention not to overlook the cultivation 
 of the native languages, which have hitherto, to the great prejudice of 
 English seminaries in India, and to the prevention of their pupils from 
 benefiting their countrymen by translations, been much neglected. 
 The Brahmans here have the greatest contempt for some tolerably good 
 English scholars, because they speak their vernacular tongues like the 
 lowest of the low, and are unable to compare together the native and 
 European science and literature. 1 This, I trust, will not be their feel- 
 
 1 The science of the Puranas is inconceivably absurd ; but the science of 
 the Siddhantas approximates to truth. "When the veil of the former is torn 
 from the Hindoo mind it enwraps itself in the folds of the latter. When 
 these are torn to rags it says that the object of the Puranas and Siddhantas, 
 alike given by inspiration of God, is not to teach what ought to be believed 
 concerning science and philosophy, but what actually has been discovered con- 
 cerning them at the time of their composition ! This is the position taken by 
 a learned Brahman in this quarter, who has just published a treatise on Astro- 
 nomy. Let those who think that they can extirpate Hindooism by mere 
 
1836.] FIRST EFFORTS AGAINST SLAVERY. 249 
 
 ing in reference to our pupils, if you entertain the view which I have 
 expressed. The natives have already much confidence in our operations. 
 As all their own learning flows through the priesthood, many of them 
 have the idea that all European learning must flow through it also. 
 One of the most influential of their number, and of the class represented 
 by party men as hostile to missions, lately offered me a large sum of 
 money if I would give himself exclusive attention during a part of 
 every day, which I of course declined to do, as it would place me in a 
 wrong position with regard to the natives in general." 
 
 With this may be contrasted the facts revealed at the 
 sixth annual examination in March 1842, when 1446 youths 
 were under instruction. Of these 568 were in the girls' 
 vernacular schools, and 723 in the boys' schools. There were 
 155 in the college, of whom 78 were Hindoos, 38 Jews, 6 
 Mussulmans, and 33 Christians of the Romanist, Armenian, 
 and Abyssinian, as well as Reformed Churches. The subjects 
 and text-books were those of the Scottish Universities, not 
 excluding Greek and Hebrew. Prize essays were read by 
 natives on domestic reform and the practice of idolatry. 
 Geology was the science studied that session. Dr. Wilson 
 lectured on the evidences of Christianity and Biblical Criticism, 
 and used Hill's Lectures as the text-book of systematic divinity. 
 
 So early as 1833 Dr. Wilson directed his attention to the 
 slave trade from East Africa, and to the character of domestic 
 slavery among both Hindoos and Muhammadans in India. In 
 reply to an appeal from T. H. Baber, the Bombay Union of 
 Missionaries invited the Moravians or United Brethren to 
 utilise their experience gained in the West Indies and South 
 Africa, and their knowledge of industrial occupations, in the 
 formation of a colony in the Upper Wynaad district of South 
 India, "to reclaim the slaves from their present state of 
 
 science remember that it has waved its upas branches, for at least fifteen 
 hundred years, in spite of a tolerably correct science, and that even now it has 
 begun proudly to encounter the full blast of European philosophy. That it 
 will not suffer much from the latter I do not deny. That it would be destroyed 
 by it there is no reason to expect. J. W. 
 
250 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1836. 
 
 ignorance and barbarism." The Basel and English missionaries 
 have since done much in mitigating the oppression of the 
 casteless races of South India by the native Governments 
 and Brahminical communities, and that with the aid of the 
 British Government, while Christianity has won her greatest 
 numerical triumphs among the simple peoples from the 
 Dekhan to Cape Comorin. But, till so late a time as 1859, it 
 was the custom of the civil courts in India, more or less 
 ignorantly, to register and treat as legal documents contracts 
 for the service and sale of slaves, which have been prohibited 
 ever since. Whatever serfdom or domestic slavery exists in 
 India is beyond the law, and has ever since been discouraged 
 by the law, as well as by the special efforts of the police 
 directed to the extirpation of kidnapping, eunuch-making, 
 and other nameless horrors of the kind. After the interfer- 
 ence of Parliament for the suppression of the African slave- 
 trade the Indian Navy played its part with a vigour and a 
 humanity worthy of its reputation, which, till its premature 
 extinction followed by the recent revival of a Marine Depart- 
 ment, had always been great in scientific work as well as in 
 maritime warfare. What was to be done with the captured 
 slaves who were restored to freedom in Bombay, the head- 
 quarters of the Navy ? The Government at once made over 
 those of school-going age to Dr. Wilson, to the number of 
 eight boys and five girls at Bombay, and five boys at Poona, 
 to begin with, in 1836. The problem is not yet solved ; it 
 has assumed proportions since the Zanzibar treaty, secured by 
 Dr. Kirk following Sir Bartle Frere, which must issue in 
 Eastern and Central if not also Western Africa, following the 
 course of the empire created by the East India Company. 
 But the germ of the enterprise, which blossomed out into the 
 expeditions of Dr. Livingstone attended by some of those 
 very slave boys, is to be found in the eighteen youths of 
 whom Dr. Wilson wrote home at the end of 1836 : " There 
 
1837.] ETHIOPIA STRETCHING OUT HER HANDS. 251 
 
 is reason to hope that they may ultimately prove a blessing 
 to the Mission, while their capture will teach the native 
 slavers a salutary lesson." 
 
 In April 1837 we find, similarly, the germ of Lord 
 Napier's success in the Abyssinian Expedition. In the 
 course of those almost chronic revolutions from which 
 Abyssinia has been rarely free, Michael Warka, military 
 commander of three towns in Habesh, as it is called, found 
 himself compelled to take refuge with the British Consul at 
 Massowah, along with his two sons Gabru and Maricha. 
 When in power Michael Warka had always shown himself 
 friendly to Mr. Isenberg, Joseph Wolff, and the Church Mis- 
 sionary Society's station at Adowah. The father and sons 
 went on to Bombay where they became, of course, Dr. 
 Wilson's guests. The boys, then seventeen and twelve years 
 of age, read Amharic and its Tigre* dialect with great fluency. 
 Dr. Wilson's polyglott accomplishments had not up to this time 
 extended to the tongue of Ethiopia, but Joseph Wolff accom- 
 panied the Abyssinians and left with him an Amharic and 
 English vocabulary, through which they and their teacher at 
 first learned from each other. " I trust they are not the only 
 Christians connected with the Eastern Churches exterior to 
 India who will be placed under our care," Dr. Wilson wrote. 
 Wolff disappeared more suo for America in order to enter 
 Africa by Liberia, leaving behind him this characteristic letter: 
 
 "BOMBAY, 10th April 1836. MY DEAR WILSON. Knowing that 
 you are a dear brother of mine I take the liberty of making the following 
 request to you. I don't like to trouble dear Mr. Parish with, it, for lie 
 does a great deal for me whilst I am with him in his house. My sick- 
 ness and journey, and the circumstance of having been robbed on my 
 return for Sanaa, obliged me to draw more on Sir Thomas Baring than 
 I think it to be just to draw now. With regard to my dear wife, I 
 gave my word to her worldly brother never to carry on my mission at 
 her expense. I also don't know whether all the money for my book 
 has been sent in. If you, therefore, could procure for my future journey 
 to the Cape some assistance from Christian friends I should be most 
 
252 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1838. 
 
 obliged to you and to the friends. I also wish to consult with the 
 brethren here about my future movements, whether I should pursue 
 my journey to Africa ma the Cape, or go at once to Kokan and 
 Yarkand via Kutch, Kurachee and Candahar ? I think if I could obtain 
 1200 rupees for either journies it would be abundantly sufficient. 
 Yours affectionately, JOSEPH WOLFF. " 
 
 In Dr. Wilson's correspondence we find these traces of his 
 own college work, and that of the state institution, the 
 Elphinstone College : 
 
 " 30^ November 1837. The Elphinstone College, which is in the 
 immediate neighbourhood of our school, and which has most splendid 
 accommodations and large endowment and Government grants, has 
 only at present eight pupils. In order to get the number increased its 
 managers have resolved to found sixteen large scholarships, and to 
 commence an elementary school. Did it not by its constitution and 
 practice exclude Christianity I should wish it success. But while it 
 interdicts the teaching of the words of salvation I must invite the 
 youth of India to repair to those seminaries of learning of which the 
 motto is, ' The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,' and 
 use all lawful means to induce them to place themselves under their 
 influence. Of the most important of these means, in connection with 
 ourselves, is the procuring of suitable buildings for our Institution. 
 
 " 2,8th February 1838. I am happy to state that the Abyssinians 
 have conducted themselves in the most becoming manner, and that the 
 progress which they have made in their studies is most gratifying. 
 Gabru, the elder boy, you would observe particularly noticed in the 
 account of the examination of the seminary. He acquitted himself 
 on that occasion remarkably well, considering the short time that he 
 had been studying English ; and his subsequent advancement has been 
 such as to sustain the hopes which his appearance led us to cherish. 
 He has superior talents and a most commendable thirst after knowledge. 
 His brother, though inferior to him, is also getting on well. I am 
 quite hopeful that good, which may yet prove to be saving, impressions 
 have, been made on both their minds. Their father returned to his 
 native country on a visit a few days ago. Had he not been satisfied 
 with the treatment which they are receiving in Bombay he would not 
 have left them even for a season. When I expressed to him the' hope 
 that his sons might yet be teachers of primitive Christianity on the 
 mountains of Habesh he seemed much delighted. 
 
1838.] THE TWO PRINCES OF JOANNA. 253 
 
 " Of the Zanzibarian children rescued from the Arab slavers, there 
 are now with me six boys and six girls. Three boys, and these not 
 the least promising, have been removed by death. Those who remain 
 are learning English. The most advanced of them is a very promising 
 boy. They all wish to be considered Christians, though when they 
 came to me they were Mussulmans. The five boys who are with 
 Mr. Mitchell at Poona are advancing in every respect. For each of the 
 Zanzibarians we receive three rupees monthly from the Government, 
 but about double that sum is needed. The day may be speedily 
 approaching when the interesting objects of our care and solicitude 
 may prove not only the monuments of the divine mercy but the 
 instruments of the divine praise in their native land, or among thejr 
 benighted countrymen who visit the shores of India. 
 
 " Two young princes, aged nineteen and twenty years, nephews of 
 the king of Hinzuan or Joanna, the African island of which an inte- 
 resting description is given by Sir William Jones, came in their own 
 dhow on a visit to the Government in the month of October. They 
 were first placed with the Kazee of Bombay ; but in their own broken 
 English they said, ' Tat won't do at all. We come from Hinzuan to 
 see white man, and governor send us to stay with black man ;' and 
 leaving the Muhammadan judge to his own meditations they betook 
 themselves to their own vessel in the harbour. I was then asked to 
 take charge of them, and they became inmates in my house, in which 
 they continued to stay during the three months of their visit. We 
 felt a great interest in satisfying their curiosity connected with the 
 numerous subjects of their inquiry, and particularly the principles of 
 Christianity ; but though they became acquainted with the truth to a 
 considerable extent, and seemed sometimes to feel the force of the 
 arguments against the Koran, they appeared to the last to cling to 
 their errors. What the future effects of our intercourse may be no one 
 can tell. They carried to their homes the word of God in Arabic, 
 which they understand. Their knowledge of English, picked up 
 principally from shipwrecked seamen and occasional visitors, is con- 
 siderable ; and even their servants had some acquaintance with it. 
 From what they stated it would appear that it could be propagated 
 throughout their island without much difficulty. The language most 
 prevalent with them is the Sowaheli, which is spoken at Zanzibar and 
 through large districts on the coasts of Madima or Africa. Muham- 
 madanism they represented as making great progress in those quarters, 
 but principally through the violence of the Arab colonists, and the 
 agents of the Imam of Muskat. Their own hatred of idolatry, though 
 
254 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1838. 
 
 they had not a few superstitions, they made apparent on many occa- 
 sions. One evening, after they had accompanied me to some of the 
 Hindoo temples, they had a curious discussion with a Hindoo gentle- 
 man whom they found in the mission-house on their return : ' We 
 take walk/ they said, < with Dr. Wilson, but have got great pain in our 
 stomachs (hearts) because all Hindoo men are mad, and make salaam 
 to stone god. What for got Governor ? Why not he put you all in 
 prison 1 You come to Joanna, then we flog you/ The Hindoo, in 
 self-defence, declared that he did not worship idols. ' Then/ pointing 
 to his sectarial mark, said his princely instructors, ' you double-bad ; 
 you come into Englishman's house and say, I wise man, I not worship 
 images ; then you go to your own house and put on Hindoo god's 
 mark just 'bove your eyes there. You two-faced man ! ' With these 
 interesting youths I expect to keep up a correspondence." 
 
 The growth of the mission raised such questions as that 
 of " alimenting " or providing for the temporary support of 
 young converts excluded from their Hindoo and Parsee 
 homes, and fit to be trained in the college for missionary or 
 educational work. From the first Dr. Wilson drew a clear 
 and wise distinction between " promising and select Christian 
 youths while they study English with a view to our subse- 
 quent employment of them as agents," and " native Christians 
 who have nearly reached the meridian of life." Practically, 
 he settled the difficulty in the case of the former by taking 
 them to his own house and table, even up to the end of his 
 life, judging carefully in every case, but with a kindliness 
 that left him sorely out of pocket. The village and barrack 
 systems for the occupation and training of converts, must be 
 judged of according to the class to be trained and the state 
 of native society from which they have come. In every case 
 the very appearance of seeming to hold out a bribe to con- 
 verts has been carefully eschewed by the Scottish Missions ; 
 and it is even doubtful if, in such a state of society as 
 Hindooism still presents, the so-called barrack system was 
 not too early abandoned in Calcutta at least. 
 
 In 1832 Dr. Wilson had urged the establishment of a 
 
1839.] MISSIONS TO PUNJAB AND KATHIAWAR. 255 
 
 Scottish Mission at Madras; offering, on behalf of M. E. 
 Cathcart of the Civil Service there, 150 a-year for a time. 
 Not till 1836 was the General Assembly, moved by Dr. 
 Duffs return, able to appoint Mr. Anderson there, soon to be 
 followed by Mr. Johnston and Mr. Braidwood, the last 
 specially sent out by the Edinburgh Students' Missionary 
 Association which Dr. Wilson had established. 
 
 The Church of Scotland, influenced by the alliance with 
 Runjeet Singh, which preceded Lord Auckland's unfortunate 
 Cabul expedition, projected a mission to the then independent 
 Sikhs, but Dr. Wilson counselled a first attempt among those 
 of the protected states of our own territory, such as the 
 Church Missionary Society and the American Presbyterians 
 afterwards undertook. He declared his willingness to make 
 a missionary survey of the Punjab up to the Indus and its 
 tributary streams, preaching in Hindee and Oordoo or Hin- 
 dostanee on the way. " I could perhaps induce some influ- 
 ential natives to betake themselves to Bombay or Calcutta 
 for their education. I could furnish you with such a full 
 report, diversified by notices of the country, people, and 
 prevalent religious systems, as you could lay before the public 
 for their general information, and to invite approval and 
 co-operation." Such a survey, and the consequent action at 
 that time, would have anticipated by twenty years the 
 Christianising of the land from the deserts of Kajpootana 
 and Sindh, at which Dr. Wilson's influence ceased, to the 
 Sutlej immediately, and ultimately to Central Asia. 
 
 What it was not expedient or possible for his own church 
 to attempt, in the regions beyond the three settled presidencies, 
 as they then were, Dr. Wilson induced other churches to 
 undertake. The missionary survey which he made of Kathi- 
 awar co-operated, with the eloquence of Dr. Duff in Ireland, to 
 lead the three hundred Presbyterian congregations of the 
 Synod of Ulster, as the Irish Presbyterian Church was called 
 
256 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1839. 
 
 in 1839, to establish a mission in India. The Eev. George 
 Bellis, the secretary, asked Dr. Wilson's counsel in time to 
 report to the Synod of 1840. He submitted, in reply, an ex- 
 haustive report an apostolic epistle on the needs and the 
 advantages of Kathiawar, which thus begins and closes : 
 
 "BOMBAY, 27tft November 1839. About three years ago I had 
 determined to memorialise the Synod of Ulster about the propriety of 
 its engaging in foreign missionary operations in its corporate capacity, 
 and with special reference to the great and inviting and promising field 
 to which I am about to direct your attention, and I was led to delay 
 communicating my views to you only by observing from one of your 
 missionary reports that you yourselves had been led to determine to 
 send forth some of your ministers to preach the glad tidings of salva- 
 tion to the heathen world, and to make some inquiries the result of 
 which I thought it proper to await at Dr. Philip and some other 
 individuals, about the particular scene of your operations. When, in 
 April last, I learned that you had turned your attention to India, I 
 proceeded to collect some more particular information than I possessed 
 respecting the district the claims of which I had resolved to plead 
 before the bar of your Christian compassion and enlightened benevo- 
 lence. The arduous duties which I have been called to discharge, and 
 the great trials in which our mission has been involved since- that time, 
 have hitherto prevented me from accomplishing my purpose. My pro- 
 crastination you will easily understand. Cum ad Makam defaxeris, 
 obliviscere quce sunt domi. 
 
 " .... I say nothing about plans of labour, as your dear brethren 
 and agents ought personally to inspect the field before particular 
 measures are resolved upon. It will afford me, and the other members 
 of our mission, unspeakable pleasure to receive them in Bombay, and 
 to introduce them to the friends of the Redeemer's cause particularly 
 connected with the scene of their labours. We most cordially invite 
 them to join our ranks, and with us to fight the battles of the Lord 
 in these high places of the field. Let them come to us ' full of faith 
 and the Holy Ghost,' and be prepared both to labour and suffer agreeably 
 to the Divine will, and the work of the Lord will assuredly prosper in 
 their own souls, and those of multitudes of their fellow-men. We can- 
 not say to them, ' the fields are already white unto the harvest/ where 
 the soil is not even broken ; but we can tell them that the field is both 
 large and unoccupied, and that when the seed is sown it will prove 
 incorruptible." 
 
1839.] HIS REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN INDIA. 257 
 
 In 1838 Dr. Wilson lost a personal friend in the death of 
 Sir Eobert Grant, the Governor, of whom one of the native 
 newspapers remarked that his last act had been to subscribe 
 to the General Assembly's Institution " the last expression 
 of his regard to the hallowed cause of education, which ever 
 lay near his heart, which on various occasions he advocated 
 with surpassing eloquence, and which many of his public 
 measures were calculated to advance." In a letter to Miss 
 Bayne the widowed Lady Grant wrote " I have much valued 
 the letter which Dr. "Wilson had the kindness to send to me, 
 and it has interested me often when nothing else could. May 
 I be enabled to profit by the lessons given in it." Under the 
 new Charter Act Mr. Farish became Acting -Governor, as 
 senior member of Council. Soon after Dr. Wilson was 
 pleasantly associated for the first time with a Governor to 
 whose administration he was destined to render signal 
 services. The young Lord Elphinstone, nephew of the Hon. 
 Mountstuart Elphinstone, had been appointed Governor of 
 Madras. One of his earliest acts was to invite a statement 
 of the experience of the principal educational institutions in 
 India before introducing reforms into his own Province. 
 Dr. Wilson, after statistics showing 1887 boys and girls under 
 his instruction in 1839, and detailing the school and college 
 work, thus proceeded : 
 
 " Candidates for entrance into the Institution are required to be 
 able to read their vernacular language with fluency before their admis- 
 sion. It is a great fault in many of the Government seminaries in 
 India, that English literature and science are taught to one set of 
 individuals, and oriental literature and science to another. There can 
 be little intercommunion between the two classes of literati which are 
 thus produced. The stores of European wisdom find no natural native 
 channel in which to flow forth for the improvement of the country ; 
 and the stores of eastern lore, unqualified and uncorrected as they are 
 by that of the west, prove injurious, instead of beneficial, to their 
 possessors and those who are brought under their influence. 
 
 " The pupils, on their admission, pay one rupee in our school, and 
 
258 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1839. 
 
 two rupees in our college division for a class-ticket, and are required to 
 provide themselves with books and stationery. We are most desirous 
 to lead the parents to appreciate the benefits of education ; and the 
 small demand which we make of them has this tendency. It deters no 
 persons from entering the seminary who have heart and leisure to pro- 
 secute the study of English, while it forms a slight check on the indis- 
 criminate enrolment of pupils who are disposed to come from mere 
 idle speculation. 
 
 " In our seminary caste receives, and can receive, no indulgence. 
 Firmness, kindness, and impartiality overcome all the difficulties con- 
 nected with it, which were experienced during the first year of its 
 existence. We inform all our pupils and their relatives that the lines 
 of our classes are formed exactly as the ranks of the native army, and 
 that we know only those distinctions among individuals which arise 
 from talent, good moral behaviour, attention to study, and progress in 
 learning. Nothing more can be rationally wished for ; and every native 
 seen to cross the door of a European, an impure Mlecch, ought to be 
 very quiet on the subject of caste. With regard to the native holidays, 
 which in general so much interfere with the work of tuition in India, 
 our rule is neither to give permission to attend them nor to inflict 
 punishment because of their observance. To quote the native expres- 
 sions used, they procure neither razd nor sazd. The responsibility of 
 them is thus made to rest where it ought to rest, with the parents and 
 children themselves. They are all satisfied with the regulation which 
 has been adopted ; and we have often a voluntary attendance during 
 the holidays, which could have scarcely been expected. 
 
 " For the higher department of our Institution we are not entirely 
 dependent on our own school. We have been able to draw material 
 for it from every similar seminary in this place, and particularly from 
 the schools of the best private teachers. Some of our pupils come 
 from a great distance, and we are most happy to receive them on 
 this very account that they will prove, when properly trained and 
 instructed, the most effective agents in the illumination of their native 
 districts when they return to them. 
 
 "The system of instruction which we pursue is what has been 
 called the intellectual, and which is now so well understood and 
 generally approved that it is unnecessary to make any particular state- 
 ment respecting it. When we deliver lectures to our pupils we do 
 not fail to make them the subject of particular examination, and to 
 encourage the writing of essays connected with them, either in the 
 English or Native languages. Attendance at some of these lectures is 
 
1839.] REVIEW OF HIS OWN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. 259 
 
 free to the public. About eighty native youths connected with all 
 the educational institutions in Bombay were present this week when 
 I commenced a course on the principal doctrines of divine revelation. 
 The English school at Poona is conducted exactly on the same prin- 
 ciples as the school division of our Institution in Bombay. 
 
 " The vernacular boys' schools of our Mission are in some respects 
 nurseries to our English seminaries. They are found to be highly 
 beneficial in diffusing, at a very small expense, much useful and divine 
 knowledge amongst the lower orders of the people. The teachers are 
 paid according to the number and proficiency of their pupils, and 
 generally earn from ten to fifteen rupees a month. They require to 
 be invigorated by a constant European superintendence. 
 
 " I forward, for transmission to Lord Elphinstone, a copy of the 
 last report of our female schools. I would strongly recommend to 
 his Lordship the attempt to get similar establishments formed in con- 
 nection with his Presidency. The honour of instituting the first 
 Government female school in India is still unappropriated, and it will 
 prove one of no small magnitude. 
 
 " The average amount of annual subscriptions in this place for the 
 various objects which we pursue is more than double that of the 
 Native Education Society. The reason . is probably to be found in the 
 fact, that there is a growing conviction on the part of the public in 
 India, that it is both proper and expedient more intimately to connect 
 human and divine science in the instruction of its youth than has 
 hitherto been the case in Institutions not directly missionary. Though 
 it might be expedient (I do not say that it is) for our Governments as 
 such to avoid for the present all hortative teaching of Christianity, it is 
 in the highest degree desirable that they should permit the youth of 
 this country to become fully acquainted with its historical relations, 
 and allow them free access to the use of its unerring standards. 
 
 " Our schools have as yet received no donation to their funds from 
 the Bombay Government. Sir Robert Grant, however, personally 
 attended an examination of some of them, and afterwards officially 
 presented a Khilat, or honorary dress, to one of our most distinguished 
 pupils, the eldest son of Venkat Rao Bahadur, the Suddur Ameen of 
 Dharwar, and asked me to submit to him a plan according to which 
 the Government countenance might in a similar way be extended to 
 all deserving seminaries in the Presidency." 
 
 Nor was it only the Madras Government that consulted 
 Dr. Wilson as to an educational policy. We find in his 
 
260 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1841. 
 
 papers this extract of a letter which he wrote to the Governor 
 of Ceylon, the Eight Honourable J. A. Stewart Mackenzie, 
 dated 28th April 1841: 
 
 " It will afford me very great pleasure to write a short epistle to 
 Mr. Anstruther on the subject of vernacular education, if you will 
 kindly apologise to him for my intrusion. None of the arrangements 
 connected with the Indian Governments on the subject of public 
 instruction have given me a tithe of the gratification which yours in 
 Ceylon have afforded. Our 'boards of education' are by far too 
 exclusive, and they admit no members of practical experience. They 
 despise and disparage religion, the only available engine of moral 
 reform ; and were their endeavours not in some degree supplemented 
 "by our Christian missions, I should be disposed to question their 
 ultimate safety. With you all seems right, proper, and judicious ; and 
 it reflects great honour on Lord John Eussell that he has approved of 
 your scheme. There are many eyes in India placed on Ceylon as a 
 model Government. In saying this, I do not mean to make any 
 insinuation against the civil officers of the Company, who as a body 
 are a most honourable, enlightened, and faithful set of public servants. 
 It is the simple fact of the intervention of a Company, which some- 
 times appears to me to interpose between this great country and our 
 happy native land a barrier to the full tide of free and generous 
 British feeling. Direct responsibility to a chartered corporation most 
 necessary when infantile adventure required every guarantee against 
 destructive loss is a very different thing from direct responsibility to 
 the Sovereign, nobles, and popular representatives of our own realm. 
 I express this opinion merely as glancing at the general interests of 
 philanthropy." 
 
 Nearly twenty years were to pass before, under the 
 catholic University and Grant-in- Aid systems, the Govern- 
 ment of India assumed its proper relation to all educational 
 enterprise, independent as well as under its own depart- 
 ments. But Dr. Wilson did not confine his energies to India 
 and Ceylon. His sympathies had been also all along with 
 the Gaelic School Society, to which he and other Scotsmen 
 were in the habit of sending remittances. And, in return, 
 he sought to induce other committees of his Church than that 
 
1841.] HIS WORK FOR THE GAELIC SCHOOLS. 261 
 
 specially charged with the care of the India Mission, to evan- 
 gelise the Jews. These letters from Dr. Wilkie on the 
 Highlands, and to one who was already becoming famous in 
 his own land Mr. Candlish on the Jews, let in side-lights 
 on his work at this time. In 1841 he called a meeting of 
 the principal Arabian Jews in Bombay at the house of Mr. 
 Sassoon, whose son is now Sir Albert Sassoon. 
 
 "EDINBURGH, 13th April 1838. It is a matter of most sincere 
 congratulation amongst us that the Lord should have put it into your 
 heart, and into the hearts of your dear Christian friends so far removed 
 from their native land, to feel for the wants of their countrymen at 
 home. We have still really much to do at home in all the departments 
 of Christian philanthropy. But I invariably find that those whose 
 charities are most active at home are just those who are most liberal in 
 their contributions for foreign objects. Notwithstanding all the assist- 
 ance now promised by Government for the support of schools in the 
 parliamentary parishes, together with the exertion of the Society for 
 Propagating Christian Knowledge, and of the General Assembly's Com- 
 mittee for Schools and, indeed, after all that could be reasonably 
 expected from stationary schools in the Highlands there will still be left 
 many more localities than have yet been occupied, in the plains and 
 islands, at great distances from any schools, and which can only be 
 properly or reasonably supplied by teachers of circulating schools, 
 removed in two years and returning again when the wants of the dis- 
 trict require their aid. 
 
 " Your judicious observations about the native languages in India 
 are all confirmed by the experience of our teachers in the Highlands 
 here. And though in many districts, where a few years ago not a word of 
 English was spoken, the people can now, from having picked up a very 
 few vocables, transact the common business of life in that language, yet 
 it will be long indeed before they will be able to receive anything like 
 efficient religious instruction except in their native Gaelic. Hundreds of 
 Highlanders in this town, who have been from twenty to thirty years 
 amongst us,and who seldom speak one word of Gaelic throughout the week, 
 are still attending regularly the Gaelic Church on Sabbath, and cannot yet 
 relish instruction in any other tongue. You must have had a wonder- 
 ful facility at learning languages, that with your multiplicity of engage- 
 ments you should have already made such attainments in that way. 
 I cannot help thinking, without entering upon the controversy about 
 
262 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1841. 
 
 the gift of tongues, that the Holy Ghost has in the distribution of his 
 gifts, given special and peculiar talents and abilities to some of our 
 missionaries in this way. . . . DAVID WILKIE." 
 
 " 28th October 1839. REV. MR. CANDLISH, Edinburgh. I sent you 
 by the last steamer a number of the Oriental Christian Spectator, con- 
 taining some notices of the Jews of Cochin. I have now the pleasure, 
 according to my promise, of enclosing a correct translation of the cele- 
 brated copperplate grant, by the late C. M. "White, Esq., a young 
 gentleman of extraordinary capacity for acquiring the oriental languages, 
 but who was removed by divine providence at the very commencement 
 of his able and zealous research. The gentleman whom I mentioned 
 to you as having offered his services for the purpose of exploring 
 Arabia and the north of Africa, with a view to investigating the state 
 of the Jews, has conversed about his plans with several influential 
 persons in this place ; and it is likely that, with a view to securing 
 adequate support on the one hand and accomplishing the greatest amount 
 of good on the other, he may extend his views so as to embrace the 
 general objects of science and philanthropy. He is still desirous of 
 receiving countenance from the Jews Committee of the General Assembly. 
 We are most anxious to hear of the appointment of your missionary 
 to Aden. It would contribute to facilitate his operations had he 
 some connection with Bombay, the organ of the British Govern- 
 ment in its dealings with the Arabs ; and it would rejoice our hearts 
 to see him include the Jews of this place as occasional objects of his 
 ministry." 
 
 " IQth July 1841. To ROBERT WODROW, Esq., Glasgow. It is a 
 joint Mission to the Jews of Arabia and India, then, having Bombay as 
 its centre, which I think in present circumstances most feasible and 
 promising. I will thank you to direct the particular attention of the 
 General Assembly's Committee to the view which I take of the subject, 
 and also of the friend who has so generously promised to support a 
 missionary at Aden. I am certain that his views would be forwarded, 
 and not retarded, by the plan which I venture to suggest. I think 
 that my friend Dr. Smyttan could easily show the advantages of the 
 scheme which I propose. A missionary for Bombay would require to 
 direct his particular attention to the Arabic as well aa the Marathee 
 language. I called a meeting of the principal Arabian Jews, which was 
 held at the house of David Sassoon, the most opulent merchant of their 
 body. R. T. Webb, Esq., Major Jervis, Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Glasgow and 
 Mr. Kerr were present with me during the greater part of the time that we 
 
1841.] PKOJECTED MISSIONS TO ARABIAN JEWS AND SIKHS. 263 
 
 were together. We were very politely received, and obtained much of 
 the information which we asked, as well as the promise of every assistance 
 being granted to a Jew whom I have employed to commit to writing 
 whatever he can learn of the circumstances of his brethren in Yemen, 
 Bussora, Bombay, and other places. Towards the close of our interview 
 we entered on the infinitely important question of the Messiahship of 
 Christ, and had an opportunity of stating the usual arguments for its 
 establishment. They ordered all their children to leave the room 
 when we first mentioned the name of the Saviour ; and we could not 
 help observing how much more reserved they appeared in this matter 
 than the Beni-Israel. They otherwise evinced, however, no improper 
 feeling ; and they freely discussed with us the different points to which 
 we adverted. I told them of the deputation to Palestine, the objects 
 of the General Assembly's Committee, and its readiness to aid in the 
 instruction of their countrymen ; and they seemed pleased with the 
 interest which our Church takes in their welfare. More noble looking 
 men than they are not to be seen on the streets of Bombay, where so 
 many tribes of the world have their representatives." 
 
 Such was the first love of the Church of Scotland in the 
 infancy of its missions abroad and its evangelical revival at 
 home, that it planned enterprises in Arabia, in Persia, and on 
 the upper Indus, 1 while it stimulated other churches to take 
 up provinces which its agents had, as pioneers, surveyed. 
 But in Bombay itself the death of Mrs. Margaret Wilson had 
 left the many female schools without a head, although, a lady 
 teacher had been speedily sent out to conduct them ; and the 
 development of the College made it imperative that the long 
 sought for colleague, whom the Christian officials desired to 
 help Dr. Wilson, should be at once found, the more that Mr. 
 Nesbit had been absent from India for a time seeking health. 
 Accordingly, Dr. Wilson, early in 1836, had summoned to his 
 side the Misses Anna and Hay Bayne, on whom lie pressed the 
 
 i Dr. Bi^^n had written thus to Dr. Wilson : "EDINBURGH COLLEGE, 
 2d Janua/^^mSS. Allow me to remind you of your promise to send us in- 
 formation about the feasibility of a Mission in the Sikh country. The munifi- 
 cent patroness of the undertaking is now a widow, and waning fast into the 
 vale of years. She is the more earnest to learn ' the truth, the whole truth, 
 and nothing but the truth. ' " 
 
264 LIFE OF JOHN. WILSON. [1841. 
 
 claims of their sister's work as an inheritance of which they 
 were bound to take possession. These ladies were to be his 
 own guests, brought out at his own cost, while retaining their 
 independence in all things. " The Assembly's Committee, I 
 doubt not, would give you any encouragement you might 
 desire," he wrote in September 1836. But, "I have been 
 forming a private fund for female education from the profits 
 of our publications, which are of course my own; from the 
 proceeds of some jewels presented by a lady in aid of it, and 
 to be employed by me, without any notice being taken of the 
 matter, for procuring me personal aid in the schools ; and from 
 sums given me for my unquestioned disposal either private or 
 public. I shall, I doubt not, have two hundred guineas to 
 pay your passage to India." Towards the end of 1837 the 
 sisters arrived in Bombay, and at their own charges. Very 
 tender and beautiful was the family life in the Ambrolie 
 mission home, and occasionally in the country house on 
 Malabar Hill and in that at Mahableshwar, as revealed 
 by the now faded correspondence, till Hay was married to 
 Mr. Nesbit only to carry on her missionary work till her 
 premature death in 1848, and Anna was laid beside 
 her sister Margaret in the Scottish cemetery, her works 
 following her. Once more did the fast increasing class of 
 educated Natives of all sects in Bombay, as well as the native 
 Christian community, see the purity, the grace, and the in- 
 tellectual attraction which cultured women lent to the 
 missionary's home, making it every year more and more the 
 centre, and largely the source, of all that was elevating in 
 Bombay society. 
 
 Impressed by the importance of the work, a retired 
 Bombay officer who had taken part in it, Major St. Clair 
 Jameson, brother of Sheriff Jameson, had in 1837 issued an 
 appeal to the ladies of Scotland, which resulted in the forma- 
 tion of the Ladies' Society for Female Education in India. 
 
1841.] FEMALE EDUCATION. THE AFGHAN WAR. 265 
 
 That Association, united in 1865 with a similar agency for 
 Africa, has ever since worked side by side with the Foreign 
 Mission Committee of the Free Church, and with remarkable 
 success. At Poona, as well as Bombay, this indispensable 
 side of a vigorous mission was extended. In a letter to the 
 Eev. G. White, chaplain of distant Cawnpore, who was suc- 
 cessfully conducting a Female Orphan Asylum there, Dr. 
 Wilson wrote in 1835, "I am more and more convinced that, 
 in seeking for the moral renovation of India, we must make 
 greater efforts than we have yet done to operate upon the 
 female mind. In Christian countries it is, generally speak- 
 ing, more on the side of religion than the male mind. In 
 India it is the stronghold of superstition. Its enlighten- 
 ment ought to be an object of first concern with us. You 
 will be happy to hear that the prejudices against its instruc- 
 tion in Bombay are fast diminishing among the natives." In 
 a letter to his Edinburgh agent Dr. Wilson records the pro- 
 gress of his sisters-in-law, and gives us a contemporary view 
 of the then gathering Afghan expedition. He shows himself 
 wise, as always, in political questions, while, writing to a con- 
 fidential agent, he expresses his opinion with a frankness 
 rare in his more public communications. For while he was 
 the citizen and the statesman, the scholar and the philan- 
 thropist, he was above all things the Christian missionary : 
 
 " 3d October 1838. Anna and Hay are making rapid pro- 
 gress with the Marathee. Our friend Dr. Smyttan is to leave us in 
 January. You will find him a great acquisition in Edinburgh ; but. 
 his loss to us will be great indeed. I am wearying greatly for Mr. 
 Mitchell's arrival. I got his letter via the Cape only the other day. 
 I liked the spirit of it very much, and anticipate great results from 
 his labours. 
 
 " I am not by any means satisfied of the justice of our invasion of 
 Afghanistan. Shah Shujah (that old cruel monster) has got from our 
 army 6000 volunteers, officered by the Company, to endeavour to 
 reseat him on the throne of Cabul. Our main army, 1 3,000 strong, is 
 now assembling on the banks of the Sutlej, and it is to move to the 
 
266 LIFE OF. JOHN WILSON. [1841. 
 
 northward under the command of Sir Henry Fane. It is entirely 
 composed of Bengal troops. Our army of reserve, 5000 strong, com- 
 posed of Bombay troops, is now mustering in Kutch. Four of the 
 Bombay stations, Sholapore, Kaludgee, Belgaum, and Dharwar, are in a 
 few days to be occupied by Madras troops. The large station of Mhow 
 is to have Bombay instead of Bengal troops. That we should send an 
 army to watch the movements of Russia, Persia, etc., I fully admit. 
 That we should dethrone Dost Muhammad Khan I stoutly deny, on 
 the ground of my present information," 
 
 When, three years later, the Afghan iniquity was becom- 
 ing a tragedy of a very doleful kind to our arms, our honour, 
 and our prestige in Asia, and when Dost Muhammad was 
 a state prisoner on parole in Calcutta, where he might be 
 observed at his devotions on the Course as the gay world 
 rolled past, his heir-apparent, Haider Khan, was a frequent 
 visitor at Ambrolie. On the 1st March 1841 Dr. Wilson 
 thus gossips in a letter to Dr. Smyttan : 
 
 " We have lately had presented to us a hydro-oxygenic 
 microscope, which cost Es. 600. It has been several times 
 exhibited at my house, and has made a great impression on 
 the natives. Prince Haider Khan, the son of Dost Muham- 
 mad, is coming to see it in a day or two. He and I are 
 great friends. Should his family ever again be restored to 
 sovereign power, it will, I think, be favourable to missionary 
 operations. He sat two hours with Anna and me the other 
 day. He talks nothing but Persian and Pushtoo. I get on 
 pretty well with him; and the Moonshee Abdool Eahman 
 Khan, whom you will perhaps remember as a companion of 
 Dadoba Pandurang, makes all clear when I break down. 
 This young man, by the bye, comes to us every morning to 
 read the Scriptures. He will, we hope, declare for Christ. 
 What an accession he would be to our strength ! " So grateful 
 was Dost Muhammad to Dr. Wilson for his kindness to his 
 son when in captivity, that he declared he would keep the 
 passes open for a visit from the Padre Saheb, however 
 
1841.] DOST MUHAMMAD'S GRATITUDE TO HIM. 267 
 
 disturbed the frontier might be. But Haider Khan never 
 became more than a sensual Afghan, as described in Colonel 
 Lumsden's confidential report on the " Mission to Kandahar " 
 in 1856, although he was always well inclined to the British 
 Government because of " the manner in which he was 
 treated while a prisoner in Hindostan." When in Bombay 
 he had an opportunity of visiting England, of which 
 he afterwards regretted that he did not avail himself. The 
 present Ameer, Sher Ali, is his full brother. 
 
 The Mr. Mitchell for whom Dr. Wilson wearied, was the 
 Eev. J. Murray Mitchell, of the University of Aberdeen, 
 which now followed in the wake of the Universities of Edin- 
 burgh and St. Andrews, and, besides him, gave to India from 
 the same year's classes the Eev. John Hay, still the able 
 Teloogoo scholar of the London Missionary Society at Yizaga- 
 patam, and the Eev. Dr. Ogilvie, the first missionary of the 
 Established Church of Scotland at Calcutta. Dr. Murray 
 Mitchell, as in due time he became, took with him the 
 Classical and Hebrew scholarship with which Aberdeen and 
 Melvin were associated, while his wife subsequently became 
 a missionary to the women of Bombay and Calcutta, worthy 
 of her cousins the Baynes. The arrival of his new colleague 
 towards the end of 1838, gave Dr. Wilson another proof of the 
 confidence and affection of the Christian officials, who had 
 raised a special fund of 1800 for this extension of the college 
 operations. 
 
 DR. DUFF TO DR. WILSON. 
 
 " MY DEAR WILSON I know not why our correspondence should 
 not be more frequent. It is my own heart's desire to be linked closer 
 and closer with all my fellow-labourers in the East. Ere long I trust, 
 in the good providence of God, to rejoin the field from which I have 
 been so long severed. To Bombay I have looked, in common with 
 others, with no ordinary interest. And I have blessed God for all that 
 he hath accomplished by you and for you. Long may he spare you to 
 prosecute your multifarious labours. In Mr. Mitchell you will find a 
 
268 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1841. 
 
 hearty coadjutor, a man of faith and prayer and scholarship all 
 beauteously and harmoniously united and blended. 
 
 " In case I should still be detained here for some time, I am anxious 
 to be put in possession of all the existing facts and documents that are 
 accessible on the subject of the connection of Government with 
 idolatry. If spared, I should like to make an efficient appeal on the 
 subject, in the event of the despatches from the Home Office not proving 
 satisfactory. I was doing this sooner, and was prevented for some 
 time for want of the necessary documents, and latterly from severe and 
 protracted ill-health. Yours affectionately, ALEXANDER DUFF." 
 
 Having roused the whole of Scotland, the north of 
 Ireland, and many parts of England by his fiery zeal, Dr. 
 Duff returned to Calcutta early in the year 1840, by way of 
 Bombay. It was necessary for the good of the Mission in 
 all three cities and for the success of the projected Irish 
 Mission, that the two distinguished men, still young, should 
 consult together Dr. Wilson, now almost worn out by eleven 
 years of incessant and varied work for his Master ; Dr. Duff 
 fresh from home, but also from labours no less abundant. If, 
 in the course of the many splendid orations which Dr. Duff 
 had spoken and published in the previous five years, he had 
 been led by his Calcutta experience occasionally to seem to 
 Dr. Wilson to underestimate the need for female education 
 and instruction in the vernacular languages which Western 
 India at least had demanded, all was forgotten or discussed 
 after a most brotherly fashion when the two held long con- 
 verse at Ambrolie. Dr. Duff has left a record of his visit in a 
 popular report to the committee, published at the time. 
 
 The General Assembly of the subsequent May addressed 
 an encouraging pastoral letter to its missionaries, ministers, 
 and elders in India, signed by the moderator, Dr. Makellar, 
 and the learned Principal Lee, the clerk. Their generous ac- 
 knowledgments of the arduous labours of the missionaries, and 
 co-operation of the chaplains and elders, and the wise counsels 
 of the document, had so good an effect that a similar com- 
 
1841.] HIS WORK FOR THE PRESS. 269 
 
 munication might be more frequently sent with the best 
 results both at home and abroad. After the last Assembly 
 before the Disruption of 1843, Dr. Welsh, second only to Dr. 
 Chalmers in the Church of Scotland at that time, addressed 
 Dr. Wilson at the request of the Colonial Committee, on the 
 subject of the scattered settlers in India, for whom no spiritual 
 provision was made till the establishment of the Anglo-Indian 
 Christian Union in 1864. 
 
 It is difficult to see how, in the midst of all his other 
 engagements, Dr. Wilson found time for that translation and 
 publication of books, which formed in his eyes as important 
 a department as the schools and even the preaching, because 
 the press fed both. 1 So early as 1833 he had thus justified 
 his expenditure to the directors of the Scottish Missionary 
 Society, when they were insisting on restricting operations in 
 
 1 " OPERATIONS OF THE PRESS IN 1839. I published a new edition of my 
 Idiomatical Exercises, in English and Marathee, which are pretty generally 
 used as a school-book in this part of India. A Goojaratee tract, addressed by 
 me to the Jaina priests of Palitana, and an English sermon addressed to the 
 Parsees, have been new publications. I have spent a considerable time in 
 connection with the Translation Committee of the Bible Society, of which I 
 am the secretary; and Mr. Nesbit has similarly occupied a part of his leisure. 
 The following is the work done at the lithographic press : 
 Account of the Ancient Egyptians .... Pages 80 Copies 1500 
 Letter to the Jaina Priests of Palitana . . . 18 1500 
 
 The Nature of God and Character of True Worshippers 25 2000 
 
 Account of Missionaries 53 2000 
 
 The True Atonement 29 2000 
 
 On Repentance 28 2000 
 
 Marks of the True Religion 28 2000 
 
 In Whom shall we Trust? 26 2000 
 
 Relief to the Sin-Burdened 19 2000 
 
 On the Holiness and Justice of God . ... 22 2000 
 
 The Ayah and Lady 78 2000 
 
 On Knowing God 8 2000 
 
 The Worship of the Elements 38 2000 
 
 Gospel Catechism 36 2000 
 
 " The total number of tracts printed is 27,000, and of separate pages 
 957,000. Most of the tracts belong to the Bombay Tract and Book Society. 
 The two first were printed at my own expense, but the subsequent sale of 
 them has almost reimbursed me for the outlay. J. W." 
 
270 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1841. 
 
 Bombay, where the press cost 128 a year ; the Goojaratee 
 pundit 20 ; the Hindostanee, 36 ; and the Sanscrit and 
 Marathee, 36 : 
 
 " The Pundits whom I have retained for some time have been 
 required by me not so much for the purpose of aiding me in my 
 studies though they are of course highly useful in this respect but 
 of aiding me in fulfilling my engagements with the press. During the 
 past year I have composed and principally written out with my own 
 hand, in the first instance, upwards of 2000 8vo pages in different 
 languages ; and it will he perceived, when the general inefficiency of 
 native assistants is considered, that the help which I have enjoyed has 
 been required for almost merely mechanical purposes. At present 
 the editing, and in a great degree the translating, of the Marathee 
 Scriptures, and the editing of the tracts of the Bombay Tract and Book 
 Society, and the preparation of some pamphlets, have devolved on me. 
 I have all along paid a considerable part of my Pundit's wages inde- 
 pendently of the Society." 
 
 Nor was it in Bombay alone or in its languages that Dr. 
 Wilson was active. Dr. Pfander, the Arabic scholar and 
 controversialist, had arrived in Calcutta in 1838, and sought 
 his aid in printing the three Persian treatises before referred 
 to. In the work of translating the Scriptures into the vari- 
 ous vernaculars all the competent Protestant missionaries 
 in the Province, and scholars like Captains Molesworth and 
 Candy, gladly gave help. Until there are native scholars, 
 masters of Greek and Hebrew as well as of their own classi- 
 cal and vernacular languages, to become to the races of India 
 what Luther was to Germany, the translations of the Scrip- 
 tures by foreigners, however learned and experienced, will 
 require revision every generation. This has been the case 
 in the century since Dr. Carey began his attempts in 
 northern, and the Lutherans in southern India. The diffi- 
 culties caused by such revisions, required even in the English 
 Bible, are inevitable, until the Church of India develops its 
 own organisation and life. 
 
CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 1836-1842. 
 
 TOUBS GAIKSOPPA FALLS RAJPOOTANA KATHIAWAR THE 
 SOMNATH GATES. 
 
 Sun-Worship Tested by Arithmetic Changes in Goa The Portuguese 
 Priests and the Bible Gairsoppa and its Falls Ajuntaand the " Possessed" 
 Bangle-Seller Cursetjee J. Jeejeebhoy, Esq. A Pilgrimage to Parbuttee, 
 the Government Idol First Tour to Raj pootana Farewell to Dr. Duff- 
 Civilisation of Baroda Dr. "Wilson and his Cashmere Shawls Breakfast 
 with a Nawab Correcting Bishop Heber Antiquities of Puttun Native 
 Christians without a Missionary Teacher The Great Goddess of Goojarat The 
 Lions of Rajpootana Sad Letters from Home A Brahman Butler at Edur 
 The Bheels and Sir James Outram Aboo as it is Gratitude for safe Return 
 First Mission in a Native State Second Visit to Rajkote The Prince's 
 Difficulty about the Existence of Evil Mr. Kerr's Death Dr. Wilson's nearly 
 Fatal Illness Anna Bayne's Death Cholera Epidemic of 1842 Persuaded to 
 take Furlough by prospect of a Tour in Syria Sir W. Hill's Endowment of 
 the Nagpore Mission Sir W. H. Macnaghten Sir George Arthur Sir Bartle 
 Frere's First Friendship with Dr. Wilson Sir J. P. WiUoughby on the 
 Proclamation of the Gates Dr. Wilson's Confidential Reply to the Docu- 
 ment Macaulay, the Duke of Wellington, and Lord Ellenborough's Recall. 
 
' l A gentle Kniglit was pricking on the Plaine, 
 Ycladd in mightie armes and silver shielde, 
 Wherein old dints of deepe woundes did remaine, 
 The cruel markes of many' a bloody fielde ; 
 Yet armes till that time did he never wield : 
 His angry steede did chide his foniing bitt, 
 As much disdayning to the curbe to yield : 
 Full jolly Knight he seemd, and faire did sitt, 
 As one for knightly giusts and fierce encounters fitt. 
 
 " And on his brest a bloodie Crosse he bore, 
 The deare remembrance of his dying Lord, 
 For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore, 
 And dead, as living ever, him ador'd : 
 Upon his shield the like was also scor'd, 
 For soveraine hope, which in his helpe he had. 
 Eight, faithfull, true he was in deede and word j 
 But of his cheere did seeme too solemne sad ; 
 Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad. 
 
 " Upon a great adventure he was bond, 
 That greatest Gloriana to him gave, 
 (That greatest Glorious Queene of Faery lond), 
 To winne him worshippe, and her grace to have, 
 "Which of all earthly thinges he most did crave : 
 And ever, as he rode, his hart did earne 
 To prove his puissance in battell brave 
 Upon his foe, and his new force to learne ; 
 Upon his foe, a Dragon horrible and stearne. 
 
 " A lovely Ladie rode him faire beside, 
 
 Upon a lowly Asse more white than snow ; 
 Yet she much whiter; but, the same did hide 
 Under a vele, that wimpled was full low ; 
 And over all a blacke stole shee did throw : 
 As one that inly mournd, so was she sad, 
 And heavie sate upon her palfrey slow ; 
 Seemed in heart some hidden care she had ; 
 And by her in a line a milke-white lambe she lad." 
 
 EDMUND SPENSER : The Faerie Queene. 
 
1837.] SUN-WOHSHIP TESTED BY ARITHMETIC. 273 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DR. WILSON'S combined missionary, scientific, and archaeo- 
 logical tours in the second period of six years which preceded 
 his first visit to Europe, were not less thorough and fruitful 
 in their results than those of the previous six years. 
 February 1837 he devoted to an inspection of the old mission 
 station of Hurnee and to a second visit to the Portuguese 
 territory of Goa, his first survey of which had led him to 
 give more attention to the many Portuguese and their 
 descendants in Western India, known as Indo-Britons. It 
 was his custom to examine Government as well as missionary 
 schools at the request and generally in the presence of the 
 authorities, wherever he went, as well as to hold services for 
 the scattered and neglected English communities in distant 
 stations. To the Government Marathee school of Hurnee, 
 the pupils of which he found remarkably prompt in arith- 
 metic, he proposed the question which they readily solved, 
 " If sound travel at the rate of 1140 feet a second, and the 
 sun be 95,000,000 miles distant from the earth, what time 
 will be required for a man's prayers to reach that luminary ? " 
 The Brahmans seemed greatly amazed when they saw the 
 result of a computation which really involved the whole 
 teaching of their system. The examination closed with the 
 suggestion to the Puntojee, or " dominie," that he should 
 extend his cross-examinations to the scope of the passages 
 read as well as to the meaning of each word. The boys were 
 rewarded with books, and their parents crowded to talk with 
 the missionary throughout the day. At Goa Dr. Wilson found 
 
 T 
 
274 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1837. 
 
 that a great change had taken place in three years. The 
 Inquisition had been destroyed, but that fact was officially 
 assigned as a reason why no books could be admitted into 
 the settlement without the permission of the Archbishop or 
 the Vicar-General. After a week's delay Dr. Wilson thus 
 appealed to the civil authorities as represented by the Pro- 
 visional Government : " Be the character of these books what 
 it may, the detention of them, and that too without any 
 examination, is contrary to the principles of religious tolera- 
 tion recognised by the constitution of Portugal, and every 
 principle of justice to which I can advert, to the precedent of 
 1834, and to what I believe must be the unanimous dictate 
 of the judgment of the respected gentlemen who now exercise 
 authority in this place." Dr. Wilson in truth knew by this 
 time that the two Portuguese gentlemen who formed the 
 Government " would gladly accept Bibles in the Portuguese 
 language." Soon after the books were passed, though almost 
 too late for wide-spread circulation. The number of the 
 clergy had been reduced one-half since the tour of 1834, and 
 all the monastic establishments had been shut up. Their 
 libraries had been sold. The cruel intolerance of Menezes, 
 the Synod of Diamper, and the Inquisition, was avenged. 
 To this day the Archbishop of Goa finds it impossible 
 to assert against the Belgian or French Archbishops of 
 Madras and Bombay, Calcutta and Agra, who are directly 
 subject to the Vatican, his powers under the old Bull, con- 
 firmed by two Popes, granting to Portugal in perpetuity 
 whatever lands the great and good Prince Henry and his 
 successors might discover from West Africa to the Indies 
 inclusive. 1 The Vicar-General refused the gift of a Portu- 
 guese Bible, alleging that the use of the translation is pro- 
 hibited. When asked to point out any passages erroneously 
 
 1 See Mr. Major's Discoveries of Prince Henry the Navigator, and their 
 Results. 1877. 
 
1837.] ROMAN CATHOLICISM IN GO A. 275 
 
 rendered, he exclaimed, Plurimi sunt, plurimi sunt, as he 
 turned the leaves, but could not point out one. Dr. 
 Wilson replied to him in the words of David, Testimonium 
 Jekovae verax, sapientiam afferens imperito. The Vicar- 
 General then changed his ground to the charge that this 
 version omitted the Apocrypha, a point of which an early 
 Edinburgh controversy had made Dr. Wilson master. One 
 of the clergy gladly took a Bible, while another presented 
 him with two defences of Eoman Catholicism recently 
 published in Colombo, Ceylon, and full of flagrant mistrans- 
 lations of Scripture. This passage follows in Dr. Wilson's 
 account of the tour, sent to Dr. Brunton : 
 
 " A respectable Portuguese officer spent the evening with us. His 
 conversation turned principally on the errors of the Church of Rome, 
 of many of which, like most of the Roman Catholic lay gentlemen 
 whom I have met in India, he seemed to be well aware, and on the 
 immoralities of some of the clergy in the State of Goa. One of them, 
 he mentioned to us there could be little doubt, had been accessory lately 
 to the exposure of his own illegitimate child, the body of which he 
 himself found in the course of being devoured by ravens. The late 
 archbishop he represented as one of the greatest debauchees in the 
 colony. We heard his statements with pain, though we did not much 
 wonder that the Papacy had been tolerant, nay, productive of many of 
 the crimes which he mentioned. Next morning, after we had paid a 
 visit to Colonel Joao Casimir, the President of the Provisional Junta, 
 my books were sent to me from the custom-house." 
 
 This passage may be compared with the picture drawn by 
 the late Colonel Meadows Taylor in the last of his vivid 
 romances of Indian life and history, A Nolle Queen. The 
 professors, 110 students, and resident clergy, at the college of 
 Eachol in Salsette, showed much kindness to Dr. Wilson, and 
 he records that he " particularly prepared " himself for a Latin 
 discussion on the merits of the Vulgate and Portuguese trans- 
 lations of Scripture, which he conducted with two of them. 
 One of his adversaries, taking him aside at the close, confessed 
 
276 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1838. 
 
 his position to be most miserable, and was invited to Bombay. 
 His reply was Est mihi voluntas sed valde timeo. All through 
 Goa the laity showed great eagerness for copies of the 
 G-entilismo de Papismo, a tractate containing correspondence 
 between Captain Shortrede and Bishop Prendergast on the 
 heathenism of popery. But the main interest now of this 
 second tour to Goa, lies in the opportunity which it gave Dr. 
 Wilson to visit and describe what has been called the third of 
 the greatest wonders of India, the Gairsoppa Falls, the Hima- 
 layas and the Taj Mahal being the other two. The four falls 
 have since become famous in India, but the best English 
 treatises of descriptive or physical geography are still ignorant 
 of them. Some 340 miles south-east of Bombay, in its dis- 
 trict of North Canara, the Sheravutty divides into several 
 channels just above the old capital of Gairsoppa, famous three 
 centures ago for its queen, but plundered successively by the 
 Portuguese, Hyder Ali, and Tippoo Saheb, and taken by assault 
 by General Matthews a century ago. Dr. Wilson, who was 
 accompanied by Dr. Smyttan, sent an account of the falls 
 to his old professor, Dr. Jameson, and it appeared in his 
 Philosophical Journal. The water falls eight times the depth 
 of Niagara. 
 
 The brief college holiday in January 1838 was devoted to 
 a second tour to Ajunta, with its caves, and to Jalna. The 
 incidents are most pleasantly told by Dr. Wilson in letters to 
 the sisters Bayne. The effect on a bangle or bracelet-seller 
 of one of the vernacular books distributed in the bazaar, On 
 the Nature of God, he describes to have been " such as I have 
 never witnessed." 
 
 " 2d February 1838. When I was preaching in the evening a man 
 came roaring into the enclosure in such a loud and frantic manner that 
 he frightened the doctor, myself, and all present. He called out to me 
 in the most awful manner which you can imagine, ' It is all true, It is 
 all true, It is all true. You are my Gooroo, You are my Gooroo, You 
 are my Gooroo/ and then threw himself down on the ground with 
 
1838,] THE "POSSESSED" SELLER OF BANGLES. 277 
 
 such violence that we feared he had fractured his skull. He quickly 
 recovered himself, caught hold of my feet, and held them with such 
 force that I was obliged to call on the people to extricate me, which 
 with great difficulty they could effect. I tried to calm his mind, but 
 his excitement gained ground notwithstanding all my efforts. His body 
 was greatly convulsed ; and he tossed himself and tore himself in the 
 most fearful manner. On every persoji but myself he loaded the vilest 
 abuse, and particularly on two of his relatives. To me he gave ascrip- 
 tions of praise proper to God only ; and extolled me as the lord of 
 Pandarpur, and several other idol-shrines. He cried out that he would 
 never leave me till his death, which he declared would take place 
 before the close of the evening. It was now but too evident that he 
 was labouring under temporary derangement, if not under direct 
 possession of the great adversary of souls, which the peculiarities of his 
 case seemed most to indicate to us, notwithstanding all our cautious 
 reserve of judgment. I succeeded, with the help of the natives, in 
 getting beyond his grasp for a few moments, when Dr. Smyttan and I 
 anxiously consulted together about what was proper to be done. We 
 agreed to direct our whole efforts to the soothing of his mind ; and to 
 his friends, who ascribed his state to my enchantment, and who were 
 afraid that we should carry him away with us, we gave the assur- 
 ance that I receive none as disciples but those who are reasonably 
 convinced, and that we should render them every assistance in our 
 power in allaying his excitement. He would listen patiently to none 
 of my counsel or instruction ; but when I found him willing to follow 
 me I took him by the hand and led him to a house in the bazaar, where 
 his friends said he could be accommodated for the night. They held 
 him to the ground, while we, after promising to call upon him in the 
 morning, took our departure. After fighting with them for some time 
 he got quite exhausted, and sank into a profound sleep. They carried 
 him off early next morning before we could hold any communication 
 with him. He belongs to the village of Shiwand, about six miles from 
 Ajunta. He had proceeded about a mile on his return from the bazaar 
 to that place, when he sat down to read the tract ; and he flew to me 
 with the speed of lightning, bursting through all opposition, after his 
 mind began to be affected. He is a man whose reason was never 
 formerly known to be disordered. What his first emotions were on 
 perusing the tract it is impossible to say. The probability from his own 
 language is, that he gave to it his assent at the same time that Satan 
 stirred up the evil feelings of his mind with a view to extinguish his 
 convictions, and to misrepresent our cause in the eyes of the heathen. 
 
278 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1838. 
 
 His case is a most singular one ; and what the result of the whole may 
 be no man can tell. Our prayers ascended to heaven that Christ might 
 say to the waves of his affliction, ' Be still/ and that he might sit 
 meekly at his feet, learn his Gospel, and receive it to the salvation of 
 his soul. At what I have told you you will no doubt be astonished. 
 I trust that the occurrence has been blessed to me, as impressing on 
 my mind the fact that we are either the savour of life unto life or death 
 unto death to those to whom we minister. How solemn are our 
 circumstances ! 
 
 " On the morning of the 29th we proceeded to the caves, which are 
 six or seven miles distant from the town. The road leads down the 
 Ajunta Ghat, which in some parts is steep, though not very difficult in 
 the passage. It then strikes to the left hand, and winds through jungle 
 along the base of the hill which we descend, and up through a wild 
 dell between other two of similar altitude, with a small river flowing 
 below. You find yourself approaching some very precipitous rocks, 
 about 250 feet high, without discerning any outlet. On the north 
 side of the river, and a third way up the face of the rocks, the mouths of 
 the caves, about nineteen in number, make their appearance. The curve 
 of the rocks in which they are is somewhat elliptical. There is no regular 
 road leading from one excavation to another ; and it is a matter of no 
 small difficulty to reach some of them. The entrances of four of them, 
 are arched, and those of the others are nearly square. None of them are 
 high ; and there is nothing imposing connected with them as at Kanadi 
 in Salsette, and Karli. The principal object within is in some of them 
 the dhagob, forming either a tomb (or the representation of it), in which 
 is deposited some relic of a Buddh, and in others a statue of Buddh, 
 generally sitting squatted, and hewn out of the solid rock. There are 
 various ornamental figures cut or painted on the walls and ceiling and 
 pillars, both in the principal chambers and those which, in the days of 
 yore, were occupied by the monks. Among these some antelopes below 
 the pedestal of Buddh are pretty well executed. Neither the sculpture 
 nor the colourings, however, will bear to be compared with any of the 
 products of Roman or Grecian art. The paintings are by no means so 
 perfect or so interesting as they have been often represented. I think 
 that we see in them attempts at the delineation of the inhabitants of 
 Asia, in which Buddhism is spread ; but I must say, contrary to what 
 has been alleged, that it requires a great stretch of imagination to make 
 either Africans or Europeans out of them. Some of the figures of 
 flowers, dolphins, etc., have probably been made with some regard to 
 taste, which has certainly more predominated among the Buddhists 
 
 
1839.] THE AJUNTA CAVE-TEMPLES. 2*79 
 
 than the Brahmans, who generally confine themselves to the routine of 
 their symbols. On the western portico of two of the arched entrances 
 there are inscriptions in the common cave character, though of a small 
 form. They have been much injured ; and we found it impracticable 
 to take a fac-simile of them. Captain French had the parts of them 
 which are legible copied some time ago ; and I believe that they will 
 be lithographed in Dr. Bird's account. You will see that we have been 
 disappointed with the Ajunta caves. 
 
 " The town of Ajunta itself is now almost depopulated. The wall 
 which surrounds it, however, is nearly perfect, and very neat. At one 
 part of it there is a large octagonal serai, in which the sick of the 
 British army, under General Wellesley, now the Duke of Wellington, 
 were accommodated after the battle of Asai in 1803, when the com- 
 bined forces of Sindia and the Nagpur raja were so signally defeated." 
 
 Again, at the beginning of 1839, he roamed among the 
 jungles of the mainland, studying the aboriginal tribes, and 
 preparing for a more permanent mission among them, till his 
 stock of provisions was exhausted and his purse was empty. 
 He was to meet a party at the Caves of Elephanta, to which 
 he desired that ammunition for his gun might be sent. The 
 ardent naturalist writes : " I wounded an eagle the other 
 day so much that I caught it, and I require to shoot some 
 birds to keep it in life." He describes himself, at this time, 
 as " quite mad upon ornithology." The following letter makes 
 more revelations regarding the Government support of Hin- 
 dooism, and introduces the second Sir Jarnsetjee Jeejeebhoy, 
 who was Dr. Wilson's fast friend till the death of both of 
 them within a brief period of each other : 
 
 " POONA, 29^ August 1839. MY DEAREST ANNA. On Monday I 
 visited Mr. Baber, and found him, as usual, extremely communicative. 
 I received from him the information which I wanted relative to the 
 Cochin Jews. He says that the native in the southern Maratha 
 country, on whose account he has suffered so much, is about to be 
 found guilty, by Mr. Townsend, of several serious charges brought 
 against him by Mr. Simpson. Should this be the case Mr. Baber will 
 be relieved from much trouble. I am to dine with Baber to-morrow, 
 at his brother-in-law, General Fearon's. I spent Monday evening at 
 Captain Brett's, where a number of the Poona worthies were present. 
 
280 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1839 
 
 " On Tuesday evening I went on a pilgrimage to the Poona 
 Cathedral alias the shrine of Parvatee which is situated on an 
 eminence that overlooks both the town and camp. I was greatly 
 tired before I found myself in her highness's presence, though to a per- 
 son in health the ascent of her sacred mount is a work of no great 
 difficulty. I asked the priests why they worshipped an idol, and they 
 replied to my question by inquiring why the English Sarkar pays 
 them for doing so, and by mentioning that it contributes to Parvatee the 
 sum of Es. 1500 a-month! The Government, I said, must think that 
 the idol has endowments to this amount. ' No,' quoth the Bhudwas, 
 ' it acts like the Peshwa ; it gives of its own free will to our establishment 
 all that is necessary to uphold it. Formerly it granted us about 
 Rs. 2500 a-month, but on the recommendation of Mr. Baber it has 
 reduced its allowance to the sum which we have mentioned.' I could 
 not but heave a sigh at this intimated profanation of English rule. 
 Our Government continues the discretional bounty of a heathen prince 
 to a lifeless idol, confirms the wretched natives in all their abominable 
 and degrading superstitions, and deprives itself of the means of extend- 
 ing the benefits of a right education throughout the country ! And for 
 what reason does it thus violate the precepts of heaven, and injure its 
 subjects? For no other, that I can imagine, than that it fears to assume 
 a perfect neutrality in reference to the native religions. By encouraging 
 them it hopes to secure their affections, while it in fact only nurses 
 the elements of their greatest alienation to our sway those connected 
 with the monstrous error of their creed and religious services. There 
 is not a syllable in the last despatch from the Court of Directors about 
 grants to temples, though a casual reader may suppose that they may 
 fall to the ground if the principles of that despatch be carried into 
 effect. Let the Christian public in India and Britain again awake to 
 the re-agitation of the question connected with the Government coun- 
 tenance of idolatry in India. Let it plead for the interdiction of all 
 payments to heathen temples, to heathen priests, and to heathen 
 schools, which are not the fruit of property actually legally alienated 
 to them by chartered deeds ; and let it cease to manage that property 
 which they may legally claim. This is the grand measure which Is 
 imperiously demanded by Christian principle. 
 
 " When we were returning from the temple we met Cursetjee 
 Jamsetjee, Esq., the eldest son of Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy. He shook 
 hands with me very cordially, and impressed me with the belief that 
 lie was no zealous partizan connected with the late proceedings in the 
 Parsee community. He expressed a wish to see my Sermon ; and yes- 
 
 
1840.] A TOUR IN THE HOT SEASON. 281 
 
 terday morning I sent him a copy, with a suitable note. He returned 
 me many thanks for my kindness, and forwarded to me some of the 
 native newspapers for my perusal. 
 
 " Yesterday I principally spent in making calls. ' How are the 
 Misses Bayne ! ' said several of my friends. They had not connected 
 the intimation of Mr. Nesbit's marriage with our family circle, and 
 they were much surprised that my bereavement of my dear sister had 
 not been mentioned to them ! I felt rather unwell toward the evening, 
 and I got no sleep during the night owing to sub-acute pain which I 
 felt in my liver. The blue pill, of which I have received a supply, 
 will I trust relieve me. I have to-day been busy with my missionary 
 
 To complete his survey of the Native States around the 
 Province of Bombay, and to seek in the great stone cities and 
 deserts of Upper India forms of Hindooism more ancient and 
 more directly the fruit of its Yedic and Epic times than even 
 the Brahmanism of Maharashtra could afford, Dr. Wilson had 
 resolved to assign the early portion of 1840 to a tour in south- 
 western Eajpootana, with his new colleague Dr. Murray 
 Mitchell. The visit of Dr. Duff delayed their departure, but 
 they resolved to face the terrors of the hot season, which is, 
 officially, considered to begin on the 15th March, when the 
 cooling punkah is for the first time in each year allowed 
 in the public offices. The tour may well begin with this 
 characteristic letter from its first stage at Tanna, honourable 
 alike to the writer and to Dr. Duff. The Governor, Sir James 
 E,. Carnac, pressed upon Dr. Wilson letters of introduction to 
 the political officers on his way all of whom the missionary 
 well knew and presented him with an unpublished map of 
 the Presidency in twenty-two sheets : 
 
 " TANNA, 28th February 1840. MY DEAREST ANNA. I said little 
 to you when I parted with you, because I felt much ; but I offered up 
 to God the fervent prayer that his divine presence might remain with 
 us while we are separated from one another. My supplication was not 
 that of the moment. It still rises, and will rise from my heart, as I 
 bend my footsteps on this great journey, which the desire of publishing 
 
LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1840. 
 
 peace to the unsoothed hearts of the inhabitants of Goojarat and Rajpoo- 
 tana has led me to undertake. You must conceive of me as always 
 addressing the throne of heaven on your behalf ; and I shall have the 
 same realisation of your blessed employment for my sake. It is only 
 when our desires for our mutual welfare find their expression God- 
 ward that we can rest with confidence in the view of all that may await 
 us. 
 
 " We went through the fatigues of yesterday wonderfully well ; and 
 I was quite refreshed by Dr. Duff's admiration of the beauties of the 
 Salsitian landscape, and the interest which he felt in the antiquities of 
 its ancient forests. We rode together in the phaeton to Vehar, where 
 we met with Mr. Nesbit, Dr. Campbell, and Mr. Mitchell ; and after 
 performing the usual operations of conservatism at the table of our old 
 friend Merwanji, we sallied forth on our pilgrimage to the excavated 
 mount. The hamals (bearers) groaned under the weight of their precious 
 load the apostle of the Ganges ; and two sturdy bullocks, Pandhya and 
 Sona, dragged a crazy chariot containing the carcases encasing the souls 
 of the other constituents of the choice fraternity. We were forced to 
 dismount about a couple of miles from the abodes of the Buddhas, and 
 with staff in hand, and over-canopied with chattris (umbrellas) from 
 the west and the east, we plied our steps to the exalted regions. The 
 sun himself entered into battle with us on the way, and he had nearly 
 overpowered us before we could find refuge in the temple's shade. He 
 applied himself so sturdily to the monk of the Don that he had nearly 
 succeeded in making his visage glow with a radiance as glorious as his 
 own. We congratulated ourselves when we arrived at the terminus 
 ad quern that we were not reduced to cinders, or melted into minerals, 
 by his furnace heat. Our perambulations in the caves followed a 
 second conservative repast, and the echo of our eloquent discourse 
 caused the very hills to shake. The images themselves told us what 
 they were and what they had been, and pointed us to the tombs in 
 which are enshrined the relics of their anti-type. We performed 
 pradalcshina round the Dhagobs, reclined on the living couches of the 
 devotees of Nirwan, traversed the halls of instruction of the primitive 
 intellectualists, peeped into the bowels of the earth, ascended the lofty 
 stairs, and gazed on the beauty and grandeur of the famed isle. 
 
 " We returned to Vehar about sunset, and mounted our steeds for 
 Tanna. I rode along with Dr. Campbell ; and, mirabile dictu, having got 
 into a brown study I missed the road in the dark, and did not recover 
 my senses till an error of six miles' length found him and myself in 
 the village of Bhandup, in the wrong direction. Here we encountered 
 
1840.] SUTTEE ABOLISHED IN BAKODA. 283 
 
 various difficulties, from which we thought we had delivered ourselves 
 by committing ourselves to the care of a Brahman carrying a sword and 
 shield. He led us another couple of miles astray ; and our strength 
 and patience had nearly failed when a Fakeer had compassion on us, 
 and for the sake of Allah, as he said, turned our faces in the direction 
 of Tanna, which we reached at a late hour. Our friends, who had 
 arrived long before us, were overjoyed when they found that we had 
 not been devoured by the ghost of Jamshid, or Feridun, or some other 
 hero of ancient Persia. Something more than the excitement of fun 
 and frolic filled our hearts when we found ourselves safely around the 
 table in the traveller's bungalow. 
 
 " I cannot tell what I felt when dear Mr. Nesbit, who had kept his in- 
 tentions secret in the chambers of his own individuality during the day, 
 announced that the moment had arrived when he and Dr. Duff must 
 proceed to Panwell, and that without the formalities of worship, which 
 the tide, he thought, would not await. We resolved, at all hazards, 
 however, to part calling on the name of God ; and after reading the 
 20th chapter of the Acts I endeavoured to conduct our devotions. My 
 heart completely failed me when I was praying, but not before many 
 supplications had proceeded from its inmost recesses. Dr. Duff, with 
 whom I was so sorry to part because I felt that I should not again see 
 him till the heavens are no more, addressed to us the words of comfort 
 which his affectionate heart can so well indite, and we solemnly bade 
 each other farewell. My memory will often visit the hallowed spot 
 whence we moved asunder." 
 
 This tour extended over a distance of 1525 miles. At 
 Baroda Mr. Sutherland, the Eesident, not unassisted by the 
 influence of Dr. Wilson in his former visit to the Gaikwar, 
 was able to announce the abolition of Suttee throughout the 
 extensive territories of his Highness. Dr. Wilson was unable 
 to wait there long enough to accept an invitation to renew 
 his acquaintance with the Gaikwar ; but had much intercourse 
 with his nobles. 
 
 " I had a long private interview with the Eesident, during which we 
 discussed at considerable length the abolition of Suttee in the native 
 States, the cessation of the Government countenance of idolatry, the 
 propriety of erecting an English school in Baroda, the measures to be 
 adopted for the further suppression of infanticide, etc. He was very 
 free and candid in his communications ; and I am perfectly satisfied 
 
284 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1840. 
 
 that lie will do all in his power to forward the cause of philanthropy. 
 I received from him the loan of several interesting works and docu- 
 ments connected with the country and the native Governments. At 
 the Residency I met an important native personage named Govind 
 Rao, whose son was adopted by the late Dewanjee of the Baroda State ; 
 and who, under the new arrangements with our Government, has been 
 permitted to return to the city as a candidate for high political employ- 
 ment under the Gaikawar. Captain Fawcett, and Mr. Mitchell, Dr. 
 Campbell and I, went to pay a visit to him at the Divanji's Wadi in 
 the evening of the 21st ult. My friends were mounted on Mr. Suther- 
 land's elephant, which outstepped my bearers on the road to the city. 
 We lost sight of one another in one of the lanes ; and the wise men 
 who were bearing me took me to the house of the king instead of to that 
 of his minister ! I had there the pleasure of seeing two of the Ranees 
 (queens), whose curiosity introduced them to my view on one of the 
 staircases. Having explained the error of the bipeds to the guards 
 around me, I was quickly transported to what ought to have been my 
 first destination. I found the trio sitting in a splendid apartment, 
 and lost in wonder at the marvels around them. To me they had 
 little novelty ; and the delay which had occurred in my movements 
 consumed the time which should have been devoted to religious con- 
 versation. Alas ! The first movement of the household in reference 
 to our leaving the mansion revealed the kindness and liberality of its 
 owners. Govind Rao rose to present each of us with a pair of Cash- 
 mere shawls and a turban ; and he succeeded in getting us to accept 
 of them. The most valuable he set apart for myself ; those next in a 
 market-reckoning to Mr. Mitchell. Dr. Campbell, who was last served, 
 fared worst. I determined for my own part to manage so as to give 
 a suitable return ; and when the great man visited us with his followers 
 on the 23d, I presented his son with an Atlas, phenakistoscope, and 
 several helps to the acquisition of English which he has begun to study, 
 and himself with several books. It was a relief to my feelings to be 
 able to give him an exposition of Christian doctrine when he waited 
 upon us. The Brahmans who attended him, as well as himself, were 
 very attentive to what I said. I must not forget to mention that he 
 accompanied us to his gardens, which are in excellent order. The 
 first fruits of the season were destined for our use ; and three men 
 followed us home with baskets filled with them. 
 
 " The Nawab, whose brother you saw in Bombay when on his way 
 to Mecca, called upon us on the 21st. He afterwards sent us a written 
 invitation, which I enclose, and which is sufficiently precise and amus- 
 
1840.] A MUHAMMADAN ENTERTAINMENT. 285 
 
 ing. We asked him to convert the dinner into a breakfast, which he 
 most readily did ; and we resolved to avail ourselves of his hospitality. 
 Captain James and Lieutenant Lucas, and the young Hewetts were with 
 us his guests. Victoria herself, I guess, could not, with the aid of all 
 her Welsh, French, and German cooks, give us such a repast. And as 
 to the tamdshd which followed, or rather which was proposed, for much 
 of it we prevented, I know not how to characterise it. It consisted 
 chiefly of a review of all the Damascus, Khorassan, Iran, Arab, Turkish, 
 and English blades ; swords, sabres, daggers, bayonets, dirks, creeses, etc.; 
 of all the guns, carbines, blunderbusses, muskets, pistols, and rifles ; 
 and of all the birds and beasts of war, from the partridge to the tiger, 
 which are to be found in the Nawab's museum and offices. Then we 
 had the hookah, the chilam, the pipe, and other fumeries ; rosewater, 
 attar, arall, and other perfumeries ; flowers and roses ; fruits and roots ; 
 sweets and sours and bitters, usque ad nauseam. How could I bear 
 all this ; how could I be present when this display was made ? I know 
 not whether or not I may not have failed sufficiently to testify against 
 the folly of the world. I allowed, however, nothing to be done which 
 appeared to be wrong ; and I failed not to declare that we are messen- 
 gers of peace, and to point to that time when men shall beat their 
 swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks ; and to 
 put into his hands the words of Him who neither cried nor lifted up His 
 voice in the streets, but Who himself was led as a lamb to the slaughter, 
 and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His 
 mouth, and the testimony of some of His servants as to its purity 
 integrity, and authority. The Nawab acknowledged my gift by present- 
 ing me with a box of bloodstone set in silver. Neither he nor his brother 
 ate with us while we sat at table. They excused themselves on the ground 
 of indisposition, but declared themselves perfectly at liberty to associate 
 with us as brethren of the board." 
 
 From Baroda Dr. Wilson and his companion marched 
 through the level country of Goojarat, by Khaira to which he 
 sought to induce the Church to send a missionary. His journal 
 corrects a few of " the most amusing blunders " of that very 
 inaccurate but most pleasant book, Bishop Heber's Narrative. 
 Here he had much discussion with the Jains, one of 
 whom proposed to write a reply to his letter to the priests of 
 Palitana. Lieutenant Pilfold, " an excellent Sanscrit scholar," 
 copied for him Sanscrit inscriptions on his march to Deesa by 
 
286 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1840. 
 
 Ahmedabad, Khaira, Puttun, and Palilunpoor. At Puttun 
 (" the city "), the ancient capital of Goojarat, they were met 
 by Captain Lang, the scholarly political agent. After cross- 
 examining a young Hindoo ascetic, so as to discover for the 
 first time that the lengthened hair of these devotees is caused 
 by twisting to the growth the thinning which is taken from it, 
 the party proceeded to survey the ruins. 
 
 " 5th April. Our guides had been procured by Captain Lang, and, 
 including a Bliat (bard) brought at my special request, they proved most 
 zealous and attentive. We could distinctly trace the ancient course of the 
 Saras wati, which must have formerly passed under the walls of the 
 town. . . . Not far from the tank are the remains of a large well called 
 the Eanis Kua, the carved work of which is most extensive and tasteful, 
 and must have cost much more than the similar work at Adalij, for 
 which were paid five lakhs of rupees. Some Jain temples in another 
 direction were also inspected by us. They are ascribed to Sadra 
 Jayasingh, one of the Jain princes of Goojarat. When I heard the 
 name of this sovereign I examined the Bhat as to his knowledge of his 
 progenitors and successors ; and I was delighted to find him produce 
 a little work, which may be denominated the annals of Puttun, which 
 contained all the information which I could desire. Having Mr. 
 Prinsep's tables in my hands, I compared with it the genealogies of the 
 Ayin Akbari and Agni Puran, and found the different documents in 
 many respects corroborative of one another. The bard gave me the 
 promise of a copy of his work ; and Captain Lang having seen to its 
 fulfilment since I left Puttun, I have now the treasure in my posses- 
 sion. I have perused the whole of it. Who knows but a translation 
 of it, with remarks, may yet form a chapter in my researches ? I am 
 persuaded that many valuable historical gleanings are to be obtained 
 from the traditions and chronicles of the Bhats and Charans (bards and 
 annalists). I suspect that most of Colonel Tod's information about the 
 Rajpoot States was procured in this manner. 
 
 " On our return from our expedition we had many conferences 
 with the most respectable natives of the place, who came to visit us at 
 Captain Lang's tents. Their attention to the word spoken, and their 
 desire to become acquainted with the principles of Christianity, favour- 
 ably contrasted with what I have sometimes witnessed amongst their 
 compeers in Maharashtra. There is less bigotry in Goojarat than in 
 most other districts of India. Its present religious state is worthy of a 
 distinct exposition. 
 
1840.] ON THE CONFINES OF RAJPOOTANA. 287 
 
 " A highly respectable Brahman youth agreed with me to go to 
 Bombay for the prosecution of his studies and religious inquiry. He 
 will gain his own livelihood by his labours as a teacher of Goojaratee. 
 He is espoused to the daughter of the chief Acharya (priest) of the 
 Audich Brahmans. He is a youth of the highest promise ; and we 
 have found him very useful in our travels. 
 
 " I had a congregation in the bazaar amounting to 800, who could 
 distinctly hear my voice as I called them to flee from the wrath to 
 come, and to take refuge in the grace of Jesus. Oh, how it moves one's 
 soul to give the first testimony for our Lord and Master in such cir- 
 cumstances. Oh, Anna, pray that I may feel the power of the message 
 which I announce." 
 
 At Pahlunpoor, one of the vassal states of the Gaikwar, 
 the Dewan held a durbar or court for the reception of the 
 missionaries. He was Futh Khan, whom we had put on the 
 throne as the rightful heir of the Afghan Chief first recog- 
 nised by Akbar, to a principality which the Eajpoot Chief of 
 Jodhpore had reduced to Pahlunpoor and Deesa. He lived till 
 1854, having been first acknowledged in 1794, and his son still 
 rules after loyal services in the Mutiny. The most interest- 
 ing visitor, however, was a Muhammadan, who had lived nine 
 years in the Hedjaz of Arabia. He gave Dr. Wilson a de- 
 scription of the Hajar-as-Swad, exactly corresponding with the 
 engraving in Burkhardt's travels, but without expressing par- 
 ticular veneration for the sacred stone, the most venerable 
 relic of antiquity in the eyes of Mussulmans. The British 
 cantonment of Deesa, eighteen miles from the Dewan's 
 capital, was next visited, and the Sepoy regimental school 
 was examined through Marathee. Its fifty-five pupils and 
 regimental boys flocked to Dr. Wilson's tent for books, and 
 there he instructed them in Christianity. "Many of the 
 youth in the Army," he writes on this occasion, " in conse- 
 quence of its discipline and arrangements have had their 
 faith in Hindooism greatly shaken. They are very observant 
 of the walk and conversation of their officers, and they 
 generally respect those of them who are imbued with the 
 
288 LIFE OF JOHN WILSOX. [1840. 
 
 spirit of Christianity ! " Here Dr. Wilson was surprised by 
 coming into contact with one of the many proofs, apparent 
 to the experienced and unprejudiced observer of Hindoo 
 society, that the leaven of Christianity is working by means 
 and in directions such as no statistics can tabulate nor 
 formal report record. The subsequent history of Christianity 
 in India has revealed many similar cases of quasi- Christian 
 sects, of " almost Christians," of " secret Christians," and of 
 Christian heresies and apostasies, caused by such an admix- 
 ture of pantheistic speculation with Christ's teaching as Gnos- 
 ticism, Alexandria, and the early Oriental Churches illustrate. 
 
 " I2th April. We met three natives at Dr. Robson's door, who said 
 that they had been going about the camp in search of us, in consequence 
 of the report of my having preached in the town of Deesa. To my 
 inquiry, ' Who are you ? ' they readily and emphatically answered, 
 ' We are Christians' We immediately repaired with them to the bun- 
 galow in which we were holding our meetings ; and I conversed with 
 them, and addressed them respecting the interests of their immortal 
 souls. The individual who took the lead in the conference with me 
 stated that he is a Bhagat, devoted to the service of Christ, that his 
 name is Narottam Ladha, and that his class is that of the Lawana ; one 
 of his companions, that he is a disciple of Narottam, named Daman 
 Deva, and of the Khatree class ; and the other, that he is a Jain Mehta, 
 named Natharam Dalichand, and an inquirer into the doctrines of 
 Christianity, of the truth of which he is thoroughly convinced. Nar- 
 ottam remarked that he teaches Christianity to those who listen to him, 
 and receives the support which they voluntarily afford. His knowledge, 
 he said, he had received from books, and from conversation with a 
 native convert from Bengal, named Kamilakant Rao. His profession of 
 Christianity he had assumed, and his attempts to propagate Christianity 
 he had commenced and carried on without any consultation with Euro- 
 peans. He had seen the Bishop of Bombay, however, and Mr. Fletcher, 
 on the. occasion of their visit to Deesa last year, and is acquainted with 
 Mr. Pemberton, the chaplain, whose services in the church he sometimes 
 attends, with a partial knowledge of what is said though he himself is 
 unable to converse in English. I found, on examination, that he is 
 well acquainted with the principal facts recorded in the New Testament. 
 His views of the offices of the persons of the Holy Trinity appeared, in 
 
1840.] HINDOO CHRISTIANS WITHOUT FOREIGN TEACHING. 289 
 
 the first instance, to be obscure, but after I had delivered an exposition 
 to him on the subject, I perceived that they were more extensive and 
 correct than I had supposed. He distinctly ascribed the origination of 
 the plan of human redemption to the Father, its accomplishment to the 
 work and merit of the Son, and its application to the agency of the 
 Spirit, of whose various operations he spoke in a manner strictly con- 
 sistent with the divine testimony. Both Mr. Mitchell and myself felt 
 the greatest interest in him and his friends, and we invited him to 
 return to us at the conclusion of English worship in the camp. 
 
 " Narottam made his appearance at the time appointed, along with 
 the persons already mentioned, and Jawer, a barber, who represented 
 himself as an ' established believer' in Christ, and Mancharam, a 
 respectable Mehta, who said that he wished himself to be considered as 
 merely in the capacity of an inquirer. The Bhagat, at my request, 
 gave me a particular account of his past history, his present engage- 
 ments, and the circumstances of his followers. He was born in Bombay 
 about thirty years ago, his father being a native of Bhownuggur, in 
 Kathiawar, Six years ago he received from a soldier in the camp 
 bazaar at Deesa, a copy of a Goojaratee tract, entitled ' The Great 
 Inquiry,' and a Marathee tract superscribed ' The First Book for Chil- 
 dren.' He read both of these little publications with the greatest atten- 
 tion, and the consequence of his acquaintance with them was the 
 awakening of great anxiety about the salvation of his soul. Seeing on 
 one of them a notice of different mission stations where information 
 respecting their contents could be found, he determined to betake him- 
 self to that which was most accessible. He went on his way to Surat 
 as far as Ahmedabad. He was there assailed by various idolaters, who 
 represented the missionaries to him as too powerful in their influence 
 over the minds of those who come into close contact with them. Dur- 
 ing his stay at Ahmedabad he met with Jayasingh, the hereditary 
 Kamavisdar of Kadee, a most intelligent gentleman, with whom we had 
 a very agreeable interview on our visit to his native place. Jayasingh's 
 followers said to him, ' There are many Fakeers, Bairagees, Gosavees, 
 etc., in the country, why don't you unite yourself with one of their fra- 
 ternities ; ' but their master, when he had a private opportunity afforded 
 him, said, ' I have as much need of God as you, stay with me ; when I 
 hear of a teacher I will send for him.' This invitation was complied 
 with ; and he to whom it was addressed resided for five months at 
 Kadee, when the failure of the money which he had carried from 
 Deesa, the usual place of his residence, forced him again to proceed 
 northward. About half a year after his return to the camp bazaar he 
 
 U 
 
290 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1840. 
 
 met with Kamilakant, already mentioned, and began to associate with 
 him, and to accompany him occasionally to church. By the perusal 
 of some Goojaratee books, portions of the Bible, and tracts which he 
 obtained, and by conversation with his friend from Bengal, he became 
 convinced that Jesus Christ is the only surety and Saviour of men, and 
 resolved, without consulting with flesh and blood, to devote himself to 
 His service, in which he has now been engaged for a considerable time. 
 He reads and expounds the Scriptures, according to the light which he 
 has obtained, to all who will listen to him. Seven of his acquaintances, 
 he says, have received the truth in the love of it, and avow themselves 
 to be disciples of the Eedeemer. About a hundred persons appear to 
 be sincere inquirers. About 20 or 25 of them reside in Deesa, 10 or 
 15 at Pahlunpoor, 40 at Puttun, 2 at Vijapoor and Kadee, 10 at Baroch, 
 and 5 at Baroda. Many other individuals hold religious intercourse 
 with him ; and there is in various places a growing attachment to the 
 divine word. All his temporal wants are supplied by his followers, and 
 Asharam, a merchant, shows him particular kindness. 
 
 " After he had given me this narrative, he asked me to explain to 
 him many passages of the sacred Scriptures which he had found it diffi- 
 cult to understand. I was surprised at the degree of intelligence which 
 his inquiries evinced, and at the readiness with which he received my 
 expositions. He clearly showed that he reads the Bible with the 
 greatest attention, and that he is no stranger to the analogy of the 
 faith. He had no objection, he said, to be baptized ; but he added that, 
 though not recognised as a teacher by Europeans, he would minister to 
 his native flock as long as its members might choose to attend to him. 
 Some of the rules of the Hindoo devotees he thought it expedient to 
 apply to his services. He wishes to be considered a Bhagat, and not a 
 Gooroo. ' Gooroos, like yourself,' he said, ' I shall ever attend when I 
 have the opportunity.' Such of his friends as were present expressed 
 the same determination. Though we saw a good deal of superstition 
 in some of their notions we were rejoiced to find that they were far 
 from being ignorant of the most important truths. I read my letter to 
 the Jain priests to the company, and conversed about some of the 
 topics on which it touches. I then delivered a practical address suited 
 to the circumstances of my audience, and closed our meeting with 
 prayer. The immediate objects of our regard were evidently much 
 affected during the latter exercise, and they grasped my hand in the 
 most tender manner when I ceased to address the Throne of Grace on 
 their behalf. On parting with us they readily acquiesced in a proposal 
 to correspond with our Native Church in Bombay. 
 
1840.] IN THE RAJPOOTANA DESERT. 291 
 
 " I do not know how you and my other friends in Bombay will 
 receive this intelligence. For my own part, I have no hesitation in 
 saying that the privilege of communicating it is to us a sufficient 
 recompense for the long journey which we have undertaken at this try- 
 ing season. The simple spread of the knowledge of Christ in this moral 
 wilderness, independently of the hope which this case affords that real 
 conversion may have occurred, demands the fervent gratitude of all His 
 people, and forms a mighty encouragement to the dissemination of the 
 holy Scriptures and religious tracts throughout the length and breadth 
 of the land. The Apostle Paul and his companions met with ' disciples ' 
 in different cities before they had commenced in them their own per- 
 sonal ministrations, and before elders were ordained to watch over their 
 spiritual interests as ' those who must give an account/ and so have we 
 found persons who appear to be deserving of the name in a situation 
 where we least expected them. . . . 
 
 " On the 25th of April we left Amba Bhowanee for Danta, the 
 capital of its Hand, who receives as his due the offerings presented to 
 the goddess. We quenched our thirst at Nana Bhai Ka Bawadi, a well 
 tended by a devout Bairagee (ascetic), originally from Nagpore. He is, 
 without exception, one of the kindest and most considerate persons of his 
 class whom I have met in India, and a very respectable Sanscrit scholar. 
 I gave him a brief outline of the Christian faith, but he hesitated about 
 the reception of a tract. ' If I take it/ he said, ' I shall probably incur 
 the displeasure of the goddess.' During the night we heard lions 
 roaring in our neighbourhood, and one of them approached our resting- 
 place, not indeed to devour the intrepid travellers, but to quench its 
 thirst at a well in our neighbourhood. The king of the forest was 
 followed, at a respectful distance, by bears, jackals, and porcupines. 
 
 " The 26th of April was the Sabbath ; and after the toils of the 
 week I found its rest most refreshing, both to my outward and inward 
 man. I received on it the home letters which arrived by the steamer, 
 and they awoke very deep and peculiar emotions in my soul. The 
 illness of my beloved children, with their subsequent deliverance, 
 affected me much ; and I felt, perhaps, more strongly than ever, that 
 they are the Lord's, and that I must cheerfully submit to his disposal 
 of them. I had great delight in commending them to the loving-kind- 
 ness of their covenant God, and praying that grace may be imparted 
 in great abundance to my beloved sister in whose charge they are now 
 placed. The proposal of the Calvinistic Methodists to commence a 
 mission in India delighted me much, and I found in it the fulfilment 
 of a long cherished desire. The sums voted by the Bible Society will 
 
292 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. P840. 
 
 contribute much to the multiplication of copies of the sacred records in 
 our benighted provinces. The situation of our Church at home is most 
 trying ; but if its ministers continue faithful it will receive in rich 
 abundance the blessing of the Lord. 
 
 " 29th. After a long and tiresome ride we arrived in Edur, which 
 may with propriety be denominated the capital of the jungles. It is 
 situated between two hills, which appear covered with large granitic 
 rocks most romantically disposed of ; and most beautiful trees are 
 planted throughout its different waclas. We were kindly received by 
 the native agent of the English Government at the court of the Eaja, 
 and by the relatives of the Prince ; and we regaled ourselves on the 
 viands which they had provided for our breakfast. A Brahman acted 
 as our butler, and he was most attentive both in urging us to eat, by 
 lauding the dainties which were before us, and doing all he could by 
 his own hands to compensate for the want of knives, and forks, and 
 spoons ! 
 
 " A durbar was held in the afternoon on our account. The youth- 
 ful prince, who is only nine years of age, acted his part remarkably 
 well. He relished our visit exceedingly, and everything about us 
 seemed to excite his curiosity, and to call forth remark and inquiry. 
 His ministers had taught him a set of questions to address to us, with 
 the view of supporting the dignity and grace of the gadi (royal cushion) ; 
 but of them he made a most ridiculous use, and that to the great con- 
 fusion of his counsellors. Instead of putting them to us seriatim, and 
 waiting for an answer, he asked them all in one breath, and said, 
 ' Now I have done with them ! ' So much for royal parrots. I felt a 
 great love for the boy, and I could not but admire his manner and 
 appearance. By way of examining him as to his progress in education 
 we asked him to furnish us with a specimen of his handwriting. He 
 wrote in Devanagree letters, ' Captain William Lang, Saheb Bahadoor, 
 Political Agent, Prant Mahi-KantaV When he had done this, his gooroo 
 said, ' You have forgotten to write the usual salutation to Shri Rama- 
 chandra ; ' and he immediately supplied the omission. How melan- 
 choly it was to observe the watchfulness exercised as to the teaching 
 and practice of superstition. I said to the boy, in the most affectionate 
 tone, ' Remember the Supreme.' He readily assented ; but he was 
 immediately told by the Brahmans and his Rajpoot relatives that 
 Bhagawan and Ram are identical. I presented him with a new patent 
 ink glass and several engravings, with which he was greatly delighted. 
 He ordered a sirpdo of fifty rupees to be given to us, which, with the 
 advice of the English Vakeel (agent), we accepted ; determining at the 
 
1840.] THROUGH THE BHEEL COUNTRY TO BOMBAY. 293 
 
 same time to convert it into suitable presents to the donor, and other 
 native chiefs whom we may meet." 
 
 Dr. Wilson had now passed through that wild Bheel 
 country on the Maheekanta and Eajpootana frontier, which 
 Sir James Outram had in 1838 pacified and done much to 
 civilise, but we have no trace of a meeting between men who 
 must have appreciated each other. It is to be regretted too 
 that we have here no detailed description of that mountain of 
 the Jains Aboo which in 1840 was purely native. Five 
 years after his visit the Eao, Sheo Singh, made over to the 
 British Government lands for a sanitarium, which became the 
 favourite resort of Sir Henry Lawrence and his successors to 
 the present day. The reigning chief, son of Dr. Wilson's 
 friend who died a few weeks before the missionary himself, 
 is now of age, and still insists on the one condition of the 
 grant, that no kine shall be killed on the holy mount of the 
 Jains. 
 
 Marching forward thus through the country between the 
 Aboo and Aravullee hills and the wild Bheel land, and 
 away by Sadra on the Saburmuttee, Dakore, famed in 
 Hindoo pilgrimage, and the Baria and Champaner jungles, 
 south-east to the great Nerbudda river, Dr. Wilson and his 
 companions had to climb the low Satpoora range before 
 reaching the Maratha-desolated plains of Khandesh. Thence 
 by Dhoolia and Malligaum Bombay was reached in the 
 middle of June, after a journey unmatched at that time by 
 any save officials on military or most urgent duty, whether 
 we look at the terrific heat or the desert and dangerous lands. 
 
 Soon he prepared a series of lectures on a tour which, even 
 to the few experienced travellers, English and native, who had 
 gone over the same route, were full of the highest instruction. 
 It is long since the railway reached Ahmedabad from Bombay, 
 and the line has already penetrated from Calcutta to Jeypore 
 for the salt of the Sambhur Lake. It cannot be long till 
 
294 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1841. 
 
 Ahmedabad and Jeypore are connected by a line which will 
 follow Dr. Wilson's route away by Aboo to Palee and 
 Ajmer, to which he afterwards conducted the first United 
 Presbyterian missionaries. 
 
 At the close of February 1841, Dr. Wilson welcomed the 
 first of those bands of missionaries who, of whatever evan- 
 gelical Church, continued successively, during the next third 
 of a century, to find in Ambrolie or " The Cliff " on Malabar 
 Hill the most generous hospitality, the wisest counsel, the 
 most efficient aid. The first of his tours to bear fruit in the 
 establishment of a mission by another Church than his own, 
 was, as we have seen, his exploration of Goojarat and Kathi- 
 awar in 1835. To evangelise that, the Synod of Ulster, 
 daughter of the Scottish Kirk, sent out two missionaries. 
 The Eev. J. Glasgow and J. Kerr had not been asked to 
 volunteer for the work, but had been called upon by the 
 Synod's committee to do it. This course, followed only by 
 the autocratic organisation of the Church of Eome, was 
 declared by the very democratic Assembly of the Irish 
 Presbyterian Church " to be a precedent in all time to come." 
 It may be regretted that the precedent has been so 
 seldom, if ever since, followed. Certainly few Protestant 
 missions to people possessed of an ancient civilisation, lite- 
 rature, and faith, have been so promising, to the present day, 
 as that conducted by a succession of men of the same stamp 
 as the Lawrences and Montgomerys of Deny, who, in the 
 civil and military services, have written their names deepest 
 on the page of Indian history. The landing of Messrs. 
 Glasgow and Kerr raised in Government circles, as well as 
 in native society, a new question : Would they, should they, 
 be allowed to preach and teach in native States like Baroda 
 and the many vassal principalities of Kathiawar ? 
 
 The East India Company had been compelled, by the 
 public opinion of Great Britain expressed through Par- 
 
1841.] THE FIRST MISSION IN A NATIVE STATE. 295 
 
 liament, to tolerate missionaries in their ordinary terri- 
 tory. But up to this time there had been no instance of a 
 Christian mission in a native State. And we may be assured 
 that, but for the pioneering work arid influence of Dr. Wilson, 
 the principalities of Western and Northern India would have 
 remained closed for many a day. His interviews with chiefs 
 and people had prepared them as well as the British Govern- 
 ment for Christian schools and preachers, a result to which 
 the earlier example of a chaplain and the increasing number 
 of Christian officials had contributed. There was some doubt 
 as to how Sir James E. Carnac, the Governor of Bombay, would 
 act. He was an "old Indian," who, after experience as a 
 sepoy officer in the Madras Army, had himself been Kesi- 
 dent at Baroda, and then Chairman of the Court of Directors. 
 One of his first utterances as Governor had seemed hostile to 
 toleration. But over him also Dr. Wilson's perfect honesty, 
 fearless character, and fine Christian tact, had had their due 
 effect. His formal application to the Government produced 
 this reply, signed by the friendly chief secretary, Sir. J. P. 
 Willoughby, " The Honourable the Governor in Council will 
 offer no objection to these, gentlemen proceeding to and 
 residing in Kathiawar, so long as they conduct themselves 
 according to the principles set forth in your communication." 
 Thus peacefully was established a precedent of which Dr. 
 Wilson wrote to the Ulster Synod: "The freely accorded 
 permission of the Government for the establishment of your 
 mission in Kathiawar, though nothing more than what was 
 expected in the circumstances of the case, is such as to 
 demand our fervent gratitude. Though we should not have 
 refused to enter the province even though the goodwill of 
 our rulers had not been expressed, the official communica- 
 tion which we have had with the authorities enables us to do 
 so with the best understanding, and without any apprehen- 
 sion as to further embarrassments." 
 
296 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1841. 
 
 The season of the year for tours was past, but now, as 
 before, Dr. Wilson set the prudent fears of his friends at 
 defiance, and resolved to spend the hot months in helping his 
 Irish brethren to establish their mission at Rajkote, Pore- 
 bunder, and Gogo. At all three places Dr. Wilson found that 
 his former visit had borne fruit in the goodwill and intelli- 
 gent interest of the native chiefs in the mission, and in the 
 readiness of the leading inhabitants to send their boys to the 
 English schools. The Eajkote Chief himself took part in a 
 public discussion of the comparative merits of Christianity 
 and Hindooism, propounding the question, " Why does not 
 God Almighty, who created the world, annihilate sin at once 
 in the heart of man, and thus instantly save him from evil ?" 
 This led to a statement of the principles of the moral govern- 
 ment of God. Thus, as by some weeks' study of the missionary 
 work in Bombay, were the new missionaries trained. And not 
 only they, for the Parsee convert, Dhunjeebhoy, was, for the 
 first time, on this tour the companion of the teacher to whom 
 he was thenceforth as a son. Hardly had the mission been 
 established in a house in Rajkote when Mr. Kerr was carried 
 off by jungle fever, which prostrated Dr. Wilson at the same 
 time. Captain Le Grand Jacob, afterwards a famous name in 
 Western India, and then acting as Political Agent, removed his 
 friend from the fatal house, and in the Residency Dr. Wilson 
 was tenderly nursed by Dhunjheeboy, while deserted by some 
 of his heathen servants who feared infection. In a letter to 
 Dr. Brunton, written towards the close of 1841 from the 
 sanitarium of Mahableshwar, Dr. Wilson thus refers to sorrow 
 upon sorrow, after a pathetic eulogy of Mr. Kerr : 
 
 " Though, when death presented itself to my view, and I called to 
 mind my own waywardness under the teaching of the Lord, and my 
 awful responsibility as a missionary of the Cross to this darkened and 
 unholy country, ' my flesh,' in the first instance, ' trembled for fear 
 of God's judgments/ there was soon imparted to me, through contem- 
 plation on the glory and stability of the covenant of grace, and the 
 
1841.] NEAKLY FATAL ILLNESS. ANNA BAYNE'S DEATH. 297 
 
 freeness with which its blessings are bestowed on the humblest and 
 most unworthy believer, a peace and joy the remembrance of which is 
 calculated to excite most fervent and devout gratitude. After I had 
 become in some degree convalescent I was called to experience a most 
 unfavourable relapse. A change of climate affording the only hope of 
 my recovery, I was conveyed, by bearers, from Rajkote to Gogo. I re- 
 mained about a week at the latter place before the daily paroxysms of 
 fever began to be mitigated ; but as soon as I felt them subsiding I 
 sailed for Bombay, which I reached in safety on the 21st of September. 
 
 " Here it pleased the Lord, in his unerring wisdom and unswerv- 
 ing faithfulness, to visit me with other great and sore afflictions. 
 During my voyage I had fondly indulged the hope that my beloved 
 sister and endeared companion Miss Anna Bayne, would receive me 
 with her usual affection, and attend to me in my weakness with her 
 wonted care and tenderness. On my arrival at the mission-house, 
 however, I learnt that she was with her sister, Mrs. Nesbit, in the most 
 precarious, nay dangerous state of health. Her appointed days of 
 suffering soon drew to a close ; and on the morning of the 4th of 
 October her ransomed, and justified, and purified soul was called to 
 enter into the joy of its Lord. The triumph of her faith during the 
 whole of her last illness was most remarkable, instructive, animating, 
 and encouraging. She proved a conqueror, and more than a conqueror, 
 through Him that loved her. 
 
 " Miss Bayne, though not officially connected with the General 
 Assembly's Mission, was actually much engaged in its service. To 
 comfort and assist me in the work of the Lord, she and her sister Hay, 
 now Mrs. Nesbit, left the land of their fathers. She was the life and 
 charm of my .household. To the Parsee converts, and Abyssinian and 
 Native youth, whom I have received into my family, she was a tender 
 and affectionate mother, as they themselves declare and feel, and will 
 long remember. Her visits to the female schools proved very encour- 
 aging to the scholars ; and her instruction of the classes in her own 
 room was highly promising of spiritual good. She zealously sought 
 the improvement and conversion of the students of English who visit 
 the mission-house ; and with some of them she regularly read and ex- 
 plained the Scriptures, while with others she regularly corresponded 
 when they were removed from Bombay. In the Christian society in 
 which she moved she was most exemplary and influential ; and both 
 noticed and respected for her gifts and graces. All who enjoyed her 
 friendship admired her kindness, faithfulness, and judiciousness. It 
 was her request, when she came to India, that no mention should be 
 made of her endeavours and exertions in any public report or letter." 
 
298 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1841. 
 
 The indomitable spirit of Dr. Wilson is apparent in every 
 line of this letter, and was characteristically illustrated by his 
 determination, even in the height of his fever at Eajkote, not 
 to leave Kathiawar till he had again visited Porebunder, to 
 procure for the General Assembly's Institution a supply of 
 that fine oolitic sandstone which was long after re-discovered 
 for the building of New Bombay. At Mahableshwar he 
 devoted his returning health to the composition of The Parsi 
 Religion and the renewed study of the aboriginal tribes of 
 the Western Ghauts. 
 
 " I am at present sojourning on the most lovely spot which you 
 can imagine. The scenery around is the grandest, the most beautiful, 
 and the most sublime, which. I have yet witnessed during my earthly 
 wanderings, extensive though they have been. The Mahableshwar is 
 part of the great Western Ghats, and 4700 feet above the level of the 
 sea, a loftiness considerably surpassing the highest of Caledonia's 
 mountains. The vegetation partakes of the magnificence of the tropics, 
 but is enchanting to the dwellers in the climes of the sun, as in some 
 respects resembling that of our beloved native land. The materiel 
 of the heights is of the trap formation, which by its basaltic masses and 
 columns, and precipitous scarps, affords the most wonderful and diversi- 
 fied specimens of nature's architecture, and by its valleys and ravines, 
 of her gigantic excavation. The province of the Konkan, with its hills 
 and dales, and exhaustless forests and fruitful fields, stretches below. 
 At a distance the ocean is seen as a vast mirror of brilliancy, reflecting 
 the glory of the sky. The clouds baffle all description. Their various 
 and changing hues, and multifarious forms and motions, as they descend 
 to kiss the mountain brow, or remain above as our fleecy mantle, or 
 interpose between us and the luminary of heaven to catch its rays, and 
 to reveal their coloured splendour, fill the mind with the most intense 
 delight. The whole display forces us to praise God, and to exclaim, 
 1 Bless the Lord, my soul. Lord my God, Thou art very great, 
 Thou art clothed with honour and majesty.' 
 
 ' If thus Thy glories gild the span 
 Of ruined earth and fallen man, 
 How glorious must the mansion be 
 Where Thy redeemed shall dwell with thee ' ! " 
 
 "MAHABLESHWAR, 27M November 1841. You have, I suppose, 
 
 
1841.] THE SATARA RAJA AND HIS DISLOYAL PREDECESSOR. 299 
 
 often seen Satara. In my opinion it is the most lovely station in our 
 Presidency. The valley of the Yena, with its abundant cultivation, 
 and that of the Krishna, which partly appears, and the mountains to the 
 west, and the hills to the north and south, presenting, with their 
 basaltic masses and layers, and columns, and scarps, and towers, the 
 most interesting specimens of nature's architecture, have a very striking 
 effect on the eye of the spectator. The fort is curiously formed on the 
 summit of one of the highest elevations, and it is associated with all the 
 interest and romance of Marathee history. The native town is spacious, 
 busy, and regular, to a degree seldom seen in this country. The camp 
 is very agreeably situated ; and the Eesidency has a beautiful 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 " We were introduced by Colonel Ovans to the Kaja. His High- 
 ness was encamped, with an enormous suite, outside the town, having 
 just arrived from a pedestrian journey to the shrine of Khandoba at 
 Jejuri. When 1 intimated to him the fruitlessness of his pilgrimage by 
 saying Kliandobd lakdchyd bokdndin basto, ' Khandoba seizes folks by 
 the throat/ he laughed most heartily ; but I have reason to believe that 
 he is really very superstitious. He has no appearance of the dissipation 
 with which his enemies have charged him ; and he is noted by the 
 Europeans at present at Sdtara for his benevolence and good nature. 
 Of his own accord he has abolished Suttee and the sale of children. He 
 has lightened the burdens of his cultivators, and established for the 
 benefit of his subjects an extensive hospital, all the expense of which 
 including Rs. 500 monthly to Dr. Erskine for supervision he himself 
 discharges. He has increased the efficiency of the school founded by 
 his brother the ex-Raja, and it is now, as it should be, as much English 
 as it is Oriental. He has greatly extended the roads throughout the 
 country, and he is building two excellent bridges, which I went to see, 
 over the Yena and the Krishnd. I trust that he will be permitted to 
 continue to occupy the throne, for of the guilt of his brother, for which 
 he has been sent to Benares, there ought to be no doubt. You remem- 
 ber what Captain G. told us at Goa, about the horses on which the 
 Capitao General and his suite were riding having been presented to them 
 by the Satara State, when the Raja asked the co-operation of the 
 Portuguese in turning the English out of the country. I have seen the 
 letters of Don Manuel de Portugal e Castro, the former Governor of 
 Goa, to the Raja, acknowledging lus letters, and identified them by the 
 signature, seal, and other marks. I have also seen the communications 
 of the ex-Raja of Nagpore, and in a similar way identified them. Now, 
 when it is kept in mind that Pratap Singh was bound over by the 
 
300 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. t 1842 - 
 
 treaty on a breach of which his possessions were to be forfeited to 
 abstain from all correspondence with the different chieftains and States 
 of India not sanctioned by our Government, it must be seen that he 
 has justly been deposed. It is much to be regretted that so many 
 benevolent and excellent men in England have espoused his cause, and 
 seem determined to make it the subject of senatorial and popular 
 agitation, instead of more worthy themes connected with the welfare 
 and amelioration of this great country. In the number of the Asiatic 
 Journal of August last you will see a very full report of the debates 
 which have already taken place on the subject before the Court of Pro- 
 prietors of India stock. Sir R. Campbell quotes a note which I sent to 
 Major Jervis about the Goa affair ; and Mr. George Thompson makes 
 such an absurd and improper comment upon it, that, with my estimate 
 of his Christian worth, I cannot conceive that he had heard the little 
 document read, which he entirely perverts. If he wishes to establish 
 for himself the character of a friendly advocate of the claims of India, 
 he must speak from a perfect knowledge of facts, and not from vague 
 impressions. He seems to insinuate blame against me for presuming to 
 form any judgment in the case at all ; but he ought to have observed 
 that I was brought forward only as a witness, and to have remembered 
 that if missionaries do not give notice of any treasonable movements 
 which they may happen to observe, they are altogether unworthy of 
 that protection which is extended to them by the British Government, 
 which, with all its faults, is next to the offer of the Gospel itself 
 which it facilitates the greatest blessing ever conferred on India. I 
 have been extremely sorry to observe several speakers impeaching the 
 motives and feelings of the commissioners sent to Satara to aid the 
 Bombay Government in its investigations. Colonel Ovans stood in the 
 most disinterested position which can be imagined ; and Mr. Willough- 
 by's benevolence, so well evinced by his most able and persevering 
 efforts to abolish infanticide in Kathiawar, not second to those of Walker 
 himself, formed a good guarantee that the claims of mercy would be 
 consulted by him as well as those of justice." 
 
 On his return to Bombay at the end of January 1842, he 
 writes : " I had a most cordial reception, not only from my 
 Christian friends but from great numbers of the natives. 
 The rush of the latter to bid me welcome, and their sincere 
 greetings on my recovery and restoration I am disposed to 
 consider as an indication that they are ready to avail them- 
 
1842.] PLANS A TOUR IN ARABIA AND SYRIA. 301 
 
 selves of such ministrations as I may be able to render." 
 He at once announced a new course of lectures on the Parsee 
 religion, to prepare the community for the appearance of his 
 book. Dr. Murray Mitchell had vigorously conducted the 
 Bombay Mission during his absence, a fact which he grate- 
 fully reports to Dr. Brunton. On the session of 1842 Dr. 
 Wilson entered with such vigour that he wrote: "I have 
 seldom been able to do more in the mission than during the 
 last three months." But the season proved to be one of 
 those periodical years of cholera which was " most extensive 
 and fearful in its ravages." One of the ladies at the head of 
 the female schools was struck down by the pestilence ; the 
 other, the head of the boarding-school, soon followed her, and 
 that when the loss of Anna Bayne was still fresh. 
 
 Dr. Hugh Miller and others so pressed on Dr. Wilson 
 the duty of taking furlough after thirteen years of toil, that 
 he agreed to make such arrangements " as will permit me, if 
 I am preserved, to pay my promised visit to the land of my 
 fathers." To Dr. Brunton he wrote thus on the 23d May, as 
 if tempted to a prudent regard for his health and rest only 
 by the prospect of a far more extended totir, through Syria 
 and Eastern Europe, than he had yet made in India : " I 
 begin already to long to have the privilege of conferring with 
 you and the committee about our wants and wishes in this 
 place, and pleading with the public on behalf of this great 
 country. I wish, however, to look at the Muhammadan 
 delusion and the Jewish unbelief of Asia near the centre of 
 their influence as I proceed to the West ; and I know that 
 you will not consider my movements as aberrations in a mis- 
 sionary point of view, even though they should prove some- 
 what extended and circuitous." At the same time he wrote 
 to Mr. Archibald Bonar, who was treasurer of the General 
 Assembly's Jews' Committee : " Unless some work be pro- 
 vided for me on the way, I shall have a mighty struggle 
 
302 LIFE OF JOHN WILSOX. [1842. 
 
 indeed before I can leave this great country." He was not to 
 leave until enabled by Captain, now Sir W. Hill, to announce 
 the supply of funds for another Scottish Mission in Nagpore, 
 now the capital of the Central Provinces, and to plan the 
 organisation of that mission which was established by Mr. 
 Stephen Hislop a few years after. And he was summoned, 
 in the last busy weeks of his preparation for his departure, 
 to the counsels of the Bombay Government in the matter of 
 Lord Ellenborough and the proclamation regarding the gates 
 of Somnath. He had not long before visited the spot. He 
 knew its history better than any man in India; he understood, 
 because he loved, the natives, Hindoo and Muhammadan ; he 
 held familiar intercourse with the highest English officials. 
 And, in the Satara case, he had just proved that his judgment 
 on political questions was as cautious as it was guided by the 
 principles of righteousness in every form. 
 
 When, early in the year 1841, Sir James Eivett Carnnc 
 ceased to be Governor of Bombay, the official nominated as 
 his successor was Sir William Hay Macnaghten. Macnaghten 
 was the Calcutta Secretary, whom Lord Auckland and Lord 
 Broughton had found to be the most enthusiastic advocate of 
 the evil policy of interference in Afghanistan. Blameless in 
 life, accomplished as an Oriental scholar, for some time a 
 judge of high repute from his knowledge of the natives, and 
 a hard-working secretary, Macnaghten was sent to Cabul as 
 the envoy to carry into execution the mad scheme he had 
 encouraged. During the seven ill-fated weeks when his 
 prepossessions cheated him, though not those around him, 
 into the belief that that policy had succeeded, he was 
 rewarded by the Governorship of Bombay, and he was arranging 
 to leave Cabul for Western India when the catastrophe came. 
 Sending for the three officers whom he always consulted, 
 though he too often refused to be guided by them, he 
 brusquely directed them to accompany him to a conference 
 
1842.] MACNAGHTEN'S ASSASSINATION. SIR o. ARTHUR. 303 
 
 with the hostile Akbar Khan, the favourite son of the sup- 
 planted ruler Dost Muhammad. Colin Mackenzie, bravest 
 of all the heroes of that time, but the only one of them who, 
 though a Lieutenant-General and C.B., still remains un- 
 honoured by the country he has served so long and so well, 
 remonstrated that it was a plot. " Trust me for that," said the 
 envoy, who had hardly begun to talk when Akbar Khan him- 
 self shot him with one of the pistols for which the assas- 
 sin had just thanked him ; Trevor also was cut down ; and 
 Mackenzie and the third officer, now Sir George Lawrence, 
 escaped alive with difficulty, past a line of excited fanatics. 
 
 A new Governor had to be selected, and he proved to be 
 the amiable and useful Sir George Arthur, Bart., who was 
 thus rewarded for services in the Colonies. As his private 
 secretary the new ruler appointed a young civilian, who, 
 eight years before, in 1834, had been admitted to Dr. 
 Wilson's friendship on his presenting a letter of intro- 
 duction to the missionary at Ambrolie. Henry Bartle 
 Edward Frere had begun to redeem, by his ability and 
 industry in the Eevenue Department, the promise which 
 he gave at Haileybury. Over him, as over so many young 
 officers in both services, Dr. Wilson exercised a power- 
 ful influence, and hence few public men in high position 
 have so fairly represented the nature and the importance of 
 missionary work in India and Africa as he. In his case the 
 intimacy became friendship honourable to both. When Sir 
 Bartle Frere himself rose to be Governor, and with all the 
 state of an Indian proconsul would sometimes call on the 
 simple scholar to introduce some native prince and show 
 the mission college, he used to recall the day when, as a shy 
 youth, he first ascended the Ambrolie stair to present his 
 letter to one who was even then beginning to be regarded 
 with reverence. 
 
 The unhappy Lord Auckland had given place to Lord 
 
304 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSOX. 
 
 [1842. 
 
 Ellenborough, as the Governor-General sent out to avenge 
 and retrieve the disasters of 1838-40. Lord Ellenborough, 
 in the delirium of a heated and an equally unprincipled 
 policy, had with the one hand directed Generals Pollock 
 and Nott to " retire " without rescuing the noble men 
 and women who were in captivity, and with the other to 
 bring back the gates of the Hindoo temple of Somnath, 
 which adorned Muhammad's tomb at Ghuznee, that he might 
 declare, " the insult of eight hundred years is at last avenged.' 
 On the 5th October the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Jasper 
 Nicholls, saw the first draft of the precious document known 
 as " The Proclamation of the Gates," and freely criticised it. 
 Sir John Kaye, in his best book, The History of the War in 
 Afghanistan, states that it was published in its English 
 form on the 16th November. But it seems to have been first 
 referred to the subordinate Governments for opinion, for it 
 had not appeared in Bombay on the 2d December, as this 
 note shows : 
 
 " MY DEAR DR. WILSON. When you were in Kattywar did you 
 visit the temple of Somnath Puttun, the gates of which are about to be 
 restored by Lord Ellenborough, and in this case can you afford me any 
 information on the subject of its present condition, and how it is 
 managed ? The notification that is about to be published regarding the 
 gates of this pagan temple will astonish the whole Christian world. 
 Yours very sincerely, J. WILLOUGHBY. 
 
 " 2d December 1842." 
 
 On the next day Dr. Wilson was officially asked for in- 
 formation to enable the Bombay Government to criticise it. 
 The temple from which the so-called gates had been taken 
 and to which they were to be restored, was in their juris- 
 diction. In spite of the two months that had passed, and 
 of all the remonstrances and criticisms of those around him, 
 it is evident that Lord Ellenborough knew nothing accu- 
 rately about the temple, the gates, and their history. His 
 ignorance was as profound as his conduct was pernicious. 
 
1842.] PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE ON SOMNATH GATES. 305' 
 
 Sir Bartle Frere thus confidentially wrote to Dr. Wilson. His 
 reply was sent through Sir J. P. Willoughby, as chief secre- 
 tary to Government, and was forwarded by Sir George Arthur, 
 the Governor, to Lord Ellenborough. Like Carey when 
 called on to translate the order suppressing Suttee, Dr. Wilson 
 spent the greater part of a Sunday in meeting this urgent 
 call in the service of religion and humanity. The text is 
 from his draft only. 
 
 " PARELL, 3d December 1842. DEAR SIR. You are of course aware 
 that among the trophies which have been brought away from Afghanistan 
 by the British army are the i Somnath Gates ' of Sultan Mahmoud's 
 tomb at Guzni ; and you have probably heard that it is the intention 
 of the Governor- General that, as a memorial of the triumph of our 
 arms, they shall be restored to the spot whence they were taken by 
 the Guzni vide Sultan 800 years ago. As the Governor understands 
 that, in the course of your late tour through Kattywar, you visited the 
 site of Somnath Puttun, and made particular inquiries regarding the 
 history and antiquities of the place, he will feel much obliged if you 
 will let him know, for the information of the Governor-General, in 
 what state you found the ruins of the ancient city. How many 
 temples, and of what kind, are still in existence which of them is the 
 temple whence the gates are said to have been taken, and on what kind 
 of evidence the conclusion of its identity rests who has charge of or 
 control over it what is its condition who are the ' Poojarees,' or 
 persons who perform the usual ceremonies of worship, etc. and of 
 which castes and sects the worshippers are generally composed ? If your 
 inquiries established any other facts connected with the history or 
 present state of ' Somnath Puttun/ which you think likely to be of 
 interest to the Governor, he desires me to say he will feel much 
 obliged by your communicating them. Believe me, dear Sir, ever 
 faithfully yours, H. B. E. FRERE." 
 
 DR. WILSON ON THE SOMNATH GATES. 
 
 " 5tk December 1842. MY DEAR SIR. I have much pleasure in. 
 replying to your letter of the 3d instant ; and I beg you to assure the 
 honourable the Governor, that any reference of a similar character 
 will at any time meet with my promptest attention. It was in the 
 year 1835 that I repaired to Puttun Somnath with a view to an 
 investigation of its antiquities and traditions ; and since that time I 
 
 X 
 
306 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1842. 
 
 have had many opportunities of comparing the result of my observations 
 and inquiries with the notices which I have observed in the Muham- 
 madan histories, and the narratives of other visitors. Mr. "Westergaard, 
 a learned Dane, who has been sent to this country on a literary mission 
 under the auspices of his Sovereign, and who is at present staying under 
 my roof, visited the place a few months ago ; and I learn from his 
 account that matters connected with the temples there remain nearly 
 in the same state in which they were at the time of my visit. 
 
 " The town of Puttun is now in a condition very different from that 
 in which it was when it was assaulted by Muhammad of Ghuzni. As 
 mentioned by Sir John Malcolm, it is described by Persian historians 
 * as being a lofty castle,' * on a narrow peninsula, with its three sides 
 defended by the sea/ and it was famous as a stronghold of power as 
 well as the seat of a celebrated shrine. The difficulties encountered by 
 Muhammad in its attack clearly prove that this was the case. At pre- 
 sent, however, there is nothing connected with it deserving the name of 
 a fortification, though part of the town, which is very inconsiderable in 
 point of size, is enclosed within a wall. Verawul, in its neighbourhood, 
 is a port where mercantile transactions are pretty extensive, and where a 
 body of respectable Banyas and Jain merchants are to be found. 
 
 "There are only two temples belonging to the Hindoos of any 
 consequence at Somnath. One of these is that built some fifty years 
 ago by Alya Bai, the famous Kdnee of the Holkar family, of whom 
 such interesting accounts are published in Sir John Malcolm's History 
 of Central India. The other is that which is declared by all the 
 natives of the place to have been the special object of the anti-poly- 
 theistic ire of Muhammad. The latter is now utterly forsaken by the 
 natives as a place of worship. There was much filth accumulated in it 
 when I saw it. It was traversed by the village swine, the common 
 scavengers of India, which were attracted to it by its being occasionally 
 a place of resort by the natives after their morning meal. The greater 
 part of the building, which is of oolite sandstone, is still standing ; and 
 the remains of its external ornaments, though much defaced by the 
 violence of the Mussulmans, bear witness to a respectable state of 
 advancement in the art of sculpture at the time that they were formed. 
 The name of the temple, as well as its construction, indicates its connec- 
 tion with the god Shiva. The idol destroyed by Muhammad is declared 
 by the natives to have been a linga, and of this fact there can be no 
 doubt entertained by any person who attends to the form of the temple. 
 The principal notices of the destruction of the idol taken by the 
 Mussulman historians are the following : ' The temple in which the 
 
1842.] CONFIDENTIAL LETTER ON SOMNATH GATES. 30 7 
 
 idol of Somnath stood/ says the Rauzat-as-Safa, l was of considerable 
 extent, both in length and breadth, and the roof was supported by 
 fifty-six pillars in rows. The idol was of polished stone ; its height 
 was about five cubits, and its thickness in proportion : two cubits were 
 below ground. Muhammad having entered the temple broke the stone 
 Somnath with a heavy mace ; some of the fragments he ordered to be 
 conveyed to Ghuzni, and they were placed at the threshold of the old 
 mosque.' In the Tabkat-Akbari, a history of the Emperor Akbar, we 
 have the following passage agreeing on the point referred to with that 
 now quoted : 
 
 ' Muhammad,' says Ferishta, who is evidently guilty of gross exaggeration 
 in his general account of Somnath, ' entered Somnath accompanied by his sons, 
 and a few of his nobles and principal attendants. On approaching the temple 
 he saw a superb edifice built of hewn stone. Its lofty roof was supported by 
 fifty-six pillars, curiously carved and set with precious stones. In the centre 
 of the hall was Somnath, a stone idol five yards in height, two of which were 
 sunk in the ground. The king, approaching the image, struck off its nose. 
 He ordered two pieces of the idol to be broken off and sent to Ghuzni, that 
 one might be thrown at the threshold of the public mosque, and the other at 
 the court door of his -own palace. These identical fragments are to this day 
 (now 600 years ago) to be seen at Ghuzni. Two more fragments were reserved 
 to be sent to Mecca and Medina.' 
 
 " In the second of these extracts it is declared that the temple 
 was ' levelled with the ground.' The Rauzat-as-Safa, the more 
 respectable authority, however, does not notice this circumstance. 
 The unanimous testimony of the natives of Somnath, so far as I could 
 read it, is in favour of the representations of those who say that 
 Muhammad contented himself with the destruction of the idol and the 
 partial injury of the shrine. 
 
 " Sir John Malcolm, I may here mention, attributes the destruc- 
 tion of the temple to Sultan Mahmoud Begoda, who came to the 
 throne of Goojarat in the year 877 of the Hijra. ' He marched/ 
 he says, ' against Somnath, razed the temple to the ground, and 
 with the bigoted zeal of a Muhammadan conqueror, built a 'mosque 
 on the spot where it stood.' He adds, ' The mosque has fallen into 
 ruin, and Alya Bai, the widow of a prince of the Maratha family of 
 Holkar, has lately erected a new temple on the exact spot where it 
 stood.' This last statement appears to me incredible, for Somnath has 
 remained in the hands of the Mussulmans ever since the days of 
 Mahmoud Begoda, and for long they were so much addicted to obstruct 
 the Hindoos in their worship that the British Government begged on 
 their behalf the freedom of pilgrimage from the Joonagurh State, to 
 which the town of Somnath belongs. The natives of Somnath, so far 
 
308 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1842. 
 
 as I could learn, universally declare that the site of Alya Bai's 
 temple is not that of the ancient temple, and that the temple to which 
 I have already alluded as forsaken is the ancient temple. In a case of 
 this kind I am disposed to lay considerable stress on the local tradi- 
 tion. Alya Bai's misguided zeal for Hindooism could find many spots 
 near the ancient Somnath where it could find its expression without its 
 selecting the ruins of a mosque. The whole neighbourhood, indeed, 
 is sacred, according to the Hindoo mythology. It is the reputed field 
 of one of the most celebrated engagements mentioned in the Mahab- 
 harata. The god Krishna, according to the Bhagawata, received his 
 mortal wound at a spot not very far distant from its enclosure. 
 
 " In the course of my reading I have found no notice in any of 
 the Mussulman histories of ' gates ' having been taken from the temple 
 of Somnath. If such articles formed part of the trophies of Muhammad 
 of Ghuzni, it is probable that they were connected with the ancient 
 fort of the town, for it is not likely that the Mussulmans would devote 
 an article contaminated by idolatry to an ornamental purpose connected 
 with either their mosques or tombs, though they might dispose of 
 them for any purpose of degradation that might occur to them. The 
 author of the Rauzat-as-Safa, as we have seen, says expressly that it 
 was some ' fragments ' of the idol which were ordered to be sent to 
 Ghuzni, and that ' they were placed at the threshold of the great 
 mosque.' The author of the Tabkat-Akbari speaks of one ' fragment ' 
 of stone having been sent to Ghuzni, l where it was laid at the threshold 
 of the principal mosque, and was there many years.' With these 
 testimonies that of Ferishta agrees. The story of the gates has originated, 
 it appears to me, with some of our late travellers ; perhaps with erroneous 
 information given to Mr. Elphinstone. 
 
 " The ancient temple of Somnath was devoted to Shiva. The 
 distinctive followers of this god in Kathiawar are now few and uninflu- 
 ential. There are no Brahmans in charge of the old temple to which 
 I have referred. That of Alya Bai is under the care of the Sompada 
 Brahmans, one of the smallest of the eighty-four sects into which the 
 Goojarat Brahmanhood is divided, and who are seldom met with else- 
 where than at Somnath, from which they derive their name. The 
 great body of the pure Hindoos in the province are now Vaishnavas. 
 It is the legends relative to Krishna, who is one of the incarnations of 
 Vishnoo, that principally attract the Hindoo pilgrims to Somnath, and 
 neither the celebrity nor supposed sanctity of the old or the new temple. 
 The Sompada Brahmans exist principally by the practice of mendicity. 
 They are the Poojarees of the temple. 
 
1842.] CONFIDENTIAL LETTER ON SOMNATH GATES. 309 
 
 " Somnath, as I have already hinted, belongs to the Mussulman 
 State of Joonagurh. That State has claims for zortalabi, or black mail, 
 recognised by us, upon most of the petty States of the peninsula. It is 
 at present particularly well affected to the British Government, as I saw 
 last year when residing in Kathiawar, but it is jealous of the Gaikwar 
 and some of the British and Baroda Hindoo tributaries. I question if 
 it will cordially welcome the gates should they ever enter its bound- 
 aries. The Mussulmans throughout India will, I believe, be not a 
 little hurt in their feelings by their public exhibition on their progress, 
 and they, of all classes of the community, require to have their feelings 
 most conciliated on this occasion. 
 
 " On reflecting on the present circumstances of Somnath, I see not 
 how the gates can be conveniently disposed of, even should they reach 
 Somnath, unless it be by planting them in some triumphal arch or 
 monument entirely disconnected with any of the sacred edifices of the 
 Hindoos. The Hindoos, so far as they would make any interpretation 
 of their being presented to any of their temples, would conclude that 
 the gift is the voluntary homage of the British Government to their 
 religion, and a token of our espousal of their cause against the Mussul- 
 mans, their former foes. This cannot be the design of the Right Hon- 
 ourable the Governor-General. His grand object is to consecrate the 
 spolia opima to the commemoration of British and Indian valour. From 
 what I have observed of the Natives during the most intimate inter- 
 course with them for fourteen years, I am led to the opinion that his 
 Lordship's desires of benefit from the disposal of the gates can be accom- 
 plished only by their being kept entirely distinct from the temples. 
 From his Lordship's late exemplary recognition of divine Providence in 
 connection with our successes in Afghanistan and the preservation of 
 our troops, and the bounty of God toward our native subjects in 
 general, I am sure that his Lordship would revolt from inadvertently 
 originating any measure which would appear to him to be in any way 
 derogatory to our holy Faith, or adverse to that gradual divorcement 
 from superstitious observances which is now becoming apparent through- 
 out the bounds of our Eastern Empire. 
 
 " I respectfully beg you to ask the Governor to pardon my ventur- 
 ing on a single allusion extending beyond the inquiries of your letter. 
 It proceeds from one who has no common desire to witness the continu- 
 ance of the distinguished prosperity of my Lord Ellenborough's admini- 
 stration the blessing of peace which, under God, his Lordship has 
 been so instrumental in earning for us, and his expressed determination 
 nobly to consecrate the principal resources of India to its own improve- 
 ment and social and moral elevation." 
 
310 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1842. 
 
 So early as October, two months before this, Lord 
 Ellenborough had sent his proclamation privately to the 
 Queen, in a letter filled With historical mistakes and baseless 
 native gossip, which thus closed : " The progress of the gates 
 from Ferozepore to Somnath will be one great national 
 triumph, and their restoration will endear the Government to 
 the whole people." Two months after, on the 19th February 
 1843, he announced to her Majesty, in similarly bombastic 
 phrases, the arrival of the gates at Delhi under the escort of 
 five hundred Sikh troopers. "All," he wrote, "consider the 
 restoration of the gates to be a national not a religious 
 triumph." His Excellency had been taught by remonstrances 
 far less courteous than Dr. Wilson's, to abandon the religious 
 argument which he had from the first paraded; while at 
 home the storm was rising, and all the -efforts of his personal 
 friend, the Duke of Wellington, could not quell it. To the 
 Governor -General himself the Duke could not write more 
 strongly than this : " I say nothing of the Gates of Somnath, 
 which is, I think, made a cheval de lataille" 
 
 The gates never got farther than the Agra arsenal, where 
 they stand to point the sneer against Lord Ellenborough. 
 Mr. Yernon Smith, three months after, faintly expressed public 
 opinion in Europe, when he moved in the House of Commons 
 a resolution condemning the conduct of the Governor-General 
 in this matter as "unwise, indecorous, and reprehensible." 
 The party of the accused, then in power, procured the rejection 
 of the motion ; but in spite of all the great Duke's influence, 
 that proclamation soon after procured its author's recall. 1 
 We cannot altogether regret an act which was the occasion 
 of Macaulay's most famous Philippic; his greatest, at once 
 as a piece of eloquence and a vindication of the principles of 
 religious liberty applied to India. 
 
 1 For a fuller statement of the merits of the case see sketch of Lord 
 Ellenborough in the new edition of the Encyclopaedia, Britannica. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 1836-1842. 
 ORIENTAL SCHOLARSHIP AND SCHOLARS. 
 
 Sir W. Jones founds the Bengal Asiatic Society Sir James Mackintosh and 
 the Bombay Literary Society The Early Orientalists of Western India Dr. 
 Wilson's first Address as President Maps out the field of Asiatic Research 
 Subordinates his Scholarly to his directly Missionary Pursuits A High 
 Missionary Ideal Member of the Royal Asiatic Society The first to attempt 
 Deciphering of the Fourteen Edicts of Asoka Colonel James Tod at Girnar 
 James Prinsep's Enthusiasm Dr. Mill Dr. Wilson's Letter to Captain 
 Lang acknowledging the facsimiles Prinsep's tribute to Dr. Wilson Girnar 
 as it is The Second and Thirteenth Edicts, and the early Successors of Alex- 
 ander the Great Letter from Prinsep to Dr. Wilson Asoka the Humane 
 Correspondence with Burnouf, Theodore Pavie, Tumour, Westergaard, and Sir 
 J. Emerson Tennent Government Connection with Idolatry Dr. Wilson 
 consulted by Chief-Justice on Parsee Law and Customs Congratulatory Letters 
 on " The Parsi Religion " from Erskine, Burnouf, Lassen, and Garcin de 
 Tassy Dr. Wilson appointed Honorary President of the Bombay Asiatic 
 Society Society's Address to him and his Reply Close of the first period of 
 his Work in Western India. 
 
" Willt Du die Bliitlie des friihen, die Friiclite des spateren Jahres, 
 Willt Du was reizt und entziickt, willt Du was sattigt und nahrt, 
 Willt Du den Himmel, die Erde mit einem Namen begreifen, 
 Nenn ich, SACONTALA, Dich, und so ist Alles gesagt." GOETHE. 
 
 " If a man's fame can be measured by the number of hearts who revere his 
 memory, by the number of lips who have mentioned and still mention him 
 with honour, ASOKA is more famous than Charlemagne or Csesar." 
 
 KOEPPEN. 
 
 " In past times, during many centuries, attacking animal life and inflicting 
 suffering on the creatures, want of respect for Brahmans and Sramanas have 
 only grown greater. But now, when King Devanampriya Priyadarsin practises 
 righteousness, his kettledrum has become a summons to righteousness, while 
 apparitions of chariots of the gods, and apparitions of celestial elephants, and 
 fiery balls, and other signs in the heavens showed themselves to the people. 
 In such a manner as has not been the case in many centuries previously, now 
 through the exhortation of King Devanampriya Priyadarsin to cultivate 
 righteousness, has the sparing of animal life, the gentle treatment of creatures, 
 respect for relatives, respect for Brahmans and monks, obedience to father and 
 mother, obedience to an elder, grown greater. This and many other kinds of 
 virtuous practices have grown greater, and King Devanampriya Priyadarsin 
 shall cause this practice of virtue to increase still more, and the sons, grand- 
 sons, and great-grandsons of King Devanampriya Priyadarsin shall also cause 
 this culture of virtue to increase ; standing steadfast in righteousness and 
 morality until the destruction of the world, they shall exhort to righteousness ; 
 to exhort to righteousness is surely a very excellent work, while from him who 
 is immoral no practice of righteousness is to be expected. Increase, therefore, 
 in these things, and no diminution, is good ; for this end has this been written ; 
 may they attend heartily to the increase hereof, and not aim at the diminu- 
 tion of it ! King Devanampriya Priyadarsin has caused this to be written 
 twelve years after his inauguration." 
 
 ASOKA : Fourth Edict. Translated by Kern. 
 
1836.] SIR W. JONES. GOETHE. SIR J. MACKINTOSH. 313 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 WHEN, not yet forty years of age, Sir William Jones was 
 sailing across the Indian Ocean, India itself before him, 
 Persia on his left, and a breeze from Arabia blowing him on, 
 he tells us that " in the midst of so noble an amphitheatre, 
 encircled by the vast regions of Asia," he resolved to found 
 that greatest successor to the Eoyal Society, and the parent 
 of many others the Asiatic Society of Bengal. In 1784, 
 encouraged by Warren Hastings who declined the office of 
 first President in his favour, Sir William Jones instituted the 
 first " Society for inquiring into the history, civil and national, 
 the antiquities, arts, sciences, and literature of Asia." His 
 translation of Sakoontala had revealed to Europe the virgin 
 mine of Hindoo literature, as Goethe sang. His greater 
 successor, Henry Thomas Colebrooke, on finally returning to 
 England, founded the Eoyal Asiatic Society, as well as the 
 Astronomical Society. 
 
 It was not to be expected that Western India, when it grew 
 into importance as a Presidency by conquest and diplomacy, 
 would be allowed by men like the Governor Jonathan Duncan, 
 and Mountstuart Elphinstone and Malcolm afterwards, to 
 remain unrepresented in the republic of letters. What Sir 
 William Jones, with his fresh English energy and Oxford 
 zeal did for the accomplished officials who surrounded Warren 
 Hastings, Sir James Mackintosh as happily effected among 
 the few who were associated with Jonathan Duncan. An 
 Inverness boy, a medical graduate of Aberdeen, an ethical 
 philosopher, a constitutional lawyer, and a keen politician, 
 
314 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1836. 
 
 Mackintosh leaped into the front rank of the Liberals as they 
 were at the close of last century. He became the worthy adver- 
 sary of Burke, the warm friend of Eobert Hall, the advocate 
 of Peltier who, charged with libelling Napoleon Buonaparte, 
 found in the impetuous Scot a defender whose oration the 
 first Lord Ellenborough pronounced the most eloquent he 
 had ever heard in Westminster Hall. The East India Com- 
 pany's Law Professorship at Haileybury was a poor resource 
 for a man who had squandered a paternal estate of 900 
 a year. And so, like Macaulay afterwards, who resembled 
 him in many respects, Mackintosh went out to Bombay as 
 Eecorder, was knighted, and remained there for eight years, 
 till his friends thought he had saved enough besides earning 
 a pension. The simple bachelor habits of Jonathan Duncan 
 led him to make over to the new Judge and his family the 
 principal Government house in the island, formerly a Jesuit 
 College, known as Parell. Sir James had not been many 
 months there when, on the 26th November 1804, he summoned 
 a meeting of friends who established the Literary Society of 
 Bombay. His Discourse on that occasion mapped out the 
 field of knowledge, moral and physical, which the observers 
 of Western India were called to cultivate. He himself, 
 as President, suggested the first philological and statistical 
 inquiries on a uniform scale, which were not systematically 
 carried out till, in 1862, Lord Canning directed the adoption, 
 for all India, of the extended scheme drawn up by Mr. Claude 
 Erskine, the grandson of Sir James Mackintosh, and by the 
 present writer. That has culminated in the decennial census, 
 the uniform annual Administration Reports, and the Gazetteers 
 of the whole Empire of India. 1 
 
 The Literary Society of Bombay soon established a repu- 
 
 1 When Mr. Claude Erskine represented Bombay in Lord Canning's 
 Legislative Council, we issued privately proposals for the formation of a 
 Statistical Society. These resulted in my submitting to Government a scheme 
 of uniform tables for the annual Administration Reports, adapted to the 
 
1836.] SIR J. MACKINTOSH AND THE LITERARY SOCIETY. 315 
 
 tation from the researches of such members as Mr. William 
 Erskine; Colonel Boden, founder of the Sanscrit Chair at 
 Oxford ; Colonel Briggs, who succeeded Captain Grant Duff 
 as Eesident at Satara ; Colonel Vans Kennedy, and Captain 
 Basil Hall; besides Elphinstone and Malcolm. Of these 
 Mackintosh became the literary adviser, for to his encourage- 
 ment we owe such classical works as Wilks's Mysore, Elphin- 
 stone's Cdbul, Briggs's Ferishta, Dr. John Taylor's Lilawati, 
 and Malcolm's Political History of India. Moor, Drummond, 
 Price, Salt, Colonel Sykes, Sir Charles Forbes, Joseph Hammer, 
 and the erratic Lord Yalentia, also adorned that early group, 
 each in his own way. Sir James urged on the President of 
 the Bengal Asiatic Society that co-operation for the publica- 
 tion of translations from the Sanscrit, Arabic, and Persian, 
 which, in another form, subsequently issued in the " Oriental 
 Translation Fund," the Notices des Manuscrits de la Biblio- 
 tlieque du Roi, and most fully of all, in the BibliotTieca Indica. 
 But his greatest immediate service was the creation of 
 a Library which, from the nucleus sent out on his return 
 to England, has grown to be the most useful, alike for 
 the scholar and the general reader, in all Asia. That Library 
 gave the Literary Society a new impetus. Besides the papers 
 which its members contributed to the Bengal and Eoyal 
 Asiatic Societies, it published three volumes of Transactions 
 in 1819-1823, and these have recently been reprinted. 1 In 
 1830 it was incorporated as the Bombay Branch of the Eoyal 
 Asiatic Society, and in 1841 it issued independently the first 
 quarterly number of its Transactions, now a goodly series of 
 volumes. When Dr. Wilson settled in Bombay he thus 
 
 statistical systems of Europe. An official committee reported on these tables, 
 added commercial and judicial forms the latter prepared by Sir George 
 Campbell and recommended the Census and Gazetteer arrangements now 
 in force. 
 
 1 By Mr. Vishvanath Narayan Mandlik, in an octavo edition, with interest- 
 ing mtroductorj r information and notes. Bombay, 1877. 
 
316 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1836. 
 
 found a literary and scholarly home, to which in a few years 
 he managed to add a museum. Long after, in 1870, he thus 
 expressed his gratitude : " I feel that I am under very great 
 obligations to this Society. I never could have prosecuted 
 my studies, such as they have been, without access to such a 
 Library as that which we here possess. I have often had a 
 hundred volumes from this Library at the same time in my 
 possession, and though I have now accumulated a very con- 
 siderable Oriental library for myself, I have still frequently 
 to refer to these shelves in order to get my inquiries satisfied. 
 .... I have also been much sustained by the literary com- 
 munion we have here enjoyed. This is not merely the 
 Bombay Branch of the Eoyal Asiatic Society, but a sort of 
 literary and scientific club." 
 
 But in truth Dr. Wilson had not been a year in Bombay 
 when he came to be recognised as the most zealous , member 
 of the Society, and soon to be identified with it as almost the 
 Society itself. In 1830 Sir John Malcolm proposed him as a 
 member, and from that day his activity was such that, in 
 1835, the young Scottish missionary was unanimously elected 
 President in succession to so ripe a scholar as Colonel Vans 
 Kennedy. Every tour that he made year by year, every 
 manuscript that he purchased, every oriental book that he 
 read, contributed material to the Asiatic Society, which 
 Government royally accommodated in the fine suite of rooms 
 surrounding the Town Hall of Bombay. Nor did he, in all 
 this intercourse with scholars, non-Christian as well as Chris- 
 tian, veil for a moment the earnestness of his own convic- 
 tions, or restrain his duty as a missionary. With the then 
 distinguished Orientalist whom he succeeded as president, he 
 had for years conducted a public controversy. In his 
 Ancient and Hindu Mythology, and in his Treatise on the, 
 Vedanta, Colonel Vans Kennedy had appeared as something 
 like the apologist of Vedic and Brahmanical beliefs. While 
 
1836.] PEESIDENT OF BOMBAY ASIATIC SOCIETY. 317 
 
 admitting and even eulogising the ability of these disquisi- 
 tions as the most learned up to that time, Dr. Wilson exposed 
 views which he proved to be as superficial as they were 
 hostile to the work he had come to India to do. But if his 
 hand was the hand of iron, he ever used the glove of silk. 
 His courtesy, even in the impetuosity of youth, was as 
 remarkable as his gentle chivalry towards all when years 
 and toil began to weaken his arm. 
 
 Dr. Wilson's first address as President on the 27th 
 January 1836, reviewed the work of the Society and the 
 desiderata of research, from the similar discourses of Sir 
 James Mackintosh in 1804 and Sir John Malcolm in 1828, 
 up to that time. He showed that it had failed to realise 
 the anticipations of the founder as to Natural History and 
 Statistics. He declared the condition of the people in the 
 different provinces, as to language, religion,,literature, science, 
 art, means of support, and manners and customs, to be the 
 paramount object of the Society's investigation. Beginning 
 with the Parsees, he reviewed the contributions to a study of 
 them made by Malcolm, Kennedy, Erskine, Eask, Mohl, Shea, 
 Neumann, and Atkinson, arguing that " Should any of the 
 Parsees, of competent attainments, and real and respectable 
 character and influence, ask membership of this Society, it 
 should be readily accorded." Such advocacy of the claims of 
 native inquirers and scholars was characteristic of Dr. Wilson, 
 and it soon bore fruit. He pointed to Burnouf as the savan 
 best fitted to translate faithfully the Vandidad Sade, but 
 plainly hinted that the work might be done in Bombay should 
 that great scholar fail from the disadvantages of his situation 
 in Europe. As to Muhammadanism, he desiderated that fuller 
 account of the state of Arabia at the time of its origin, which 
 Muir and Sprenger soon after gave, and of the Bohoras and 
 other sectaries whom he himself was studying. His observa- 
 tions on researches into Hindooism may be read with profit 
 
318 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1836. 
 
 even after the forty years' scholarship of Anglo-Indians, Ger- 
 mans, and Italians. To Horace Hayman Wilson, who had 
 not long been transferred from Calcutta to Oxford, he looked 
 for a complete translation of the Rig Veda, much of which 
 had appeared first in Bombay ; and of the JBhagavata Purana, 
 the greatest practical authority in the West of India. On 
 the various Hindoo sects, and on the Jains, he sought for 
 much light, such as he himself afterwards gave. The de- 
 spised aborigines, downtrodden by Hindoo and Muhammadan, 
 and ignored by the ruling class, save by civilians like Sir 
 Donald Macleod and missionaries, Dr. Wilson pronounced 
 " Particularly worthy of observation by all who desire to 
 advance their civilisation, and to elevate them from their pre- 
 sent degradation. Description must precede any considerable 
 efforts made for their improvement perhaps leading to im- 
 portant conjectures as to the ancient history of India." 
 Many of these " have had no connection with Brahmanism ex- 
 cept in so far as they may have felt its unhallowed influence 
 in excluding them from the common privileges of humanity." 
 He enlarged on the duty of collecting Sanscrit MSS., a 
 work not undertaken by Government till a much later date, 
 but now prosecuted with great zeal and liberality in almost 
 every province. Such manuscripts, he said, are to be found 
 in a pure state in the Dekhan more than in any other part of 
 India, and the poverty of the Brahmans leads them readily to 
 part with them. After eulogising the work of Mr. William 
 Erskine, and his own old missionary colleague, Dr. Stevenson, 
 in their researches into the architecture and inscriptions of 
 cave temples, Dr. Wilson said: "We require information as 
 to the time at which, and the views with which, they were con- 
 structed ; an estimate of them as works of art, or as indicative 
 of the resources of thos*e to whom they are to be ascribed ; 
 and an inquiry into the religious rites and services for which 
 they have been appropriated, and the moral impressions 
 
1836.] INDIAN MISSIONARIES MUST HAVE LEARNING. 319 
 
 which they seem fitted to make on those resorting to them. 
 Grants of land, engraven on copper plates, are next to them in 
 importance in the advancement of antiquarian research. Dr. 
 Taylor translated one, Mr. Wathen others." 
 
 We find the key-note of Dr. Wilson's scholarship and 
 erudition in this reference to " The systems of faith which 
 have so long exercised their sway in this country, and the 
 various literary works which, though unlike those of Greece and 
 Borne they are of little or no use in the cultivation of taste, 
 are valuable as they illustrate the tendency of those systems 
 in their connection with social and public life ; and as they 
 explain a language the most copious in its vocables and 
 powerful in its grammatical forms, in which any records exist. 
 Destitute of a knowledge of these systems, and the works in 
 which they are embodied, the native character and the state 
 of native society will never be sufficiently understood, a right 
 key obtained to open the native mind, and all desirable faci- 
 lities enjoyed for the introduction among the people of a body 
 of rational and equitable law, and the propagation of the 
 Gospel, and the promotion of general education. . . . While 
 divine truth must be propagated with unwavering fidelity, 
 and all hopes of its ultimate success rest on its own 
 potency, its suitableness to the general character of man, and 
 the assistance of divine grace, judgment ought to be employed 
 in the mode of its application to those who vary much in 
 their creeds and differ much in their moral practice. Though 
 the great truths proclaimed by the Apostle Paul were the 
 same in all circumstances, they were introduced in very dif- 
 ferent ways to the Jewish Eabbis and people and to the 
 members of the Athenian Areopagus. I must hold that there 
 is no little unsuitableness in India in addressing a pantheist 
 as a polytheist and vice versa ; in speaking to a Jain as to a 
 Brahman, in condemning that at random which the natives 
 may suppose to be unknown, and in using theological terms 
 
320 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1836. 
 
 and general phrases without any very definite sense of their 
 application by the natives themselves. The more a know- 
 ledge of Hindooism and of Hindoo literature is possessed by 
 any teacher, the more patiently and uninterruptedly will he 
 be listened to by the people, and the more forcibly will he be 
 enabled, and principally by contrast and concession, to set 
 forth the authority and the excellence of the doctrines of 
 Christianity." The address concluded with a reference to the 
 many Armenians in India, of whom Dr. Wilson remarked, in 
 allusion to Mr. Dickinson's dissertation on the antiquity of 
 their language in the Journal of the Eoyal Asiatic Society, 
 " There cannot be a doubt that the Armenians can fill up 
 important blanks in Church history which, to the undue 
 neglect of the Orientals, is principally formed on the authority 
 of the Eoman and Byzantine Fathers." 
 
 The new President's Address called forth a request, pro- 
 posed and seconded by Mr Bruce and Mr. Farish, that it 
 should be printed. Mr. James Prinsep republished it in the 
 fifth volume of the Bengal Asiatic Society's Journal, with 
 this introduction " We make no apology, but rather feel a 
 pride, in transferring it to our pages entire." It must be taken 
 as a directory to Dr. Wilson himself of much that he meant 
 to overtake, and did more than overtake in the wide area of 
 Orientalism. The immediate effect of the Address, when it 
 reached Europe, and of the position in which the young 
 missionary had been placed as the successor of Sir James 
 Mackintosh, Mr. William Erskine, Sir John Malcolm, and 
 Vans Kennedy, was his election as a member of the Eoyal 
 Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, on the 18th of 
 June 1836. 
 
 We are now in a position to estimate the exact value of 
 Dr. Wilson's contribution to the deciphering of the fourteen 
 edicts graven by the Buddhist Emperor Asoka on the 
 rocks of Girnar and other places in India, north and east, 
 
1836.] LETTER TO J. PRINSEP ON GIRNAR EDICTS. 321 
 
 as well as west. We have seen from his journal, on page 205, 
 that on the 13th March 1835, Dr. Wilson, hurrying down from 
 the peak of Girnar before the darkness of the night should come 
 on, examined " the ancient inscriptions which, though never 
 deciphered, have attracted much attention." In 1822 Lieu- 
 tenant-Colonel James Tod had been the first to notice 1 the 
 antiquities of "the old fort," which Joonagurh means, and 
 " the noblest monument of Saurashtra, a monument speaking 
 in an unknown tongue of other times, and calling to the 
 Frank ' Vedyavan ' or savan to remove the spell of ignorance 
 in which it has been enveloped for ages." But Colonel Tod 
 had contented himself with directing his old Gooroo, or pundit, 
 to copy two of the edicts, and a portion of a third, while he 
 speculated quite in the dark as to the author of the inscrip- 
 tions. Nothing more was heard of the most interesting his- 
 torical rock-book in all southern Asia for the next thirteen 
 years, till Dr. Wilson stood before it. "After," he says, " com- 
 paring the letters with several Sanskrita alphabets in my 
 possession I found myself able, to my great joy and that of 
 the Brahmans who were with me, to make out several words, 
 and to decide as to the probable possibility of making out the 
 whole. The taking a copy of the inscriptions I found from 
 their extent to be a hopeless task, but, as Captain Lang had 
 kindly promised to procure a transcript of the whole for me, 
 I did not regret the circumstance." He subsequently wrote 
 thus to James Prinsep : 
 
 " I suggested to Captain Lang a plan for taking a facsimile of the 
 inscriptions. I recommended him to cover the rock with native paper 
 slightly moistened, and to trace with ink the depressions corresponding 
 with the forms of the letters. The idea of using cloth, instead of paper, 
 was entirely his own ; and to that able officer, and his native assistants, 
 are we indebted for the very correct facsimile which he presented to 
 
 1 See his Travels in WestQn India, p. 369. His Annals and Antiquities 
 of Rajast'han was published in 1829, and reprinted in Madras in 1873. 
 
322 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1836. 
 
 me, and which I forwarded to you some months ago for your inspec- 
 tion and use. During the time that it was in Bombay it was mostly 
 with Mr. Wathen, who got prepared for yourself the reduced transcript, 
 and with a native, who, at the request of our Asiatic Society, and with 
 my permission, prepared a copy for M. Jacquet of Paris. I had com- 
 menced the deciphering of it when you kindly communicated to me 
 the discovery of your alphabet ; and I at once determined that you, 
 as was most justly due, should have the undivided honour of first pro- 
 mulgating its mysteries. Any little progress which I had made in the 
 attempt to forge a key, was from the assistance which I had received 
 from the alphabets formerly published in your transcendantly able work, 
 Mr. Elliot's Canarese alphabets, and the rigid deductions of VISHNU 
 SHASTRI, my quondam pundit, to whom Mr. "Wathen has expressed his 
 obligations in his paper on some ancient copperplate grants lately sent 
 by him to England. VISHNU'S palaeographical studies, I may mention, 
 commenced with Dr. Babbington's paper, which I showed to him some 
 years ago ; and they were matured under Mr. WATHEN. I mention 
 these facts from my desire to act according to the maxim suum cuique 
 tribue. 
 
 "The rock containing the inscriptions, it should be observed, is 
 about half a mile to the eastward of [the present town of] Jundgdrh, 
 and about four miles from the base of Girndr, which is in the same 
 direction. It marks, I should think, the extremity of the Maryddd of 
 the sacred mountain. The Jainas, as the successors of the Buddhas, 
 greatly honour it. They maintain pinjardpurs, or brute hospitals, like 
 the Banyas of Surat, in many of the towns both of the peninsula and 
 province of Gujarat ; and practise to a great extent the philopsychy of 
 the long forgotten, but now restored, edicts of ASOKA." 
 
 Dr. Wilson was thus not only the first scholar to report 
 intelligently on the inscriptions, and to cause a copy of them 
 to be carefully taken, but to translate " several words " at 
 first sight, to " commence the deciphering," and to satisfy him- 
 self that he could probably make out the whole in the leisure 
 of his study. This his knowledge of Sanscrit, and his toil- 
 some study of " several ancient Sanskrita alphabets," lists of 
 which we find in his rough note-books, enabled him to do. 
 To the last, more brilliant discoverers devoted to this one 
 work, like James Prinsep and Colonel Mackenzie, were ignp- 
 
1836.] DECIPHERING THE PALI INSCRIPTIONS. 323 
 
 rant of Sanscrit. Prinsep modestly confesses that he had 
 long despaired of deciphering the famous Samudra Gupta's 
 inscription on the Allahabad pillar, from " want of a compe- 
 tent knowledge of Sanscrit." 1 Priority in time and mastery 
 of Sanscrit characters and literature gave Dr. Wilson an 
 advantage over all the scholars of that day in India ; for 
 Horace Hayman Wilson had left Bengal in 1833, and Dr. 
 Mill, on whom his mantle fell, though translating what 
 General Cunningham calls "several important inscriptions," 
 resigned the position of head of Bishop's College, Calcutta, 
 in 1837, and in his departure Prinsep bewailed an irre- 
 parable loss. General Cunningham ascribes to Professor 
 Lassen the honour of having been the first to read " any of 
 these unknown characters," on coins at least. A letter 
 from him to James Prinsep, shows 2 that in 1836 the 
 greatest German Orientalist of his day had read the Indian 
 Pali legend on the square copper coins of Agathokles, as 
 Agathukla Raja. But Dr. Wilson's papers prove that he was 
 even then familiar with the characters on coins, while this 
 letter does not affect the credit due to him in the matter of 
 the rock inscriptions. Captain Lang seems to have delayed 
 for a year the transmission to him of copies of the Girnar 
 inscriptions. 
 
 " BOMBAY, 15th June 1836. MY DEAR CAPTAIN LANG. A few days 
 ago I received by your servant the facsimiles and copies of the Girnar 
 inscriptions. You have succeeded in getting them executed in a style, 
 and with a minute accuracy, far exceeding my expectations ; and I 
 cannot sufficiently express to you the gratitude which I feel for all your 
 trouble, and for a present which I so highly value. My time does not 
 at present enable me to do much in the attempt to decipher them, as 
 all my leisure is generally employed in preparing for the press a 
 Memoir of my dearest wife for publication in Edinburgh ; but I shall 
 
 1 Compare p. 117 of Journal of Bengal Asiatic Society for 1834, with 
 p. 452 of that for 1837. 
 
 2 Volume I. of Reports of Archaeological Survey of India, p. xii. 
 
324 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1836. 
 
 in a few months, I hope, be able to give my attention to them, and to 
 prepare a paper connected with them for the Asiatic Society, in which 
 I shall do justice to the liberality and kindness which have put me in 
 possession of them. Every person who has seen them here is much 
 interested in them. I exhibited them the other evening to a consider- 
 able number of European and Native gentlemen. 
 
 " I shall attend to what you mention in reference to Mr. Wathen. 
 I got from him a few days ago a copy of the inscriptions at Karadi on 
 Salsette. They appear from the termination of the genitive case to be 
 in Pali. As they are very imperfect, owing to the softness and decay 
 of the rock, I fear that nothing can be made of them. Most of the 
 letters which are distinct we know. 
 
 " You will doubtless have heard of the fossil bones discovered in 
 the island of Perim. The Baron Hugel, who has sent me a large box 
 of them for the Asiatic Society, says that he thinks that similar speci- 
 mens may be got on the mainland in Katyawar, which I think not 
 unlikely. The bones in the box here are chiefly of the Mastodon Gigas, 
 of Bos, and of Cervus. They are very curious. The fragment of the 
 horn of a stag indicates about the same size to that animal, as is seen in 
 the fossil stag from the Isle of Man in the Museum of the University 
 of Edinburgh. 
 
 " The rains have set in here very pleasantly, though not as yet 
 very abundantly. 
 
 " There has been a good deal of conversation here from first to last 
 about the Morvi business. I suppose that you will have got it now all 
 satisfactorily settled. You must see much of the workings of corrupted 
 human nature in the quarrels which you have to settle. It is well for 
 the natives that they have got European gentlemen of honour to whom 
 they can appeal. Truth and justice are not much regarded by them- 
 selves when their own interests are involved. The minds which appear 
 to be as placid as the waters of a tank which have never been ruffled 
 by the wind, have only to be a little agitated to discover the most 
 noxious putridity, increased by their former stagnancy. 
 
 " Will you remember me in the kindest manner to Dr. Graham, 
 and also to Mr. Dickinson, and believe me to be, my dear Captain 
 Lang, yours most sincerely, JOHN WILSON. 
 
 " CAPTAIN W. LANG, First Assistant 
 Political Agent, Kajkot." 
 
 This delay, coupled with Dr. Wilson's unselfish regard for 
 others, his devotion to truth in all its forms, and the fine 
 
1836.] J. PRINSEP AND THE ARIAN ALPHABET. 325 
 
 entlmsi r m of the young scholar of Bengal though five years 
 his senior led to the despatch of the facsimiles to Prinsep. 
 He was already partially making the Arian Pali legends of 
 the Bactrian Greek coins tell their historical tale, and was 
 poring over the Indian Pali legends of the coins of Surashtra, 
 Mr. Masson had given him the clue through the Pahlavi signs 
 for Menandron Apollodoton, Erinaion, JBasileos, and Soteros. 
 as he acknowledged in 1835. General Cunningham, his corre- 
 spondent and friend even in those early days, admits that " in 
 both of these achievements the first step towards discovery 
 was made by others." That clue led him successfully to 
 recognise sixteen of the thirty-three consonants of the Arian 
 alphabet, 1 and to give a provisional translation of the rock 
 inscriptions, before, in April 1840, illness induced by over- work 
 deprived oriental scholarship of its most promising ornament. 2 
 Now what does James Prinsep himself say of Dr. Wilson 
 in this matter of the Girnar inscriptions ? The admission of 
 
 1 In his Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, vol. i. (Calcutta, 1877), Cunning- 
 ham, who at page 14 confounds the transcriptions of the Asoka Edicts "made by 
 Captains Lang and Postans," and so unconsciously does injustice to Dr. Wilson, 
 has an interesting chapter on the Pali vernacular of the empire of Asoka, in 
 which the Edicts are written. He recognises three distinct varieties, which he 
 terms the Punjabee or north-western, the Ujjenee or middle, and the Magadhee 
 or eastern dialect. He endorses the opinion of Thomas that the Indian Pali 
 alphabet is an independently devised and locally matured scheme of writing, 
 as much as the hieroglyphics of Egypt were. Thomas quotes the opinions of 
 Dr. Wilson, "that Asoka's Buddhists derived their letters from Greek and 
 Phoenician models ;" of Weber, who holds that they "are emanations from a 
 Phoenician stock," and of Mr. Max Miiller, who "will not admit that the 
 Indians acquired the art of writing till a comparatively late period." See also 
 Weber's History of Indian Literature (1878), p. 295. 
 
 2 In the popular account of the Buddhist inscriptions of Pooree, given in 
 vol. xix. of A Statistical Account of Bengal (1877), James Prinsep is incorrectly 
 described as " Mr. Prinsep, C.S." The Civil Service of India, which has given 
 and continues to give not a few distinguished names to oriental scholarship, 
 can afford to admit that James Prinsep Vas one of the many workers in India, 
 who, belonging to neither Service, have borne a share in the civilisation of 
 British India never recognised by the Company's and hardly acknowledged 
 by the Queen's Government. 
 
326 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1836. 
 
 the missionary scholar's merit, previously made when repub- 
 lishing his address as President in the Bengal Journal, is 
 almost as modest and courteous as Dr. Wilson's action had 
 been. It affords a fine example to those orientalists of the 
 present day who, in Germany, in America, and in England, 
 have sometimes proved themselves vain controversialists. In 
 1837 Mr. Wathen had sent to him, and also to M. Jacquet of 
 Paris a young orientalist of promise the reduced copy of the 
 facsimiles, " which had been taken on cloth by the Eev. Dr. 
 Wilson." On 7th March 1838 Prinsep read his paper on the 
 " Discovery of the name of Antiochus the Great in two of the 
 Edicts of Asoka, King of India," nearly three years after Dr. 
 Wilson's first partial translation. But he uses this honourable 
 language l " I should indeed be doing an injustice to Captain 
 Lang, who executed the cloth facsimile for the President of 
 the Bombay Literary Society, and to Dr. Wilson himself, who 
 so graciously placed it at my disposal when, doubtless, he 
 might with little trouble have succeeded himself in interpret- 
 ing it much better than I can do, from his well-known pro- 
 ficiency in the Sanscrit language it would, I say, be an 
 injustice to them were I to withhold the publication of what 
 is already prepared for the press, which may be looked upon 
 as their property and their discovery, and to mix it with what 
 may hereafter be obtained by a more accurate survey of the 
 spot." 
 
 Prinsep's enthusiasm, as he worked his way through these 
 rock inscriptions in the weeks of February and March 1838, 
 and occasionally stumbled over the mutilated portions of the 
 facsimiles, led him to petition the Governor-General to order 
 another rubbing to be taken, and the Governor of Bombay 
 despatched Lieutenant .Postans to the spot. That officer " took 
 
 1 Essays on Indian Antiquities of the late James Prinsep, F.R.S., etc. 
 Edited by Edward Thomas, vol. ii. page 56. This book has had a curious 
 history, and is now so rare as to sell for eight guineas and more. 
 
THE GIRNAR ROCK. 
 
 THE SECOND EDICT OF ASOKA. 
 
1836.] THE GIRNAR ROCK DESCRIBED. '327 
 
 infinite pains to secure exactitude, aided by Captain Lang, 
 who was with him," according to Captain Le Grand Jacob's 
 account. But, alas ! Prinsep was no more when the MSS. 
 and cloth copies reached Calcutta. Not till 1870 did General 
 Cunningham stumble upon the neglected treasures there, 
 although duplicates had been sent to the Eoyal Asiatic Society. 
 Captain Jacob and Mr. Westergaard made fresh copies to 
 secure complete accuracy. The Government of Bombay has 
 of late shown an intelligent interest in the priceless antiqui- 
 ties of Western India by appointing an archaeological surveyor 
 and reporter so competent as Mr. J. Burgess, M.E.A.S., and 
 long Dr. Wilson's friend. His examination of the Girnar 
 antiquities and his estampages of the inscriptions, as described 
 in his second report, were the most careful and thorough of 
 all, and may be regarded as final. He sets at rest the re- 
 maining doubts of Professor Weber. After referring to Dr. 
 Wilson's first transcript, he thus describes the stone : 
 
 "The Asoka inscription at Girnar covers considerably 
 over a hundred square feet of the uneven surface of a huge 
 rounded and somewhat conical granite boulder, rising 12 feet 
 above the surface of the ground, and about 75 feet in circum- 
 ference at the base. It occupies the greater portion of the 
 north-east face, and, as is well known, is divided down the 
 centre by a vertical line ; on the left, or east side, of which 
 are the first five edicts or tablets, divided from one another 
 by horizontal lines; on the right are the next seven, simi- 
 larly divided ; the thirteenth has been placed below the fifth 
 and twelfth, and is unfortunately damaged; and the four- 
 teenth is placed to the right of the thirteenth." 
 
 We reproduce Westergaard's accurate transcript of the 
 Second Edict, that our readers may see the characters on 
 which first Dr. Wilson and then James Prinsep worked. * The 
 Thirteenth Edict follows/ in a transliterated form, and as 
 mutilated by what Tod calls " the magnificent vanity of Sun- 
 
328 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1836. 
 
 darji, the horse merchant," whose people, when making a 
 causeway to the spot from Joonagurh, seem to have used a 
 part of the fifth as well as of the thirteenth tablet. Mr. 
 Burgess, in 1869, found the precious Eock occupied by " a 
 lazy, sanctimonious, naked devotee, whose firewood lay 
 against the sides of the stone, whilst fragments of broken 
 earthenware covered the top of it." The engraving is from 
 a photograph, taken under his direction, from the wall of the 
 causeway. The Joonagurh chief, a Muhammadan, has, at the 
 request of Government, now protected the stone by a roof. 
 
 The latest rendering of the Second Edict, by Professor 
 Kern of Leyden, is this : 
 
 "In the whole dominion of King Devanampriya Priyadarsin, as 
 also in the adjacent countries, as Chola (Tanjore), Pandya (Arcot), 
 Satyaputra, Keralaputra (Malabar), as far as Tamraparni (Ceylon), the 
 kingdom of Antiochus the Grecian king, and of his neighbour kings, 
 the system of caring for the sick both of men and cattle, followed by 
 King Devanampriya Priyadarsin, has been everywhere brought into 
 practice; and at all places where useful healing herbs for men and 
 cattle were wanting he has caused them to be brought and planted ; 
 and at all places where roots and fruits were wanting he has caused 
 them to be brought and planted ; also he has caused wells to be dug 
 and trees to be planted on the roads for the benefit of men and cattle." 
 
 THIRTEENTH EDICT OF ASOKA, TRANSLITERATED. 
 
 1 . . de patasa pasamatam et&hatanj baha tavata kammata tata pachha 
 
 adhuna ladhesu kalingesu tivo dhammavayo 
 
 2 .... vadho va maranam va apavaho va janasata badham vedana 
 
 matacha ganamatacha Deva 
 
 3 sa" mata pitari susumsa" guru sumsumsa mita- 
 
 samstata sahaya sa dasa 
 
 4 ya natika vyasanam papunoti vata sopi tesam 
 
 upaghato patipati bhago vasa sava . . . 
 
 6 mi (?) yato nasti manusanam ekataramhi pasamdamhi 
 
 na nama pasade yavakato jana tada 
 
 8 na yasaka va mitaveya* vapi ataviyo Devanampiyasa 
 
 pijite pati 
 
1836.] HISTORICAL LINKS BETWEEN INDIA AND GREECE. 329 
 
 r sava bhutanam achhatim cha sayamamcha samam (?) 
 
 .... cheram cha madava cha 
 
 8 Yona raja paramcha tena chattaro rajano Turamayo cha 
 
 Antakana cha Maga cha 
 
 9 idhe parimde savata Devanampiyasa dhammanusastim 
 
 annvatareyata piduti 
 
 10 vajayo savatha puna vijayo piti raso sa ladha" ssi pit! 
 
 hoti dhaimna vijayammhi 
 
 11 yam vijayamma vijatavyam mam nasarasake eva vijay- 
 
 echhati cha 
 12 iloklka cha paralokika cha 
 
 This is so mutilated that Professor H. H. Wilson did not 
 venture to propose a rendering of it while criticising James 
 Prinsep's. We select these two out of the fourteen Edicts 
 for purely English readers, because they form the historical 
 links which connect India with Greece. It is in the Second 
 Edict that the .name of the Yona, Yavan, Ionian or Greek 
 king Antiochus occurs, that Antiochus II. who died B.C. 247, 
 in the twelfth year of Priyadasi's or Asoka's reign. Still 
 more reliable is the Thirteenth Tablet, damaged though it be, 
 for it gives us the names of other Greek kings in the eighth 
 line Ptolemaios, Atigonus, and Magas ; and of a fourth to 
 whom Asoka sent embassies which " won from them a victory 
 not by the sword but by religion." * 
 
 Until the last Dr. Wilson continued to exchange with 
 Prinsep coins and inscriptions, and a very learned corre- 
 spondence so covered or interspersed with Pali alphabets and 
 readings that we cannot reproduce it. In one letter without 
 date, but referring to the above edict, Mr. Prinsep writes 
 thus to Dr. Wilson : The letter is prefaced by a copy of the 
 Arian alphabet and its English translation : 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR. I was much pleased at the receipt of your letter 
 and at the promise (this day fulfilled) of following it up with the coins. 
 
 1 For an accurate account of Asoka, whose name is not given in the 
 Encyclopaedias, see a little hook on Buddhism, hy T. W. Rhys Davids. 
 
330 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1837. 
 
 They are pure specimens but not better or so good as those taken 
 home by Mr. Stewart, if I may believe his plate. One enables me to 
 correct a reading. . . . My other discovery now engrosses my attention, it 
 is so fraught with consequences in every direction. Without facsimiles 
 it would be impossible to venture on a correct reading and I therefore 
 leave all these and the Girnar inscriptions to your and Mr. Wathen's great 
 zeal and knowledge. Mr. Stevenson was wrong in many letters but 
 I long since felt certain of almost all but this. ... I should like much 
 to know the degree of authenticity attachable to your version of the 
 Goojarat inscription. A facsimile would be invaluable at this moment ; 
 there are so many evidently bad copyings that I dare not trust myself 
 with it, moreover there are some letters not found in the Delhi pillar. 
 In other respects the Goojaratee version is much more orthographi- 
 cally correct than the Delhi. 
 
 "In many other places your Pali is much more pure than our 
 Magadha ; but I am anticipating what I hope to give you in a month 
 in print. I shall be most happy to exchange periodicals, and the post- 
 office will soon enable us to do so with little cost. Pray let Mr. Wathen 
 read this as my time is of the (illegible). Now we may commence upon 
 the palaeography of India before it would have been premature ; we 
 require your cave variation of our oldest standard. Thank Mulla Firuz, 
 only in my name, for his great kindness in sending on his two coins 
 which I will faithfully return by and bye. I should like to engrave them 
 first. Believe me, my dear Sir, yours sincerely, J. PKINSEP." 
 
 PART OF DR. WILSON'S JOURNAL. 
 
 " 3d January. We arrived at Karli in the morning ; and after 
 breakfast we proceeded to the Buddh caves, in which we spent the 
 greater part of the day. We succeeded in taking a facsimile on cloth 
 of more than half the inscriptions. Our success was very gratifying, 
 particularly as no copy of them which I have yet seen is tolerably cor- 
 rect. I have no doubt of my ability to read them by the help of Mr. 
 Prinsep's alphabet. His conjectural emendment of the copy of that 
 on the large outer pillar furnished by Lieutenant Jacob to my friend 
 Dr. Stevenson I found to be correct, the last word terminating with an 
 n or j_, instead of J |, as printed in the Journal of the Asiatic Society. 
 The point marking the am, or termination of the neuter gender, I 
 also found in its place, making the final word very plainly to be ddnam. 
 
 " The Brahmans, who hold possession of the little temple of Bhavani 
 lately erected near the mouth of the caves, seemed to take a particular 
 
 
1837.] DECIPHERS THE KARLI INSCRIPTIONS. 331 
 
 interest in all that was going on. When I read to them the inscription 
 now quoted, they said to one another, ' So they are not the work of the 
 Panda vas ? ' ' The Pandavas ! ' said I, ' Did it never strike you before 
 that these caves had no connection with Hindooism ? ' They confessed 
 that they had long had strong suspicions of their not having a Hindoo 
 origin. I got them, and several Kunbees (peasants) who came to see the 
 caves, to sit down and listen, when I discoursed to them on the errors 
 both of the Buddhas and Brahmans, and unfolded to them the religion of 
 Christ which, while it commends itself to the most enlightened intellect, 
 speaks both peace to the conscience and purity to the heart. They 
 heard me most attentively, and not with the less interest that they found 
 their own systems correctly stated, at the same time that they ^ were 
 decidedly condemned. I gave them a few little books calculated to 
 explain and enforce the new doctrine which had been brought before 
 their notice, which they very readily received. 
 
 " The letters which Dr. Stevenson supposed to be numerals repre- 
 senting the date of the excavations are rather indistinct, but not of the 
 form which he supposed. I hope to-morrow to be able to take a fac- 
 simile of the part of the inscription which contains them." 
 
 In the address of the Bombay Asiatic Society to Dr. 
 Wilson, before his departure for Syria, he was thanked by his 
 colleagues " for facsimile inscriptions on the Cave Temples at 
 Karli, of which, aided by Prinsep's monumental alphabet, it 
 was reserved for your learned associate Dr. Stevenson and your- 
 self, to be the first decipherers." As Sir William Jones was 
 the first to introduce into the chaos of Hindoo literature and 
 history the magical but very real drop of chronological truth 
 which developed from the Chandragupta of the Mudra 
 Kakshasa, the Sandrocuptos of Athenaeus, or Sandracottus of 
 Arrian,so Dr. Wilson brought to light the inscriptions, in which 
 the greater grandson of Chandragupta had engraved on the 
 rock, twenty centuries before, the names of the successors of 
 Alexander in Egypt and the East. The Girnar rock must 
 rank in historical literature with the Eosetta stone, the 
 the Behistun inscription, and the Accadian brick-libraries of 
 Assyria. Apart from that, in purely Indian literature it 
 reveals to us, in letters as real and vivid as the printed page, 
 
332 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1838. 
 
 the character of the great and good Asoka, who, when ruling 
 over Ihe most extensive empire Hindooism ever saw, from 
 the eastern uplands of Behar to the Indian Ocean, and 
 from the snows of Himalaya to the coasts of Malabar, Coro- 
 mandel, and Ceylon, was driven by disgust at the sacerdotal 
 tyranny of the Brahmans to profess and to propagate Budd- 
 hism in the eleventh year of his reign. Tolerant and en- 
 lightened, his edicts alone, as we find them graven on the 
 rocks from Girnar to Cuttack and the Punjab, justify the 
 title, happily given to the Constantine of Buddhism by Pro- 
 fessor Kern, of Asoka the Humane. 
 
 From the time that he was nominated President of the 
 Bombay Asiatic Society, Dr. Wilson kept up a somewhat con- 
 stant correspondence with the scholars of France and Ger- 
 many, who looked to him in India for new facts and materials. 
 Greatest of them all in France, if not throughout Europe, 
 was the accomplished and accurate Eugene Burnouf, Profes- 
 sor of Sanscrit in the College de France, who for the first 
 half of this century was without a rival in the department of 
 Zand. He was the friend, also, of Mr. Brian Hodgson. 
 
 Dr. WILSON to Professor E. BURNOUF. 
 
 "Bombay, 21st May 1838. MY DEAR SIR. I intended long ere 
 now to have personally acknowledged your very highly valued letter of 
 the 13th October 1836, which I had the pleasure of duly receiving. I 
 took the liberty of communicating its substance to our Asiatic Society 
 previous to proposing you as an honorary member of our body, and it 
 afforded the members present the highest satisfaction. In this quarter 
 the highest respect is entertained for your distinguished talents and 
 accomplishments, and your splendid literary labours ; and we felt 
 that we were taking honour to ourselves, and not dispensing it to another, 
 when we invited you to allow yourself to be associated with our 
 fraternity. 
 
 " Mr. Mdnakji Kharshedji (who, I am happy to state, has now received 
 a respectable situation from the Government) conversed with me re- 
 specting the oriental works which you wished to procure ; and I gave 
 him the best advice in my power. I got six copies put up for you of 
 
1838.] LETTEK TO BURNOUF. 333 
 
 the specimen of the Rig-Veda, translated by my friend Dr. Stevenson 
 and a native pundit, but I am sorry to say that owing to some mistake 
 they have not yet left Bombay. They shall be forwarded to you by the 
 first opportunity. The translation, you will see, is founded on the 
 Bhashya, more than on the text of the Veda ; and on this account, as 
 well as the haste in its preparation, it requires many allowances. We 
 are always here too much dependent on native aid ; and there is often 
 as much blame to be attached for our too blind reliance upon it as 
 regret to be cherished for your absolute want of it in Europe. 
 
 " Your progress with the Bhdgavata is most encouraging. I trust 
 that you will soon have the pleasure of laying it before the public. It 
 will, I doubt not, get much beyond the circle of the orientalists, and do 
 much to inform the mind of Europe on practical Hindooism, which is 
 so little understood* I am at present perusing your comment on the 
 Yapna. It is a most learned and elaborate work. Perhaps you have 
 treated Anquetil du Perron's version with too much respect. Had you 
 given as the basis of your remarks an original translation, which you 
 are so competent to do, and fortified it with critical notes where neces- 
 sary, your labour would have been much abridged ; this I mention with 
 all deference. You will, I suppose, close with a translation. I have 
 got from my bookseller the first two parts of your work ; and I shall 
 get from him those which may follow. Mulla Rustamji, the successor 
 of Mulla Firuz, the author of the George-Namdh desires me to say that 
 he will be happy to allow you to have copies of the Persian or Goojar- 
 atee translations, etc., with comment of the Tagna of Framji Aspan- 
 diarji. He calculates the price of transcription at .25. If you have 
 not already a copy of the work it will be very serviceable to you. 
 The translations are interlinear with the original and verbal. Similar 
 translations of the other religious works of the Parsees can be procured. 
 
 " As you have done so much to bring the Pali into notice, you 
 will be greatly gratified at the results of the Honourable Mr. Tumour's 
 researches, and Mr. Prinsep's most fortunate discovery of the monu- 
 mental alphabet. The latter I am applying to the Karli inscriptions. 
 Mr. Prinsep, I suppose, will have informed you as to his finding the 
 name of Antiochus, etc., on the Girnar inscriptions which I visited 
 three years ago. 
 
 " I shall be delighted to be called upon to make any exertions in 
 aid of your inquiries in this country. I have such an estimate of their 
 importance as connected with the work in which I seek to be engaged, 
 the instruction of the Eastern mind in the glorious truths of Heaven's 
 own revelation, that I shall view any little service which I can render 
 
334 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1838. 
 
 to you or your associates as a privilege. With the highest respect and 
 most sincere esteem, I am, most truly yours, JOHN WILSON, D.D." 
 
 Prof. BTJRNOUF to Dr. WILSON. 
 
 " PARIS, 13 Juillet 1838. MONSIEUR. Jai reu avec une bien vive 
 satisfaction la lettre en date de Mai 1838, que vous m'avez fait 
 1'honneur de m'adresser. Elle est pleine des marques d'une bienveill- 
 ance qui m' est tres precieuse de la part d'un homme de votre caractere 
 et de votre position. Mon plus vif desir est de chercher a meriter 1'estime 
 des homines qui aiment la verite, et qui voient dans la science non 
 pas un vain exercise de 1'esprit, mais un moyen de connaitre mieux 
 Fhomme pour 1'elever par Finstruction la ou 1'appellent des grandes 
 destinees. 
 
 " Vous apprendrez sans doute avec beaucoup de peine la perte que 
 notre Socie'te vient de faire dans la personne de M. Jacquet, jeune 
 homme de grande esperance, qui vient de mourir le 8 Juillet dernier, a 
 Tage de 28 ans. Ce jeune homme, qui vous tait sans doute connu de 
 nom, s'occupait avec succes de 1' explication des medailles et des inscrip- 
 tions indiennes. J'etais fort intimement lie avec lui, et dans le vaste 
 domaine qu'onere 1'etude de 1'Inde, nous avions fait un partage d'amis, 
 il avait pris les monuments figures et epigraphiques, tandis que je m'etais 
 livre a la lecture des textes. II est mort au milieu des medailles qui 
 M. Court vient d'envoyer en France. 
 
 " Je n'ai pas recu de lettre de M. Prinsep qui me fasse connaitre 
 le fait curieux et capital de la lecture du nom d'Antiochus, sur le rocher 
 de Girnar. Mais je le crois bien possible non seulement a cause de la rare 
 sagacite dont est doue M. Prinsep, mais encore a cause de la richesse 
 des documents contenus dans ces anciens textes. Je crois que Jacquet avait 
 dans ses papiers, un fort beau facsimile sur plusieurs feuilles de 1'inscrip- 
 tion de Girnar. Lorsque la vente de sa bibliotheque aura lieu, je ferai tous 
 mes efforts pour acquerir ce monument que je desireraisvivement posseder. 
 
 " Je serais egalement tres empresse de faire 1'acquisition d'un\ exem- 
 plaire du Yag na traduit en Guzarati et en Persan. Mais la somme de 
 ,25 que demandent les copistes parses pour le seul ouvrage, me parait 
 beaucoup trop considerable, du moins elle depasse de beaucoup mes 
 moyens. Ainsi je renonce a cette acquisition. 11 me semblait que 
 pour 29 louis on aurait pu se procurer la copie de tout ce qui existe de 
 Zend. Je trouve en general qui les frais de copie sont beaucoup moins 
 eleves a Benares que dans 1'ouest de 1'Inde. 
 
 " Je vais, cet automne, commencer 1'impression de ma traduction du 
 Bhdg. Purdna. Je compets qu'un volume (le l er ) pourra etre termine 
 
1840.] BURNOUF'S REPLIES. 335 
 
 vers la fin de 1839, a cause de 1'inexperience des ouvriers imprimeurs 
 qui ne sont par tres habituees encore a composer du Sanscrit. 
 
 " Je recevrai avec une bien grande satisfaction les six exemplaires du 
 Rig- Veda de M. Stevenson, que vous voulez bien m'adresser. Je regrette 
 seulement qui vous ne m'ayez pas indique" a Londres la personne a la 
 quelle je doit payer le montant de cette acquisition. Peutetre le paquet 
 sera-t-il accompagne d'une note relative a ce point. Au reste j'ai deja 
 d'avance distribue ces six exemplaires entre mes amis. 
 
 " Adieu, Monsieur, croyez bien qui j'apprecie hautement 1'honneur 
 que m'a fait votre Societe de m'admettre dans son sein, je lui en ai deja 
 exprime" ma vive gratitude par une lettre. Je serai bien heureux si 
 vos importantes occupations vous laissent de temps en temps quelques 
 moments de loisir pour me donner des nouvelles indiennes. Agreez 
 Monsieur 1'assurance de tous mes sentiments respectueux. 
 
 " EUG. BURNOUF." 
 
 " MONSIEUR ET RESPECTABLE AMI. Je vous prie de vouloir bien 
 accepter pour vous et offrir de ma part a la savante compagnie dont 
 vous etes le digne chef, le l er volume de ma traduction du Bhdgavata 
 Purdna. Vos conseils, et 1'inter^t que vous avez publiquement exprime 
 pour une traduction Europe"enne de ce poeme estim6 dans 1'Inde, ont cer- 
 tainement beaucoup agi sur la determination que j'ai prise d'en continuer 
 la publication. J'espef e que d'autres Etudes non moins interessantes ne 
 me detourneront pas et que je pourrai continuer un travail qui doit 
 m'interesser, puis qu'il a quelque prix aux yeux d'un homme aussi 
 eclaire et aussi savant que vous. Veuillez recevoir ce travail avec indul- 
 gence et voir dans rhommage que je vous en fais, la preuve des senti- 
 ments de haute estime dont je suis heureux depouvoir vous renouveller 
 1'expression. Agreez, Monsieur et respectable ami, I'assurance de mon 
 entier devouement, votre tres humble serviteur, EUG. BURNOUF. 
 
 "25 /. 1840." 
 
 In 1840 another French scholar, M. Theodore Pavie, ot 
 L'Ecole des Langues Orientales in Paris, visited Bombay, 
 passing on thence to Madras and Calcutta, from which, in 
 imperfect English, he addressed to Dr. Wilson a letter of gra- 
 titude for learned counsel and the gift of a MS. of one of 
 Kalidasa's dramas. About the same time, according to a 
 letter with incomplete date, Mr. Tumour, the greatest Pali 
 scholar in the East, and afterwards translator of the Maha- 
 
336 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1841. 
 
 wanso, "The Genealogy of the Great," was introduced to Dr. 
 Wilson. They must have had much to talk of, for it was 
 Tumour who first identified the Priyadasi of the Edicts with 
 Asoka, by "throwing open the hitherto sealed page of the 
 Buddhist historian to the development of Indian monuments 
 and Puranic records," as Prinsep expressed it. 
 
 No Government, not even that of the country which 
 rules India, has shown so enlightened an' interest in its 
 literature and religions as that of Denmark. It was the 
 first to send Protestant missionaries to the Hindoos, the first 
 to protect the English missionaries whom the East India 
 Company persecuted at the end of last century, and the first 
 to despatch its scholars to the East. Thus Rask had taken 
 from Bombay the rich collection of MSS., Zand and Pahlavi, 
 which he deposited in Copenhagen. And in 1841, after master- 
 ing these, Professor Westergaard prepared himself for his 
 critical edition of the Zand-avasta by visiting Bombay 
 where he was Dr. Wilson's guest, and exploring both Western 
 India and Persia in a literary sense. 
 
 Prof. WESTERGAARD to Dr. WILSON. 
 
 " BROACH, 8tk February 1841. MY DEAR DR. WILSON. So far am 
 I come on my journey, and that is shortly told. I stayed at Satara 
 three days, at Colonel Ovans', who received me with the greatest hospi- 
 tality, and showed me all things worth seeing the Raja and his 
 palace, etc. If you have not already seen it I advise you to see a curious 
 cave excavation under the surface of the earth, about two miles from 
 Poona. At Junir I took copies of all the inscriptions except one, which 
 was too much defaced. At Nasik I found a Sanscrit inscription in 
 the old Cave character, and the king, a son of a Patrassa, is praised for 
 having bestowed 300,000 cows and 26 villages to the Brahmans. All 
 the sculptures were Jain. Being ill there I was afraid for crossing 
 the jungle, therefore I went over Malligaum Novapoor to Surat ; and 
 I am sorry not to have seen your Parsee friend at Daman. At Surat 
 there were very few books, and still less knowledge amongst the Parsees. 
 I asked them about the passage in the B. Fargard about abortion or 
 infanticide, but they did only translate for me the Persian translation." 
 
 " EDUR, 25^ May 1842. I was quite delighted with the whole of 
 
1842.] LETTEK FROM WESTERGAAKD. 337 
 
 Abu. I spent there a week, and did enjoy it very much to my heart's 
 content. The temples of Dilwara or Devalvara are worth seeing, and 
 even a journey of a thousand miles is not too long for such a view. 
 What is the etymology of the name Abu ? and why is here a temple 
 and dharmsala for Vasishtra Muni 1 Was this the place where he lived, 
 and the scene of the fiery struggle between him and Arivamitra 
 between the clergy and the king ? I have no Ramayana at hand, so I 
 cannot decide it ; but being too on the frontier of India, it is perhaps 
 not unlikely. There i no date in all the temples earlier than the end of 
 the twelfth century, Samvat (era) ; but it must have been considered a 
 holy place, otherwise the wealthy Banyans would not have chosen it 
 for building such magnificent temples. But we will talk this matter 
 over. I hope, if you should not be at Bombay, you will allow me to 
 put up in one of your houses, either at Ambrolie or Malabar Hill. 
 
 " What we want is a critical edition of the whole Zand and Pahlavi 
 literature, on the authority of the oldest and best MSS. existing, together 
 with grammar and dictionary of the languages ; first, when that is done, 
 will it be possible to give a good and correct translation of the texts, 
 either it be in English or any other language. The first I intend to 
 do when I should return to Copenhagen, where we have at least the 
 oldest Zand MSS., two of them more than 500 years old. At any rate 
 I would beg you to give the texts in the old Zand character." 
 
 Colonel Dickinson, one of his colleagues in the Asiatic 
 Society, and a valued servant of the State, offered generous aid 
 to Dr. Wilson in the purchase of Oriental MSS., while he him- 
 self, in letters to his Edinburgh publisher and to Dr. Brunton, 
 was planning new literary undertakings in aid of or arising 
 out of his missionary work. These were ' The Conversion of 
 India and the Means of its Accomplishment;' 'The Tribes of 
 Western India, with Notices of Missionary Labour ;' ' Poetical 
 Pieces by Anne Bayne, with a Biographical Sketch of the 
 Author;' 'Memoir of E. C. Money, Esq.' To Dr. Brunton 
 he thus wrote on 19th July 1842, of a scheme afterwards 
 taken up by English biblical scholars and travellers : " I 
 have long been talking to our friends here about the propriety 
 of our attempting to found in Britain a society whose express 
 object shall be to collect Oriental illustrations of the Scrip- 
 
 z 
 
338 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1842. 
 
 tures, and to render available to Europeans the treasures of 
 Church History which are to be found in the Syriac, Arme- 
 nian, and other Eastern languages. Had leisure permitted 
 me, you might ere this have received from me a short memoir 
 on the subject, directing your attention to what has occurred 
 respecting it, and offering you a few remarks on the intima- 
 tions of an international communication between the Jews 
 and ancient Persians, which are contained in the writings in 
 the possession of the Zoroastrians of India and of Yezd and 
 Kerman." 
 
 "BOMBAY, 21 ih July 1842. MY DEAR DR. WILSON. Viewing as 
 I do the arduous task in which you are engaged as one that will confer 
 on this benighted land such unspeakable benefits, and not less hopeful 
 than yourself that such an expose will operate as a more powerful lever 
 than any which has been yet applied for the subversion of Parsee and 
 with it Hindoo idolatry, you will, I venture to hope, pardon me for 
 requesting to contribute the enclosed towards the procurement of manu- 
 scripts and translations in aid of your very learned researches, or for 
 contributing in any other way to alleviate that not less bodily than 
 mental fatigue unavoidably attendant, in this country, on passing through 
 the press a work the printing of which is attended with such almost 
 insurmountable difficulties. That you may, without further injury to 
 your health, soon bring your benevolent labour to a close, is among 
 the uppermost wishes of yours very sincerely, J. DICKINSON." 
 
 On a subject nearer Dr. Wilson's heart than even Oriental 
 MSS. we find Sir J. Emerson Tennent, M.P. for Belfast, and 
 since known for his works on Ceylon, corresponding with him : 
 
 "BEECH PARK, BELFAST, October 9, 1839. 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR. You will allow me to address you so, because, 
 although personally unknown to you, you are not by reputation unknown 
 to me; and the object which now serves as my introduction will, I 
 trust, lead to a more matured acquaintance. The few ' superficial 
 inches ' of a letter to India forbid a long preface, and I must at once 
 open my subject. As a member of the House of Commons I have 
 repeatedly presented petitions praying for the exemption of British 
 soldiers from taking a part in the idolatrous ceremonies of India, and 
 also others calling on the British Legislature, if not to suppress at least 
 
1842.] THE EAST INDIA COMPANY AND IDOLATRY. 339 
 
 to withdraw its countenance and encouragement, its pecuniary support 
 or its official patronage from them. . . . These are considerations which, 
 apart from my individual responsibility as a man, enlist all my feelings 
 as a legislator, and have brought me to the resolution, early in the 
 next session of Parliament, to collect what support I may around me, 
 and to break ground in this momentous question by a motion to put 
 an end to this system. By a recent order of the Commander-in-Chief, 
 Roman Catholic soldiers are specially exempted from attendance on 
 Protestant worship in England, and yet the same soldier or his Pro- 
 testant fellow would be compelled to unite in the worship of the Host 
 at Malta, or throw the cocoa-nut in Hindoostan ! Now only let us 
 extend the principle \ I ask not to proselytise or to coerce, but to cease 
 to countenance and to maintain idolatry. But I Want aid from you. 
 I have lately been spending a few days near two of my earliest and 
 dearest friends in the world Mrs. R. C. Money and Mrs. Webb and 
 they have both begged me to write to you on the subject. I want 
 'materials, and facts, and details, and they tell me you can send me 
 abundance. May I beg of you to do so ? " 
 
 "BOMBAY, 31st December 1839. 
 
 "MY DEAR SIR. I have seldom received a letter "from Europe 
 which has afforded me more intense delight than yours of the 9th 
 October, which has lately come into my hands. The subject to which 
 it refers is one connected with which my soul has often been agonised 
 to a degree which I cannot express ; and it rejoices my heart to learn 
 that you are about to devote to it your earnest attention and untiring 
 exertion. You cannot consecrate your admired talents and eloquence 
 to a more important cause, for it is directly connected with stopping 
 the course of overwhelming iniquity, displaying the glory and grace of 
 Jehovah, and advancing the moral regeneration of the most important 
 country in the world committed to the sovereignty of our Christian 
 nation by the most wonderful providences which the page of history 
 can unfold. It is not, as it respects the guilt to be removed, the 
 evil to be prevented, or the good to be effected, secondary to the 
 abolition of the horrid trade in the sinews, and the flesh, and the bones 
 of the children of Africa. May God himself direct you and all your 
 coadjutors ; and may we see a speedy, a glorious, and a complete 
 victory ! I am sorry that the short few minutes which intervene 
 between the moment of my thus taking up the pen and the departure 
 of the steamer prevent me from giving that suitable reply to your 
 communication which, if God spare me, shall not long be wanting. I 
 
340 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1842. 
 
 must content myself by simply throwing out a few hints, and these in 
 a very abrupt form : 
 
 " I. You will find a good deal of information on the subject, particu- 
 larly as connected with the Madras Presidency, in a pamphlet entitled 
 * The Connection of the East India Company's Government with the 
 Superstitious and Idolatrous Customs and Bites of the Natives of India,' 
 published by Hatchard and Son, Piccadilly. The compiler, J. M. 
 Strachan, Esq., late of the Madras Civil Service ; Mr. Poynder, of whom 
 you must often have heard ; J. T. Thomas, Esq., Brunswick Terrace, 
 Brighton ; and Peter Cator, Esq., will be able and willing to give you 
 much important information connected with the proceedings in the 
 south of India. I have just put into the hands of Mr. Murray, one 
 of our merchants, who leaves Bombay by the steamer of this day, 
 several numbers of the Oriental Christian Spectator, which I edit, con- 
 taining informal statements of the doings in other parts of India. 
 My first leisure hour will be devoted to the arrangement and exposi- 
 tion of the unpublished documents which are in my possession ; and 
 the result will be communicated to you next month. 
 
 "II. In reading on the general subject of the countenance and 
 support of idolatry, and degradation of Christianity in India, it may 
 be of use to you, for the sake of arrangement in your own mind, to 
 have before you the following Note comprehending all the evils of 
 which I know which I composed a few months ago : 
 
 "We must never rest satisfied till the Government 1. Cease to 
 administer to the chartered endowments of the temples. 2. Decline to 
 continue such grants of the native princes as were merely discretional 
 on their part, or ready to be recalled whenever they might see cause. 
 3. Withdraw its own grants which are legally recoverable, and cease 
 to levy taxes on every village, as is done throughout the Dekhan, for 
 the support of the temples. 4. Decline all official management of the 
 temples, either by Native or European functionaries. 5. Forbid the 
 official interference of its officers in the direction of the festivals. 6. 
 Cease to honour the heathen and Muhammadan festivals with honorary 
 processions and salutes. 7. Cease to employ or pay the Brahmans to 
 make incantations for rain and fair weather. 8. Destroy the pilgrim- 
 tax. 9. Forbid the compulsory dragging of the idol-cars. 10. Forbid 
 the consecration of the public records to ? Ganesh and the inscription to 
 his honour on official documents issued by its own authority. 11. 
 Exclude from the courts of justice all idolatrous cases in which civil 
 rights are not concerned. 12. Cease to degrade certain castes by 
 excluding them from particular offices and benefits not connected with 
 
1842.] CONSULTED BY CHIEF JUSTICE ON PARSEE LAW. 341 
 
 religion. 1 3. Cease to pension Brahmans, Moollahs, and others, because 
 of their connection with the heathen and Muhammadan priesthood. 
 14. Abolish heathen oaths in courts of justice, and adopt a form of 
 swearing to which none can object. 15. Withhold support from all 
 heathen and Muhammadan schools and colleges. 
 
 " III. Your motion in Parliament, I think, should not be to pro- 
 duce this and that despatch of the Directors, but to appoint a Select 
 Committee to investigate the whole extent of the evil, by calling for 
 documents, instituting correspondence, and examining gentlemen from 
 India. JOHN WILSON." 
 
 In 1836 there seems to have been made to Dr. Wilson 
 the first of those references by the Judges of the Supreme 
 Court as well as the Executive Government, which after- 
 wards became so frequent and honourable to both, as well as 
 conducive to the good administration of the country. The 
 Parsees in India believe that, on their expatriation, their 
 ancient code of laws as well as their other religious books 
 were lost. They were governed internally by their own 
 Punchayat, under rules recognised by the Government 
 in 1778, which gave that committee the power of beating 
 offenders with the shoe. But as sectarian divisions spread, 
 and as civil suits involving religious questions came before 
 the Supreme Court, the necessity for legislation by the British 
 Government became apparent. Not till 1865 could all parties 
 agree to such a civil code of marriage, divorce, and inheritance 
 at least as would be satisfactory. In one of the numerous 
 disputes in 1835 Dr. Wilson's knowledge of the Parsee 
 literature and customs was appealed to by the Chief Justice, 
 who directed the thanks of the Court to be conveyed to him 
 " for the clear, concise, and lucid manner in which you have 
 framed your answers to the queries submitted to you." 
 
 "BOMBAY, llth February 1836. . . . . The only book of 
 authority among the Parsees which refers either to morality or municipal 
 law is the Vandiddd Sdd6, alleged to be a fragment of the writings of 
 Zoroaster. It was almost a dead letter with the Parsees for a long time 
 after their arrival in India ; and it contains no aphorisms on the subject 
 
342 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1842. 
 
 of adoption. There are no written laws of authority among the Parsees 
 respecting adoption. Their traditions, which are their guide, are founded 
 partly on the Muhammadan law and partly on the Hindoo law. Dhar- 
 maputra and Palak beta are equivalent in conventional use, though 
 not in etymology. They both designate an adopted son. There is no 
 prescribed form of adoption recognised among the Parsees. Adoption 
 invariably originates in a religious motive. It is the duty of the 
 adopted son to perform the Krija or funeral ceremonies of him who 
 has adopted him. It is with a reference to the discharge of this duty 
 that he is adopted. The adopted son stands on the same footing with 
 regard to property as the only son of a family. I have considerable 
 confidence in the accuracy of these statements. As I am entirely 
 ignorant of the object of the Chief Justice in the inquiries which he has 
 made, I cannot be supposed to have framed my replies with a view to 
 meet any existing practical case. It will afford me much pleasure to 
 be of the slightest service to the dispensers of justice in throwing light 
 on the native customs in the country. JOHN WILSON." 
 
 The close of 1842 saw the fruit of Dr. Wilson's researches 
 in the publication of his greatest work, The Parsi Religion. 
 He now began to prepare for his homeward tour ; for new duty 
 in the midst of holiday recreation. We may here, most appro- 
 priately, give some of the letters of congratulation addressed 
 to him by the greatest Orientalists of the day. The learned 
 and amiable William Erskine, who had translated the Memoirs 
 of the JjJmperor Haber, and was engaged on that History of the 
 House of Taimur which he was not to live to complete, thus 
 wrote to him, linking on the foundation of the Bombay Literary 
 Society, in which the son-in-law of Sir James Mackintosh 
 took a part, to the more brilliant days of the Asiatic Society : 
 
 "(EDINBURGH), 13 St. Bernard's Crescent, 14th November 1843. MY 
 DEAR SIR. I received with many thanks your valuable researches and 
 remarks on the Parsee religion. Your knowledge of the Zand and Pah- 
 la vi, with their cognate languages, has enabled you to do much more, and 
 more correctly, than any of your predecessors, and no person is so well 
 qualified to solve the question of the date of the sacred books of the 
 Parsees and the mode of their composition. You speak more kindly 
 of my surface investigations than they probably deserve. As to the pro- 
 
1842.] WILLIAM EESKINE AND GAKCIN DE TASSY. 343 
 
 duction of Ormuzd by Zerwen, you are no doubt right. Go on and 
 enrich the world of letters, while you think chiefly of the religious 
 world and the religious benefit of the human race. 
 
 " One of the greatest difficulties with Orientals, and especially with 
 close religions like the Hindoo and Parsee, you have in a great measure 
 overcome that of making them appeal to reason and reasoning. I 
 consider their entering the field of controversy, to fight foot to foot, as 
 the great difficulty overcome. It has always hitherto been the grand ob- 
 stacle. They have rested in ignorance, regarding even doubt as criminal. 
 
 " The address of the Literary Society of Bombay does honour to 
 you and to them. I think, at its first meeting, the present Governor, 
 then Lieutenant Arthur who was with his regiment in India, was 
 made a member, on the motion of Lord Valentia then at Bombay. 
 Believe me, with much esteem, my dear Sir, yours very truly, 
 
 WM. ERSKINE." 
 
 "PARIS, 2 Juin 1844. MONSIEUR LE REVEREND. Je m'impresse 
 de vous remercier de la bonte que vous avez eue de m'envoyer un 
 exemplaire de votre admirable ouvrage sur la Religion des Parsees, qui 
 fait autant d'honneur a votre savoir qu' a votre zele pour le Christian- 
 isme. J'ai aussi regu dans le temps, le Nos. des journaux Hindoustanis, 
 que vous avez eue la bonte d' m'adresser et je vous en suis bien oblige. 
 Je recevrai de meme avec beaucoup de plaisir les 'Refutations of Muham- 
 madism' que vous avez 1'obligeance de m'annoncer. J'ai deja I' Address 
 to Mussulmans en Hindoustani, et la reponse. Je suppose que Alajji 
 Muhammad Kashmiri en est 1'auteur. Je tache de former une collec- 
 tion complette de tout ce qui a paru en Hindoustani. Si vous avez 
 1'occasion de voir Mr. W. Erskine je vous prie de lui presenter mes 
 salutations respectueuses. Je desirerais aussi etre rapped au souvenir 
 de Mr. J. Ballantyne. GARCIN DE TASSY." 
 
 "30 O'br 1844. 
 
 " MONSIEUR. J'ai bien longtemps tarde* a repondre a votre aimable 
 envoi ; mais dans le temps que votre volume m'a ete remis, mon pere 
 etait atteint d'une maladie aigue de la poitrine, laquelle 1'a enleve a 
 nos respects et & notre affection. Ce coup aussi funeste qu'imprevu 
 m'a plonge dans un decouragement profond, et sans parler des soins 
 de tous genres qui suivent, d'ordinaire dans les families unies autour 
 d'un chef venere, cette separation inevitable mais toujours cruelle, 
 je n'ai pu pendant plusieurs mois retrouver la force necessaire pour me 
 livrer a aucun exercise intellectuel. Le premier usage que j'ai fait du 
 travail a ete de lire votre ouvrage qui touche par tant de pointe a mes 
 
344 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1842. 
 
 etudes habituelles. Vous avez certainement terrasse vos adversaires et 
 vous ne leur avez laisse d'autre ressource que de s'avouer vaincus ; mais 
 il est Men a craindre qu'ils n'y aient pas recoups, tant 1'esprit est 
 rebel au sens commun. La tenacite est presqu' invincible, lorsque 
 comme chez les Parsees et les Juifs, il s'appuye sur une tradition antique, 
 et qui eut un temps sa gloire et une superiorite incontestee sur les 
 autres croyances contemporaines. Aujourd'hui le Parsesme a joue et 
 termine son role ; et n'a plus rien a faire qu' a disparaitre de la scene 
 du monde. Vous 1'econduisez victorieusement et tout le monde en'con- 
 viendra, avec une moderation qui fait le plus grand honneur a votre 
 caractere ; il est beau d'etre indulgent quand on est fort. 
 
 " Permettez moi, de vous remercier, monsieur, de la maniere bien 
 flatteuse dont vous avez ete assez bon pour placer mon nom dans votre 
 savant ouvrage, et agreez avec 1'expression de ma gratitude, celle de la 
 sincere estime avec laquelle j'ai 1'honneur d'etre, votre tres humble et 
 obeissant serviteur, EUG. BURNOUF." 
 
 "BONN, 1st of September 1845. DEAR SIR. I have had the gratifi- 
 cation of receiving the valuable present of your learned and important 
 book on the Parsee Religion, and beg to offer you my sincere thanks for 
 this token of your attention. Having devoted much time and labour 
 to the study of the Zand language and the remains of its literature, I 
 need hardly assure you that I have taken a deep interest in your discus- 
 sions with the Parsees. I trust that your labours will mainly contribute 
 to enlighten the descendants of an ancient people that at present are 
 sunk into such a deep ignorance of their religion. Believe me, dear Sir, 
 your most obliged and obedient servant, CHR. LASSEN." 
 
 On the 30th December 1842 Dr. Wilson gave in his 
 resignation of President of the Bombay Branch of the Royal 
 Asiatic Society, which he had filled for seven years. He 
 presented it with a copy of The Parsi Religion, which he 
 dedicated to its office-bearers and members in token of 
 gratitude "for the warm interest which many of them in- 
 dividually have taken in my labours to disseminate useful, 
 but more especially divine, knowledge among the natives of 
 this great country, whose present social and moral condition, 
 as. well as past history, it is one of the principal objects of 
 this Society to investigate and unfold." His letter reviewed 
 the researches of the more prominent members of the Society. 
 
1842.] RESIGNS THE CHAIR OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY. 345 
 
 He gave it also the two octavo volumes of the Vandidad 
 in Zand, with Goojaratee translation, lithographed from his 
 own MS., as containing the doctrinal standards of the Parsees, 
 two Cufic inscriptions from the south of Arabia, and other 
 works. " It is not without emotion," he wrote, " I sever this 
 link which has bound me to office with the Society." 
 
 " To The REVEREND J. WILSON, D.D., M.RA.S., 
 
 President of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. 
 
 " SIR. At a special meeting of the Bombay Branch of the Royal 
 Asiatic Society, which was yesterday convened to consider of the most 
 suitable mode of testifying the high respect which it entertains for your 
 character, and of its equally high sense of the valuable services rendered 
 by you to the Society during the seven years you have filled the office 
 of President, it was unanimously resolved that a committee be appointed 
 to draw up and present to you an Address embodying the above 
 resolution, and expressive of its deep sense of the loss which will be 
 sustained as regards many of the best interests of the Society by your 
 departure from Bombay. 
 
 "To mark the high sense entertained by the Society of your 
 eminent exertions in the cause of oriental learning and research, it was 
 on the same occasion resolved that you should be requested tp accept 
 of the office of Honorary President of this Branch of the Royal Asiatic 
 Society. It having devolved upon us to become the organ of this gratify- 
 ing communication we cannot but greatly regret our incompetency to the 
 satisfactory performance of such a task, and the great inadequacy both 
 of time and means at our disposal for entering on more than a brief 
 enumeration of those contributions in the cause of oriental literature 
 for which the Society is indebted to you the earliest of which con- 
 sists of a brief but most able and interesting review of the proceedings 
 of the Society since its institution in the year 1804, up to the end of 
 the year 1835. Your other learned productions during the same year, 
 consisted of * Refutation of Muhammadanism in Persian ; J * Observations 
 on Dr. Gibson's Notes on the Inscriptions of the Cave Temples of Junar 
 and Nasik ; ' an ' Analysis of the late Sir A. Burnes' Statistical Papers 
 on Kutch ;' and ' Notes on the Figures and Inscriptions, in an unknown 
 character, from Morab in Arabia, illustrative of the supposed connection 
 with the characters of the Phoenicians and with the ancient Alphabet 
 of Greece.' 
 
346 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1842. 
 
 " In the following year we find that the Society is indebted to 
 you for * Notes on Dr. Stevenson's paper on the Worship of Velal ; ' for 
 an account, from personal observation, of the ' Falls of the Sherawutte, 
 near Gairsoppa, in Canara ; ' also for facsimile ' Inscriptions on the Cave 
 Temples at Karli,' of which, aided by Prinsep's monumental alphabet, 
 it was reserved for your learned associate Dr. Stevenson and yourself 
 to be the firs.t decipherers ; since which period Oriental literature has 
 been further enriched by your historical account of the Beni-Israel of 
 Bombay, as presented at the annual meetings of the Society of 1838 
 and 1839 ; by your first and second 'Exposures of Hinduism ; ' by your 
 ' Statistical Accounts of the Brahmans of Bombay ; ' by your interesting 
 paper on the l Waralis and !atodes of the Northern Konkan ; ' and by 
 your numerous translations and commentaries of works connected with 
 the religion of the Parsees, ending with your comprehensive and very 
 learned work on the same subject, presented to the Society at yester- 
 day's meeting, and dedicated to the body of which you have so long 
 been the chief ornament ; upon the merits of all which contributions 
 to the antiquarian, philological, and statistical departments of literature 
 and science, we have the satisfaction of knowing that more competent 
 judges than ourselves have highly pronounced. 
 
 " Upon the occasion of your departure from this fruitful field of 
 your indefatigable labours, hastened as we lament to know it is by that 
 impairment of health inseparable from the bodily exposure and mental 
 application you have for so long a period without intermission under- 
 gone, it remains for us to notice that to your excellent and impartial 
 judgment, to your great conversancy with the details of whatever 
 subject has engaged discussion at the numerous meetings of the Society 
 which have had the benefit of your presence, and to your conciliatory 
 deportment while discharging the important and oftentimes very 
 delicate functions of the chair, is mainly to be ascribed the continued 
 welfare of the Society, and that harmony which has so long subsisted 
 among its members ; many most able productions before the public, 
 which have emanated from your pen in addition to those above 
 enumerated, evincing the unexampled degree in which you have 
 dedicated your stores of knowledge and varied attainments in further- 
 ance of the professed objects in view by such an institution. 
 
 "With claims of such a nature to the admiration and lasting 
 gratitude of the Society, resting as they do, like those of an Erskine, an 
 Elphinstone, a Malcolm, and a Kennedy, not so much on the undis- 
 puted possession of high attainments, as upon the more legitimate 
 grounds of their uniform application to the advancement of Oriental 
 
1842.] ADDEESS FROM THE ASIATIC SOCIETY. 347 
 
 literature, it was a source of the highest gratification to us to witness 
 the unanimity with which the proposition was received by so numerous 
 a meeting, that a gentleman who had done so much to uphold the 
 reputation of this branch of the Asiatic Society, should not be allowed 
 to quit the chair without a tender of the homage so justly due to his 
 great learning and acknowledged abilities, and without some special 
 mark of the estimation in which the eminent services which he has 
 rendered to the Society and to Oriental literature are held ; and 
 although any satisfaction to yourself arising from such a source must 
 fall far short of that purer gratification which you will never cease to 
 experience from the sense which has been recently manifested by other 
 large and influential bodies, both European and Native of this com- 
 munity, of the great benefits which have resulted from your exemplary 
 exertions in the great cause of religious and moral enlightenment, we 
 are willing to hope that you will not be indifferent to the value of 
 those expressions of the Society's esteem and respect which we have 
 been made the channel of so inadequately conveying to you. 
 
 " It only remains for us to solicit that you will permit the manu- 
 scripts of the Yagna and Vispard to be retained in this country, with 
 the view of their being immediately lithographed, in the same manner 
 as has been done with the Vandidad, at the expense of the Society, 
 with a view to their being placed in the principal libraries of India 
 and Europe. 
 
 " With every fervent wish for the early restoration of your health, 
 we remain, dear and honoured Sir, yours very faithfully and sincerely, 
 J. DICKINSON. K. HAKTLEY-KENNEDT. JOHN LLOYD PHILIPPS. C. 
 MOREHEAD. JOHN G. MALCOLMSON. 
 "BOMBAY, 31st December 1842." 
 
 " GENTLEMEN. The call to me to occupy the chair of the Bombay 
 Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, was so unexpected and undesired 
 by me, that nothing but my respect for the quarter in which it originated, 
 and the unanimity with which it was pressed on my attention, and the 
 belief that it might be overruled for the extension of my influence 
 among the natives of this great country, overbore the doubts about my 
 competency to discharge its duties, which my youth and inexperience, 
 and want of patronage, and limited attainments, compared with those 
 of my distinguished predecessors, suggested to my mind. That I have 
 been able so to conduct myself since I accepted that call as to escape 
 censure, I reckon a happy circumstance. That I have received the 
 approbation of the Society, and conveyed in terms so expressive of per- 
 
348 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1843. 
 
 sonal regard as those which you have chosen to employ, is most gratify- 
 ing to my feelings, notwithstanding the fact that they are greatly 
 oppressed by my consciousness of my unworthiness of the tribute 
 which you have offered. To the kind consideration, liberal indulgence, 
 and gentlemanly feeling of the members of the Society, and to the 
 support, and judicious assistance, and valuable co-operation which I 
 have uniformly received from my associates in office, we are greatly, if 
 not altogether, indebted for the harmony and goodwill and agreeable 
 fellowship which have so long characterised our meetings and con- 
 ferences. I shall never forget the profitable intercourse which I have 
 been privileged to hold at our table with the most honoured members of 
 the European community in the West of India, nor overlook my great 
 obligations to their charitable and liberal interpretation of my motives 
 and endeavours. 
 
 " That I should be associated with Major-General Vans Kennedy, 
 as an Honorary President of the Society, and thus receive a designa- 
 tion formerly limited to its illustrious founder Sir James Mackintosh, 
 I feel to be a distinction from which I cannot but naturally shrink. 
 Knowing, however, the sincerity with which this honour is offered to 
 me, and viewing it as a proof of that personal affection on which I have 
 ever laid the greatest stress, I do venture to accept it, and to look to it 
 as a demand made upon me for continued exertion in behalf of the 
 important objects which the Society is formed to promote. Wherever 
 I may be carried in divine providence, and with whatever engagements 
 I may be connected, I shall not overlook the obligation which rests 
 upon me in particular to do all in my power towards the further in- 
 vestigation and exposition of the systems of faith prevalent in this great 
 country, and the intellectual, moral, and economical condition of the 
 numerous and diversified tribes which inhabit its oceanic plains, its 
 gigantic mountains, and its exhaustless forests, and the consideration 
 of the monuments and records which testify to its past greatness and 
 illustrate its chequered history. The pursuits in connection with these 
 matters, to which, if I am spared, a sense of duty will urge me, I find 
 to be in strict harmony with, and greatly auxiliary to, the paramount 
 work which I have undertaken, of seeking the enlightenment of the 
 natives of India, their conversion to our holy religion, and their accept- 
 ance of all the privileges and blessings which, as Christians, we enjoy. 
 The great Apostle of the Gentiles, whose spirit was stirred in him 
 when he saw the city of Athens wholly given to idolatry, took his 
 text before the Areopagus from an inscription which he observed on an 
 altar, and quoted, ex concessu, a heathen poet who had set forth a funda- 
 
1843.] ELECTED HONORARY PRESIDENT. 349 
 
 mental truth. Instruction must be adapted to prevailing errors, and 
 a commencement must often be made by adverting to the remnants of 
 a pure tradition, the workings of natural conscience, and the vain 
 attempts of men destitute of revelation to solve the grand questions 
 connected with the moral administration of God, and the destiny of our 
 species. 
 
 " The manuscripts of the Yafna and Vlspa/rd to which you refer, are 
 at the disposal of the Society for the purpose you mention. Any 
 Oriental document which I may possess will be forthcoming whenever 
 a call is made upon me for its use. 
 
 " I beg you, in conclusion, respectfully to convey to the Society 
 the great gratification which I have derived from the expression of its 
 high approval, and for the channel through which it has been con- 
 veyed. For you, gentlemen, I entertain the highest regard. To 
 Colonel Dickinson's friendship, and kindest sympathy and countenance, 
 and able advice, I have been from the first greatly indebted. A more 
 worthy head the Medical Service in this Presidency could not have than 
 Dr. Kennedy, our present Physician -General, whose attainments and 
 doings in polite literature do not require to be brought to notice. In 
 my friend Mr. Philipps I observe a distinguished alumnus of our 
 English Universities, on whose forensic eloquence I had once occasion 
 to make a demand. Dr. Morehead was for some time my companion 
 in study at Edinburgh ; and happy am I to observe him here occupy 
 such an influential office as that which he now holds in connection 
 with the Government scheme for native education. Dr. Malcolmson is 
 the honour and hope of our Society as to all that pertains to the science 
 of nature in its diversified forms. The hour of my leaving the shores 
 of India has arrived, and I must bid you adieu. I am, my dear Sirs, 
 yours most respectfully and gratefully, JOHN WILSON. 
 
 " 2d January 1843." 
 
 The Parsee editors and controversialists were not soothed 
 by the publication of Dr. Wilson's book. His almost simul- 
 taneous departure gave them full scope for criticism without 
 fear, and for attack without the possibility of rejoinder. The 
 editor of the Durbin promised his readers to answer it, but in 
 his next number announced that the subject was unsuited 
 to a newspaper, and that he would speedily publish, in 
 an independent work, a long and copious reply. In his 
 edition of Dr. Hang's Essays, Dr. E. W. West correctly 
 
350 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. t 1843 - 
 
 states that " any personal ill-feeling which Dr. Wilson may 
 have occasioned by his book soon disappeared; but it was 
 many years before his habitual kindliness and conscientious 
 efforts for the improvement of the natives of India, regained 
 the confidence of the Parsees. On his death, however, in 
 1875, no one felt more deeply than the^ Dastoors themselves 
 that they had lost one of their best friends, and that in 
 his controversy with them he had only acted as his duty 
 compelled him." 
 
 The controversy, and the political, educational, and 
 social influences that preceded it, had done much to teach 
 the whole community such lessons of toleration, free dis- 
 cussion, and public virtue, as were embodied and recognised 
 in Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, who was created a baronet 
 in 1857. The day after Dr. Wilson sailed from Bombay, 
 all the worthy of the island, Native and European, united 
 to lay the foundation of the noble hospital, which bears 
 this inscription : " This Edifice was erected as a testimony 
 of devoted loyalty to the Young Queen of the British Isles, 
 and of unmingled respect for the just and paternal British 
 Government in India; also, in affectionate and patriotic 
 solicitude for the welfare of the poor classes of all races 
 among his countrymen, the British Subjects of Bombay, by 
 Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, Knight, the first Native of India 
 honoured with British Knighthood, who thus hoped to per- 
 form a pleasing duty towards his government, his country, 
 and his people : and, in solemn remembrance of blessings 
 bestowed, to present this, his offering of religious gratitude to 
 Almighty God, the Father in Heaven of the Christian, the 
 Hindoo, the Mahommedan, and the Parsee; with humble, 
 earnest prayer for His continued care and blessing upon his 
 Children, his Family, his Tribe, and his Country." 
 
CHAPTEK XL 
 
 1843. 
 
 HOME BY ADEN, CAIRO, SINAI, PETRA, HEBRON, JERUSALEM, 
 DAMASCUS, CONSTANTINOPLE AND PESTH. 
 
 Reluctant Farewell to India for a time Address from Non-Christian 
 Students Two Hindoos desire to accompany him Parsee and Abyssinian 
 Youths, his Companions Makulla and its Slave Atrocities Aden and the 
 Jews of Yemen Plans a visit to Mecca Cairo Lepsius Muhammad Ali's 
 Enlightenment Dr. Wilson's Caravan of Forty-Seven Camels Jebel Musa 
 and the true Sinai The first snow seen for fifteen years The Petra Excava- 
 tions and the Rock-Cut Temples of India Hebron and a Jewish Greeting 
 Damascus The Samaritans and their Pentateuch Jacob's Well and Dr. A. 
 Bonar's Bible Tiberias Safed The Lebanon Smyrna and Polycarp Con- 
 stantinople and St. Sophia Guest of Sir Stratford Canning Turks, Bulgarians 
 and Servians A Police Welcome to Christendom Pesth Rabbi Duncan, 
 Saphir and the Free Church Mission Interpreting the Gypsies Presburg and 
 the Prince Palatine Colonel Sykes Edinburgh at Last. 
 
" I say that the effect of our separateness will not be completed and have 
 its highest transformation unless our race takes on again the character of a 
 nationality. That is the fulfilment of the religious trust that moulded them 
 into a people, whose life made half the inspiration of the world. What is it 
 to me that the ten tribes are lost untraceably, or that multitudes of the 
 children of Judah have mixed themselves with the Gentile populations as a 
 river with rivers? Behold our people still ! Their skirts spread afar ; they 
 are torn and soiled and trodden on ; but there is a jewelled breastplate. Let 
 the wealthy men, the monarchs of commerce, the learned in all knowledge, 
 the skilful in all arts, the speakers, the political counsellors, who carry in 
 their veins the Hebrew blood which has maintained its vigour in all climates, 
 and the pliancy of the Hebrew genius for which difficulty means new device 
 let them say, ' we will lift up a standard, we will unite in a labour hard but 
 glorious like that of Moses and Ezra, a labour which shall be a worthy fruit 
 of the long anguish whereby our fathers maintained their separateness, re- 
 fusing the ease of falsehood.' They have wealth enough to redeem the soil 
 from debauched and paupered conquerors ; they have the skill of the states- 
 man to devise, the tongue of the orator to persuade. And is there no prophet 
 or poet among us to make the ears of Christian Europe tingle with shame at 
 the hideous obloquy of Christian strife which the Turk gazes at as at the 
 fighting of beasts to which he has lent an arena. There is a store of wisdom 
 among us to found a new Jewish polity, grand, simple, just, like the old a 
 republic where there is equality of protection, an equality which shone like a 
 star on the forehead of our ancient community, and gave it more than the 
 brightness of Western freedom amid the despotisms of the East. Then our 
 race shall have an organic centre, a heart and brain to watch and guide and 
 execute ; the outraged Jew shall have a defence in the court of nations, as the 
 outraged Englishman or American. And the world will gain as Israel gains. 
 For there will be a community in the van of the East which carries the 
 culture and the sympathies of every great nation in its bosom ; there will be 
 a land set for a halting-place of enmities, a neutral ground for the East as 
 Belgium is for the West." GEOEGE ELIOT : Daniel Deronda. 
 
CONTINUITY OF DR. WILSON'S WORK. 353 
 
 CHAPTEK XL 
 
 FOR fourteen years Dr. Wilson had been doing a work 
 which, in its variety, permanence, and, above all, unselfish 
 energy, had made him, while still under forty years of age, 
 the most prominent public man in Western India. Gover- 
 nors, commanders-in-chief, and judges, had come and gone 
 from Bombay. Governors-General and members of Council 
 had, one after the other, striven to leave their mark at Cal- 
 cutta on the progress of the empire politically and territori- 
 ally. The brief span of the five years' term of office, however, 
 allowed to all then as still more perniciously now, broke the 
 continuity of progress, and silently fostered that disbelief in 
 the inevitable growth and stability of British rule, the out- 
 burst of which took civilisation by surprise in 1857. But 
 Wilson, like Carey before him and Duff on the other side of 
 India, had gone on steadily mapping out the decaying fields 
 of anti-Christian and non-Christian error, and, in the exercise 
 of a faith which was strong in proportion to his own 
 labours, taking possession of them for his Master. Not with 
 him, as with successive Viceroys, Presidents of the Board of 
 Control, and occupants of the Directors' chairs, did the pen- 
 dulum swing from side to side, now violently and' again at 
 rest altogether. Coorg conquests, Afghan wars and Sindh 
 robberies, might go on ; the far-seeing philanthropy of a Ben- 
 tinck might be neutralised by the stupid reaction of an 
 Auckland, or imperilled by the meteor-like madness of an 
 Ellenborough, till massacre, debt, and unrighteousness stained 
 the annals of England as no event in her foreign history had 
 
 2 A 
 
354 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1843. 
 
 done. But the missionary, master of the literature, the lan- 
 guages, the history, and therefore the heart, of the peoples of 
 different faiths, and fired with a divine enthusiasm which no 
 policy of man however exalted can give, had laid the foun- 
 dations of the Church of Western India ; had grappled with 
 Brahmanism, Muhammadanism, and Parseeism on their chosen 
 ground; had added to his own direct work in the Konkan, 
 Poona, and Bombay, the Irish Mission in Goojarat and the 
 beginnings of the Free Church Mission in Central India and 
 Gondwana; had prepared the means of evangelising the Jews 
 and the Arabs, the Armenians and the Nestorians, the Abys- 
 sinians and the Negroes around the Arabian sea; had proved 
 as salt to the English society of his own province, and had 
 set in motion spiritual and social forces which continue to 
 work with unceasing momentum. Can we wonder that, 
 when the hour came to leave it all, though only for a time, 
 there was more than the regret which every true worker for 
 and lover of the people of India experiences, in spite of the 
 attractions of home and the pains of exile? The conviction 
 that he was only continuing his work on a wider area was 
 required to second the commands of the physicians whose 
 warnings had been long unheeded. There were showered 
 on the departing philanthropist the farewells of loving and 
 respectful admiration from public and private friends, in 
 a land where the Anglo-Indian has more than caught 
 the brotherhood-hospitality of the Oriental. Every com- 
 munity, not excepting individual Parsees, vied with the other 
 in its demonstrations, while the Government of Sir George 
 Arthur supplied letters to the authorities of the countries 
 through which the traveller wished to pass. Among many 
 others, Mr. Frere begged his distinguished uncle at Malta to 
 show him all honour. 
 
 More highly even than the address of the Asiatic Society, 
 did Dr. Wilson value that of the native and non-Christian 
 

 1843.] ADDRESS OF NON-CHRISTIAN STUDENTS. 355 
 
 students of the Institution which he had established in 1832 
 as an English school. They had again increased in number 
 from 155 in 1841 to 203, of whom 98 were Hindoos, 8 Muham- 
 madans, 28 Parsees, Israelites, and Jews, and 68 Christians, 
 while 675 boys and 479 girls attended the vernacular schools. 
 He thus wrote to Dr. Brunton of these addresses : 
 
 SEA, January 1843. The last month which I spent in 
 Bombay was one of extreme anxiety, agitation, and labour. It was not 
 without a great struggle that I could reconcile myself to the curtail- 
 ment of the operations of our Mission too feeble from the beginning. 
 The numerous tokens of private regard and public honour of which 
 I am so unworthy, which were bestowed upon me both by the natives 
 and our countrymen, made me feel that I was about to be separated 
 from friends who bear to me no ordinary attachment, and from duties 
 which were as agreeable as they were arduous. I felt that nothing 
 but the grace of God could sustain me, and I trust that this grace was 
 not withheld. At the request of the students of our own Institution I 
 send you the copy of the address which they were pleased to present 
 to me at a public meeting which they themselves called for the purpose 
 of putting it into my hands. 
 
 " It is, I hope, sufficiently qualified by my reply, and it is alto- 
 gether a genuine document, the production of the proper natives of 
 India, to the exclusion of all of European descent. How near they are 
 to genuine Christian feeling and sentiment I leave you to judge. 
 Their combination in this instance, many of them were happy to 
 observe, seemed to embolden them in the expression of their religious 
 principles, and to unite them in their desires for the continued pros- 
 perity of our seminary. It will be your prayer and that of others 
 that the Lord Himself may lead them into the knowledge, belief, and 
 practice of all truth. 
 
 " The other addresses which I have unexpectedly received are not 
 without interest in a philanthropic point of view, but I shall not 
 trouble you by thrusting them at present on your attention. I may 
 mention, however, that that from the heads of the Beni-Israel com- 
 munity indicates a strong inclination to the pursuit of the truth an 
 appreciation of the blessings of which we seek to put them in posses- 
 sion." 
 
 The first day of 1843 was Sunday, when Dr. Wilson concluded 
 
356 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1843. 
 
 his ministrations " by beseeching the little flock of converts 
 from Hindooism, Zoroastrianism, and Muhammadanism, which 
 had been gathered together through my own ministry and that of 
 my fellow-labourers, to let their conversation be as it becometh 
 the Gospel of Christ, that whether I might come and see them, 
 or else be absent, I might hear of their affairs." His own 
 countrymen present he called on " to anticipate the glorious 
 era of the moral renovation of India, when ' all the ends of 
 the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and all the 
 kindreds of the nations shall worship before Him.' " Sunset 
 of the next day saw him accompanied to the Palawa or Apollo 
 pier, and on to the deck of the East India Company's steamer 
 "Cleopatra," by a regretful crowd of Native and European 
 friends, among them Professor Westergaard who had been 
 his guest for months. In the infancy of the Overland Route, 
 before the Peninsular and Oriental Company had reduced the 
 distance between Bombay and London to twenty days soon 
 we trust to be sixteen, or at most eighteen a monthly steamer 
 was run to Aden and Suez by the Indian Navy. So late as 
 1854 the mail was only fortnightly, and the Bombay portion 
 of it was even then carried by a Company's steamer between 
 Aden and Bombay. Among the natives who lingered last on 
 the deck were two who had so far overcome Brahmanical and 
 caste prejudice as to express a desire to travel with Dr. Wilson. 
 These were Atmaram Pandurang, a Brahman gentleman who 
 is still respected as the head of the Prarthna Samaj, corre- 
 sponding to Baboo Keshub Chunder Sen's Brahmo theists ; and 
 Gunput Lukshmun, of the Prabhoo or writer caste. 
 
 Dr. Wilson had prepared for and planned his expedition 
 with a care which, in some degree, every traveller would do 
 well to show. His object was to visit Egypt, Syria, especially 
 the Holy Land and Eastern Europe, not merely for purposes 
 of scholarly and biblical research, but to report to his Church 
 on the condition of the Jews, the Samaritans, and the Eastern 
 
1843.] PREPARATIONS FOR HIS SYRIAN EXPEDITION. 357 
 
 Christians. He had accumulated and mastered a library of 
 all the early travellers in, and writers on, Syria, such as few 
 public collections possessed at that time, and much of this he 
 took with him. He had devoted himself anew to Arabic, and 
 to familiarity with that he gave up all the leisure of the fort- 
 night's voyage to Suez. Not only by letters to the Political 
 Eesidents and Consuls, but by despatching Mordecai, a Jew, 
 a month or two before him, he found information awaiting 
 him at Aden and at Cairo. The friend who was specially 
 his companion in travel, the late John Smith, Esq., of the 
 well-known mercantile firm of Messrs. Mcol and Co., had 
 also gone before him to recruit his strength by a voyage up 
 the Nile, and to prepare at Cairo the expedition for the Desert 
 and Syria. All that intelligence, foresight, and learning 
 could do, aided by willing friends, was done to perfect the 
 success of the expedition. The Church of Scotland, through 
 both the Foreign and Jewish Committees, intended it to 
 complete the inquiry carried out a few years before by Drs. 
 Keith and Black, Mr. M'Cheyne, and Dr. Andrew Bonar, the 
 present Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland. 
 
 Dr. Wilson was accompanied, first of all, by Dhunjeebhoy 
 Nourojee, whose affection and fidelity he had tested in more 
 than one of his Indian tours. It was desirable that the first 
 Parsee convert to Christianity should complete at college in 
 Scotland those eight years' studies for the office of preacher 
 which the Scottish Churches wisely demand that their minis- 
 ters may have a theological as well as literary education, and 
 which he had been pursuing in Bombay. Dr. Wilson also 
 contemplated the publication of a translation into Goojaratee 
 of his Parsi Religion, and he proposed that Dhunjeebhoy 
 should write that on the lithographic stones in Edinburgh. 
 Next came the two Abyssinian students, Gabru and Maricha, 
 who had sat at his table for nearly five years, and were now 
 returning to their native land to introduce into it the bless- 
 
358 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1843. 
 
 ings of a pure Christianity and political wisdom. They 
 parted from their spiritual father at Aden, who prayed " that 
 to their benighted countrymen they might be the instruments 
 of great spiritual good, even as Frumentius and ^Edesius, the 
 tender Tyrian youths through whom the Gospel was first 
 introduced into their native land." We shall see how effec- 
 tually, but differently from Dr. Wilson's expectations, the 
 prayer was answered. Finally, the Government Surveyor, 
 Colonel Dickinson, had recommended as draftsman a Mr. 
 O'Brien, who did his part of the mission well. 
 
 As the ' Cleopatra ' skirted the southern coast of Arabia 
 Makulla came in sight, recalling the horrors of the slave 
 trade, of which it continued to be an infamous emporium 
 till 1873. There Captain Haines had seen seven hundred 
 Nubian girls at a time, subjected in its slave-market to the 
 disgusting inspection of the Mussulman sensualist, to be 
 smuggled into the native states of Kathiawar. Off Makulla 
 it was that, a few years before, two boats laden chiefly with 
 negro children shipped from Zanzibar, had been seized by the 
 Indian Navy, and the freed youths were distributed among 
 the Christian Missions of Western India. At Aden, first of 
 our conquests in the reign of the young Queen Victoria, 
 Captain Haines, the first Governor, became Dr. Wilson's host, 
 and aided him in his census and study of the Jewish com- 
 munity. Of 19,938 inhabitants of that extinct volcano, in 
 1843, there were 590 Jews, 480 Jewesses, and 857 Europeans, 
 the last chiefly the troops of the garrison. The geological 
 structure of the vast cinder which was once forced up through 
 the limestone, so interested Dr. Wilson that, as he collected 
 specimens of zeolite, chalcedonies, obsidian and vesicular 
 lava, the simple Somalees who crowded round him declared 
 he must be searching for gold or hid treasure by magical 
 arts. His scientific conclusions were confirmed by Dr. Buist, 
 who had not long before begun his bright literary career in 
 
1843.] ADEX MECCA SUEZ CAIRO. 359 
 
 India, and whom Dr. Wilson described at that time as " one 
 of the most accomplished mineralogists and geologists in the 
 East." At Aden the president of the Asiatic Society dis- 
 cussed with Captain Haines those Himyaritic inscriptions 
 which had begun to attract the attention of the learned. To 
 complete his study of the Jews, whose settlement in Yemen 
 had taken place long before the Christian era, Dr. Wilson 
 was anxious that the steamer should stop at Jeddah on its 
 way up the Eed Sea that he might attempt to reach Mecca. 
 He had been encouraged to believe that he might report 
 on the capital of Islam in safety, by Lieutenant Christo- 
 pher, I. N"., who had been assured by its governor that a 
 European traveller quietly proceeding from the coast would 
 find no obstacle. 1 At Suez the governor showed a keen in- 
 terest in our disasters in Afghanistan, in conversation with 
 Dr. Wilson, who also was surprised when addressed in 
 excellent English by an Arab, one of the young Fellaheen 
 who had been sent by Muhammad Ali to Glasgow for edu- 
 cation, and had been there baptized. 
 
 At Cairo, after the old and not unpleasant passage of 
 the desert in vans, Dr. Wilson found the first and greatest 
 of the present dynasty of Egyptian rulers building his 
 mosque and palace on the platform of the citadel which 
 overlooks the Nile valley and the pyramids. He formed 
 a high idea of the tolerant but firm rule of the quondam 
 tobacco-seller of Eoumelia, whom perhaps in an evil 
 hour we prevented from remaining master of all Syria 
 and Arabia. The Jews, the Copts, the mission of good Mr. 
 Lieder, the mosques, the tombs, and the pyramids, absorbed 
 Dr. Wilson's attention for days. He found himself already 
 known to the small band of Egyptologists, with some of whom 
 he had corresponded. He was unanimously elected an 
 Honorary Member of the Egyptian Society. M. Linant de 
 
 1 The Lands of the Bible Visited and Described, p. 33. 
 
360 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1843. 
 
 Bellefonds, in officially communicating the fact, begged him 
 " to accept this title as the best tribute of respect which the 
 Society can offer to one so eminently distinguished as your- 
 self in Oriental researches." Dr. Wilson especially enjoyed 
 learned intercourse with the great scholar Lepsius, the head 
 of the commission sent by the King of Prussia to report on the 
 antiquities of Egypt. M. Linant, who had accompanied M. 
 Le*on de Laborde to Petra, gave him much information for his 
 journey to the same place. With Lepsius he explored the 
 pyramids and the half-disentombed sphinx. "When we 
 were there the body of a child was exhumed. The coffin had 
 upon it the cartouche of ' Psammatik ' or Psammitichus. I 
 carried part of its contents with me to Cairo, and afterwards 
 to England, without attributing any great importance to the 
 possession." He made considerable purchases of the most 
 important Arabic, Persian, and Turkish works, published by 
 Muhammad Ali's press, including the three folios of the 
 Kdmtis or Ocean, the famous Dictionary translated into 
 Turkish ; of the Persian Burhdn-i-Kdtia, in Turkish he had 
 the beautiful edition lithographed at Bombay. His account of 
 the publications and of the educational system of Egypt at that 
 time is most favourable to Muhammad Ali. The latter may be 
 contrasted with that since developed and now administered 
 by Mr. Kogers, formerly H. M. Consul at Cairo. That he 
 might have free intercourse with the native inhabitants of 
 Cairo, Dr. Wilson lodged with one Hassan Effendi, teacher of 
 geology in the Bulak Polytechnic School, who had become a 
 Christian when in England, and had married an English wife. 
 Cairo is now as much a French as it is an Oriental city, but 
 the record 1 of Dr. Wilson's experience correctly describes the 
 
 1 " To the visitor from India there is nothing at first sight very striking in 
 the interior of Cairo, except in so far as the large and dense town itself con- 
 trasts with the absolute desolation and solitude of the desert through which he 
 has just passed. His eye is accustomed to narrow, irregular, and dirty streets, 
 crowded bazaars, lofty minarets, and swelling domes, and to a people of 
 
1843.] CAIRO AS IT WAS. 361 
 
 impressions which the capital of Muhammad Ali used to 
 leave on the Anglo-Indian visitor. 
 
 From Cairo Dr. Wilson's expedition made its final start 
 on the 7th of February 1843. Consisting of nine persons 
 besides servants, and forty-seven camels, it formed an impos- 
 ing caravan. Dr. Wilson himself was unanimously installed 
 as quartermaster-general and interpreter, after the Indian 
 fashion that is, he settled arbitrarily all questions connected 
 with the route and the times of marching and halting. The 
 whole had been arranged and provisioned by the Bombay 
 merchant prince, Mr. J. Smith, who, having been already two 
 months on the Nile, relieved his companions of all care on 
 this head. Throughout he was paymaster-general, charged 
 to keep a faithful account of the expenses due by each. The 
 Eev. H. Sherlock, and Messrs. Allan and Parke, from Eng- 
 land, were their companions through the whole of the desert 
 journey. Mr. O'Brien the artist, Dhunjeebhoy, Mordecai the 
 
 varied line and romantic costume. Yet lie does soon perceive that in Cairo he 
 is not in an Indian city. Its houses he finds higher, larger, of more durable 
 material, more crowded together, and more sombre and shaded, with their 
 over-jutting upper stories, than those of Hindostan. Its bazaars and shops 
 are constructed and fitted up with far more order and taste, and better adapta- 
 tion to their object, than those in which the Wanis and Borahs dispense their 
 wares. Its men are more substantially and gracefully clothed, but less cleanly 
 in their persons, than those with whom he has been familiar in the farther 
 east. Its women he cannot at all compare with the daughters of India ; for 
 by their impenetrable and frightful veils, and shapeless mantles and robes, 
 inflated with and floating on the breeze, their face and form are alike rendered 
 invisible. The distressing grunt and heavy tread of the palkhi-bearer have 
 given way to the yelling, and poking, and lashing of the donkey-boy. The 
 gadis, buggies, and hurly-gigs of all shapes and sizes, such as are seen in 
 Bombay, are so completely wanting, that whole days may pass without his 
 seeing a single wheeled vehicle. The streets in fact are so narrow that most 
 of them do not permit a carriage even of the smallest dimensions to pass along. 
 The courtesy and sycophancy of the multitude have entirely disappeared. 
 Though he is not now insulted on the highways as before the days of Muhammad 
 Ali he would not have failed to be, he sees none of that deference shown to him 
 in public which he experiences in India, where the submissive and peaceable 
 Hindoo hails him as at once his lord and benefactor." 
 
362 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1843. 
 
 Jew, and his little son Abraham, completed the party. 
 Abdool Futteh, known in Arabia as the " man of the con- 
 vent," from his frequent visits to the abodes of the monks, 
 and valued by Colonel Howard Vyse, was Dr. Wilson's ser- 
 vant. Mr. J. Smith engaged Waters, an educated African 
 who had come from Bombay. The others secured the services 
 of two assistants, one of whom was Ibraheem, once employed 
 by Dr. Eobinson in his Biblical Researches, and again by the 
 Scottish Mission. 
 
 Tor the first stage, by the Derb El-Basatin and the 
 " valley of the wanderings " to Sinai, the party had engaged, 
 as its guide and protector, Mateir, sheikh of the same 
 Aleikat branch of the Tawarah Arabs who had helped 
 Mebuhr in his explorations in stony Arabia. Guided by local 
 traditions Dr. Wilson sought to trace the route of the Israelites 
 from the Nile to the Gulf of Suez, by a track which he 
 believed to harmonise more easily with the narrative of the 
 Exodus than that followed by other travellers. The inscrip- 
 tions in the Wadi Mukatteb, or valley of the writings, had 
 for him a peculiar interest. He examined the exhausted 
 Pharaonic mines to the northward, and visited Wadi Feiran, 
 "the most beautiful valley in the wilderness, in which the 
 Christianity of the Arabian desert long found a refuge." A 
 careful study of the whole Jebel Musa range led him to hold 
 by the traditional peak as the very " heaven " from which 
 God " talked " with men, in opposition to that of Sufsafah, 
 which Dr. Eobinson, and the Ordnance Survey recently, con- 
 sider to have been the spot where the Lord descended in fire 
 and proclaimed the Law. The publication of the late Dr. 
 Beke's theory, 1 first propounded by him in 1834, that the 
 land of bondage was a separate kingdom, stretching from the 
 east of the Isthmus of Suez to Philistia, and that the real 
 Sinai is what he calls Jebel el Nur, in the land of Midian, at 
 the head of the Gulf of Akaba, gives a new interest to a vexed 
 
 1 Sinai in Arabia, 1878. 
 
1843.] ON SINAI ON MOUNT HOR AT PETRA. 363 
 
 question, on which Captain Burton's expedition of this year 
 may throw some light. To a careful examination of both 
 Musa and Sufsafah Mr. J. Smith specially devoted himself. 
 From the top of Musa he ran down to the chapel of Elijah in 
 twelve minutes, and in three-quarters of an hour scrambled 
 up to the top of Sufsafah, climbing the pinnacle on all fours 
 in a serpentine line. He and the Musa party could distinctly 
 hear the call of one another, being at a distance of not more 
 than one geographical mile. The top of Musa was found covered 
 in some places with snow, which Dr. Wilson had not seen since 
 he left the Lammermoors fifteen years before, and the Parsee, 
 Dhunjeebhoy beheld and tasted for the first time. 
 
 From this point the party crossed the Tih range into the 
 desert, along the course of Jabal Ajmeh to the Ghadir al Guf. 
 Three of the party went on to Hebron, while Dr. Wilson and 
 Mr. J. Smith made a new arrangement with the Badaween to 
 march to Petra. Having managed, without opposition, to 
 ascend Mount Hor and examine the tomb of Aaron, they 
 "descended into the fearful chasm of Petra by moonlight, 
 and we there found our humble tents and servants ready for 
 our reception." After a quotation from The Lands of the 
 Bible, contrasting the rock-cut temples of India with the 
 excavations of Petra, we must send our readers to that elabo- 
 rate book in the preparation of which Dr. Wilson spent all 
 his home leisure up to May 1847, when it was published in 
 Edinburgh in two volumes and turn to his letters to India 
 for a summary of the rest of the tour. That work, dedi- 
 cated to Dr. Chalmers who showed a keen interest in its 
 preparation, has still a special value in the literature of travel 
 in Bible lands for four reasons : It records the impressions of 
 a learned and observant traveller who approached Syria from 
 the East with a knowledge of many Oriental languages and 
 peoples. It describes several places not previously visited by 
 Europeans. It devotes careful attention to all tribes of 
 
843. 
 
 364 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [18 
 
 Jewish descent or faith, from the Beni-Israel of Bombay and 
 the White and Black Jews of Southern India, to Yemen, 
 Cairo, and Syria. 1 And the work is, to this day, the highest 
 authority on many points relating to the Eastern Christian 
 Churches and communities, and should be studied in the 
 light of the great Turkish collapse and Russian extension. 
 Dr. Wilson had undertaken the duty of meeting two Presby- 
 
 1 The Arabian Jews in Bombay thus introduced Dr. Wilson to their 
 "brethren of the house of Israel in the four districts Jerusalem, Tsaphatli 
 (Safed), Hebron, and Taberiah (Tiberias)," after a page of Oriental compli- 
 ments : " ' We make known to your reverences that there goes from among 
 us one who is of the men of the English, and who is of the city of Bombay. 
 May it stand for ever ! And he is a great man, and his name is Padre JOHX 
 WILSON. He is highly counted of, and of generous heart. He desires to go 
 to the four districts to perform the pilgrimage. We entreat of you that your 
 reverences may do him honour in every place where the sole of his foot may 
 tread. This will hallow the name of the Lord. For he loveth Israel, and is 
 generous with his property, and showeth kindness to all Israel. Whatever 
 act of kindness you will do to him we shall consider as if it had been done 
 to ourselves. This is sufficient for the intelligent. And in this manner may 
 the height of the throne of their reverences be lifted up and exalted. As the 
 thrones of kings rnay their greatness be multiplied both in their courts and 
 palaces. May the Lord bless their portion, and be pleased with the work of 
 their hands as with a burnt-offering, a sweet smelling savour to the Lord. 
 The upright shall dwell rejoicing, and being glad, safe in their imaginings. 
 Let their tents prosper. [Let them be like] myrrh and aloes, and like 
 gardens by a river like tents that the Lord hath planted like pleasant 
 plants. Let there be strength and pleasure in all their borders. Ye shall 
 dwell safely in your land. The Lord God of recompenses shall requite. May 
 goodness be multiplied upon the house of Israel ! . . . . Written in the 
 city of Bombay on the fourth of the month Tebeth, in the year : ' He shall 
 blow with the great trumpet because the Lord will save his people Israel.' 
 (IT1J 5603.') (Here follow the signatures.) On this grave production having 
 been read, the venerable and learned rabbis handed it round from one to 
 another, renewed their salutations, and kindly inquired for the elders of the 
 congregation of Bombay whose signature it bears. The Hakim then told me 
 that he was extremely happy that I had come to visit the afflicted Jews in 
 their own land, and cordially thanked me for all the kindness which I had 
 shown to the afflicted Jews of India, of which, he said, he had before heard 
 from the Shelohim, who had been sent from Hebron to collect alms for their 
 relief in that country. Eabbi Moshe, one of these messengers, whom I had 
 seen in Bombay, upon this rose and shook hands with us, according to the 
 customs of Europe." 
 
1843.] EXCAVATIONS OF PETRA AND INDIA CONTRASTED. 365 
 
 terian missionaries to the Jews, Mr. now Dr. Graham, and 
 Mr. Allan ; and it will be seen that with them he fixed on 
 Damascus as the centre of their labours. 
 
 " As efforts of architectural skill the excavations of Petra undoubt- 
 edly excel those of the Hindoos, which they also exceed in point of 
 general extent, if we except the wonderful works at Verula or Elora. 
 In individual magnitude they fall short of many of the cave temples, 
 collegiate halls, and monastic cells of the farther East. Their interest, 
 too, is wholly exterior; while that of those of India, with the excep- 
 tion of the great Brahmanical temple of Kailds, and the porticos of the 
 Buddhist Vihars of Sashtl and Karli, is principally in the multitudi- 
 nous decorations and fixtures, and gigantic mythological figures of the 
 interior. The sculptures and excavations of Petra have been principally 
 made by individuals, in their private capacity, for private purposes, and 
 the comparatively limited amount of workmanship about them has 
 permitted this to be the case ; while most of those of India, intended 
 for public purposes, and requiring an enormous expenditure of labour 
 and wealth, have mostly been begun and finished by sovereign princes 
 and religious communities. At Petra we have principally the beauty 
 of art applied often legitimately to subdue the terrors of nature in 
 perhaps the most singular locality on the face of the globe, and the 
 cunning of life stamping its own similitude on the mouth of the grave, 
 to conceal its loathsomeness; but in India we have debasing super- 
 stition enshrining itself in gloom, and darkness, and mystery, in order 
 to overawe its votaries, and to secure their reverence and prostration. 
 The moralist, on looking into the empty vaults and tombs of Idumea, 
 and seeing that the very names of ' the kings and counsellors of the 
 earth which constructed these desolate places for themselves ' are 
 forgotten, exclaims, ' They are destroyed from morning to evening ; 
 they perish for ever without any regarding it. Doth not their excel- 
 lency in them go away ? they die even without wisdom.' In entering 
 into the dreary and decaying temples and shrines of India, he thinks 
 of that day when ' a man shall cast his idols of silver and his idols of 
 gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles 
 and to the bats ; to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of 
 the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord and for the glory of His majesty, 
 when He ariseth to shake terribly the earth.' " 
 
 " BEYRUT, 30th June. The Lord has greatly prospered me both in 
 my researches and labours in the Holy Land and Syria. I have an 
 outline of our movements preparing for the youth of our Institution. 
 
366 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1843. 
 
 We have fixed on Damascus as the head-quarters of the Presbyterian 
 mission. It is within the bounds of the Holy Land as drawn by 
 Ezekiel and Zechariah. It has a Jewish population of 5000 souls, 
 many of whom gave us a most cordial welcome. Other places are 
 either already occupied by missionaries or are unsuitable as stations. 
 The Jewish ladies at Damascus say that our ladies must be ' their 
 sisters.' My Oriental dress is that of a Badawee Shaikh, but I seldom 
 wear it. The word England is the grand passport both in the wilder- 
 ness and in the city. Through its might, or rather through the 
 gracious protection of the Lord of hosts, Mr. Graham and I passed 
 about three weeks ago through an encampment of the Badaween, 
 extending over a space of 30,000 camels, after the Turkish authorities 
 at the Jisr Banat Yakab had declared that we should be certainly 
 robbed or destroyed. The appearance of these Badaween, within a 
 day's march of Damascus, has greatly frightened the Pasha there. They 
 are from the great Bariah. They brought vividly to our mind the 
 promise, ' The multitude of camels shall cover thee,' etc. You may 
 
 tell that is quite full of the project of having a mission 
 
 established among them and the other Ishmaelitish tribes. 
 
 " I have been very busy since our return from Coele Syria in 
 putting my notes into order. I have gone over all my Arabic collec- 
 tions with a learned man here. I have interesting material for a large 
 volume. The Armenians everywhere are in a most hopeful state. I 
 have been greatly delighted with what I have seen of them." 
 
 " BEYRUT, May 4. At the commencement of last month I for- 
 warded to you a few lines from Jerusalem. I omitted to mention in 
 them that, with my fellow-traveller, Mr. Smith and I had made a 
 short excursion from the Holy City to Jericho, the Jordan, and the 
 Dead Sea. It afforded us much personal gratification, as well as an 
 opportunity of comparing the present appearance of these and other 
 interesting localities with the sacred narrative, and of making such 
 observations connected with the geography and geology of the country 
 as will enable us, when they are compared with our notes on the Wadi 
 Arabia to the south of the Dead Sea, to hazard an opinion respecting 
 different theories which have been advanced upon the destination of 
 the Jordan previous to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Since 
 leaving Jerusalem we have more than completed the inland tour of 
 the Holy Land. Every step of our progress has been attended with 
 the most solemn and hallowed associations, and almost inexpressible 
 interest. 
 
 " At Nablus or Shechem, we took up our abode with the remnant 
 
1843.] THE SAMAEITANS JACOB'S WELL. 367 
 
 of the Samaritans, which is now reduced to one hundred and fifty souls ; 
 and we received from them much useful information respecting their 
 belief and religious rites and ceremonies. The old priest showed us 
 not only the ancient manuscripts of the Pentateuch, which he is accus- 
 tomed to exhibit to travellers, but that which is reckoned to be of the 
 highest antiquity, and which he declared had only once been previously 
 unfolded before the eyes of the Goim. His eldest son walked with us 
 to the summit of Mount Gerizim, and pointed out to us all its loca 
 sancta agreeably to the traditions of his sect. An assembly of all the 
 male adults and of most of the youth convened to meet us. We 
 examined them respecting the views entertained of the Messiah. It 
 was urged by them that the Shiloh of Genesis xlix. 10, was Solomon, 
 to whom all nations either yielded obedience or reverence, and after 
 whose reign the sceptre immediately departed from Judah ; and that it 
 is of Joseph that there is to spring the Messiah, ' the shepherd, the 
 stone of Israel.' The son of the priest was much more candid than 
 the father in admitting the force of objections to their method of inter- 
 preting the books of Moses ; and I am far mistaken if he is not con- 
 vinced that his people are involved in gross error. As the Samaritans 
 have preserved the ancient Hebrew character, and have never used the 
 Masoretic points, I was particularly anxious to learn from them their 
 method of reading Hebrew, which, as far as I am aware, has never 
 been inquired into in modern times ; and I carefully noted the peculi- 
 arities of their pronunciation, which does not essentially differ from 
 that of the Hebrew Chair of the University of Edinburgh. They are 
 preparing a letter to the Beni-Israel of Bombay, respecting whom they 
 were most minute in their inquiries ; and one of themselves has most 
 strenuously urged me to take him to England, along with his copy of 
 the Pentateuch. I doubt whether he will be permitted to leave his 
 native place. He is an individual of great enterprise ; and, attached to 
 a rope and with a candle in his hand, he descended, under our direc- 
 tion and with our assistance, into Jacob's Well, and recovered from it 
 all that remains of Mr. Bonar's Bible which was dropped into it nearly 
 four years ago. We had a fire kindled in the well, the particular 
 examination of which was the object of our visit to it, and we had it 
 thus lighted throughout. It is exactly seventy-five feet deep, and about 
 three yards in diameter. It is cut out of the solid rock, and has marks 
 about it of the highest antiquity. I have no doubt that it is the well 
 of which the Patriarch drank, and his children, and his cattle ; and at 
 which our Lord held his remarkable interview with the woman of 
 Samaria. 
 
368 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1843. 
 
 " Sebaste, we could not but notice in common with all travellers, 
 to be now merely ' a heap of the field/ and ' as plantings of a vine- 
 yard,' with its stones ' poured down into the valley/ and its ' founda- 
 tions discovered/ according to the precise words of prophecy. Our 
 first day's march beyond it brought us to the great plain of Esdraelon, 
 in which we visited the site of Jezreel, and of several other towns 
 mentioned in the Bible. In the stillness and seclusion of Nazareth we 
 spent a memorable Sabbath. From the top of Mount Tabor we enjoyed 
 a most glorious prospect. We travelled along the peaceful shores of 
 the Sea of Galilee, from its southern to its northern extremity. With 
 the Jews at Tiberias, as elsewhere, we had the freest intercourse ; and 
 on the recommendation of the Bombay Jews they were not slow to 
 assemble together on our account. I have no hesitation in saying that 
 they are the most deeply skilled in Hebrew literature of any of the 
 descendants of Abraham with whom I have yet met. As far as 
 personal attainments go they aim at preserving the renown of their 
 predecessors. The town in which they reside is still in a sad state of 
 filth and dilapidation, having not yet recovered the effects of the 
 dreadful earthquake of 1837 ; and with its broken walls it is not con- 
 sidered by its inmates as secure from the depredations of the Arabs. 
 On the borders of its lake we saw a few houses at Mejdal, the village 
 of Mary Magdalene ; but the woe has been fearfully executed against 
 Bethsaida, Chorazin, and Capernaum. Though they were exalted to 
 heaven they have been brought down to hell ; and, like others, we 
 failed to identify their sites, 'though we discovered several ruins which 
 may correspond with them. 
 
 " From Tiberias we ascended to Safed, which is scarcely a day's 
 journey distant. This place is reckoned by the Jews the fourth of 
 their holy cities; and it is expected by them that the Messiah will be 
 manifested there, or at Tiberias, before he reigns in Jerusalem, accord- 
 ing to the interpretation which they make of Isaiah ix. 2. We lodged 
 with Rabbi Samuel, who had visited Bombay a few years ago ; but the 
 chief rabbi was much inclined to demand us as his guests. Like the 
 Jews in other places who occupy his office, he has the complete civil 
 control of those who are placed under his authority a power which 
 he may easily wield to the detriment of religious inquiry, especially in 
 a place where he can take cognisance of the movements of every indi- 
 vidual. There is a considerable body of Mussulmans at Safed, but 
 there are no Christians. 
 
 " Leaving Safed we crossed the mountains to the Huleh, the 
 northern lake of the Jordan, which we carefully examined. We then 
 
1843.] THE JORDAN LEBANON JERUSALEM. 369 
 
 traced the river to all its sources. Near one of them we discovered 
 the site of Dan, respecting the precise situation of which some doubte 
 which we believe we are able to solve are entertained by modern 
 travellers. The stream of the Jordan here suddenly emerges from the 
 ground as a considerable river. Another of the sources, still larger, is 
 at a natural grotto at the base of Mount Hermon, dedicated in several 
 Greek inscriptions to the god Pan, from whom the neighbouring town 
 of Banias, the Cesarea Philippi of the New Testament, takes its name. 
 The most distant, but not the most copious source, to which we also 
 repaired, is at Hasbaryah, among the mountains of Lebanon. At this 
 beautiful town we found a small colony of the Jews, as we had been 
 led to expect from representations made to us at Safed, and we spent 
 with them a Sabbath. The Druzes and Christians of the place came 
 to visit us in great numbers, and we made a liberal distribution among 
 them of books in Arabic. They told us that upwards of a hundred of 
 their number are ready to become Bratistdnti (Protestant) as soon as 
 they can get protection. This is probably owing to the influence of 
 the labours of the excellent American missionaries resident at the 
 place from which I address you. From Hasbaryah our journey across 
 that ' goodly mountain' Lebanon to Beyrut occupied us three days. 
 At Der-al-Kamar, the capital of Lebanon, we found a Jewish society 
 of above one hundred and fifty souls." 
 
 Dr. Wilson paid two visits to Jerusalem, of sixteen days 
 together. Here, as wherever he went, his letters to the 
 British Consuls from the Governor of Bombay opened to 
 him every circle. With Mr. Finn, then our Consul at 
 Jerusalem, he began an intercourse which was long fruitful 
 in good to the Jews of the Holy Land. He was made an 
 honorary member of the Jerusalem Literary Society on its 
 institution a few years after. Very close and beneficial to 
 both was his intimacy with the American missionaries, who 
 have done and are doing so noble a work all over the Turkish 
 dominion. On the 30th June he and Dhunjeebhoy left 
 Beyrut for Constantinople by Smyrna, where, in quarantine, 
 he preached of the church and of Polycarp, and beguiled the 
 week in studying modern Greek. During a fortnight's 
 residence at Constantinople he continued his researches 
 regarding the Eastern Christians, and the Jewish community 
 
 2B 
 
370 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1843. 
 
 among whom Mr. Schwartz was the Free Church missionary. 
 To its first fruits, two converts from Judaism, he "simply 
 administered the ordinance of baptism, and pronounced the 
 benediction through the medium of Hebrew." On a visit to 
 St. Sophia he was allowed to walk through the mosque with 
 his boots on and without a covering, though challenged by 
 one of the Moolahs, four words in Persian " but they are 
 clean" sufficing to stop opposition. In truth he was under 
 the auspices of the British embassy, being for a time the 
 guest of Sir Stratford Canning at Buyukdereh. Among the 
 foreign diplomatists, he wrote, even at that time, the now 
 venerable Lord Stratford de Kedcliffe "was allowed to be 
 the foremost for ability, influence, and philanthropy. His 
 attache's, among whom was a young nobleman, the name of 
 whose house, that of Napier, is indissolubly associated with 
 the science and literature of Scotland, commanded much 
 respect." There Dr. Wilson received letters from Professor 
 Westergaard, detailing his visit to the Gabars of Persia, the 
 tombs of Darius and Xerxes, and other antiquities. At 
 Buyukdereh he joined the Austrian steamer for Yarna and 
 Constandjeh, whence, in transit- vans to Czernavoda for the 
 river steamer, the course lay up the Danube to Pesth in 
 those pre-railway days. At Eustchuk "we observed horses 
 drawing carts, a sight to Dhunjeebhoy entirely novel, and which 
 I myself had last seen at the Cape of Good Hope fifteen years 
 ago." Turks and Bulgarians alike repelled the observer by 
 their ignorance and filth; Servia was pronounced "the smallest 
 State of Turkey in Europe, but the most advanced in enlighten- 
 ment and civilisation." 
 
 " 1 4th August 1843. At noon we were as far as Cladova, where 
 the Danube makes its exit from the Carpathian mountains, through 
 the passage which it has cut for itself "by the might of its waters, as 
 the great drain of central Europe. Here we landed, and walked along 
 the right bank of the river, while the steamer was being dragged up 
 the rapids by oxen. We had a delightful romp of it along the 
 
1843.] HIS RETURN TO CHRISTENDOM. 371 
 
 mountainous Pass ; and I had the satisfaction of pointing out to my 
 Parsee friend from the far East the different bushes and trees of the 
 European jungle clothing the precipitous bank the hazel, the brier, 
 the willow, and the beech, all of which was entirely new to him, and 
 of directing his attention to the remains of the great road constructed 
 of old by the Romans, and which formed one of their grandest and 
 most useful works. We crossed over to Orsova, after a three hours' 
 walk ; and we were welcomed to Christendom, after having passed 
 through the empire of Muhammadanism from the straits of Bab el- 
 Mandeb to the rapids of the Iron Bar, by being put into durance vile, 
 under the farcical name of sanatory guardianship. Our restraint 
 lasted, however, only for a few hours ; and it soon became evident 
 that it was intended more for political than medical objects. When 
 the examination of our passports showed that I was no fugitive Italian 
 outlaw, but a person recognised as a sober subject by a respectable 
 Government, and that Dhunjeebhoy was not the pioneer of some horde 
 of barbarians from the plains of central Asia, seeking fresh and green 
 pasturage for their flocks and herds in the parching months of summer ; 
 and when our deposition had been taken as to the contents of our 
 boxes, and all our books, with the exception of a Bible, a Medical 
 Dictionary, and a volume of German Dialogues which last work we 
 had much need of studying had, as was thought, been put by seal 
 and signet alike beyond our use and that of the public, till their in- 
 spection by the censor at Vienna, eager to peruse a chapter or two of 
 Rabbi Saadi Gaon's dim manuscript of the Pentateuch, or to peep into 
 the secrets of a Samaritan marriage covenant, and above all to have 
 the satisfaction of repeating, in the original Zand, a Parsee Nirang for 
 the expulsion of the devil Nesosh from a putrid corpse, we were set at 
 liberty. On this occasion Dhunjeebhoy was, as a matter of course, 
 raised to the rank of an Indian prince, and I degraded to that of his 
 dragoman or valet, by the intelligent and observant police." 
 
 " PESTH, Sabbath, 20/i August. We were conducted by a young 
 friend, on the look-out for us, to the house of the Rev. Dr. John 
 Duncan, now Professor of Oriental Languages in the New College of 
 Edinburgh, and his associates Messrs. Smith and Wingate, in which 
 we got a most cordial and affectionate welcome. We stayed with our 
 friends till the end of the month, enjoying most delightful fellowship, 
 and witnessing the result of their endeavours to bring the lost sheep 
 of the house of Israel to the fold of the Good Shepherd. We found 
 with them, what we so much wished to see in the different regions 
 through which we had passed in the East, a living Christianity shed- 
 
372 LIFE OF JOHN WILSOX. [1843. 
 
 ding its light and love around it, to the enlightenment and quickening, 
 by the blessing of the Holy Spirit, of the souls both of Jews and 
 Gentiles. Our Scottish friends had been there resident only for a few 
 years, and they had been instrumental in the instruction and conver- 
 sion of upwards of a score of individuals belonging to the Jewish 
 community, including Mr. Saphir, a person of excellent education and 
 extensive influence, and all the members of his family, male and female, 
 old and young. All this had occurred without the usual appliances 
 and machinery of modern missions, in connexion with the school, the 
 press, and the pulpit, to which the circumstances of the country did 
 not permit a resort, and simply by earnest conference, conversation, and 
 occasional addresses and devotional exercises, animated by sincere piety, 
 illustrated by distinguished biblical learning, and impressed by a holy 
 walk and conversation. As the missionaries had not, and sought not, 
 any personal standing in the country, the converts had been received 
 into the communion of the Reformed Church of Hungary, the creed of 
 which, as embodied in the Helvetic Confession, is quite accordant with 
 that of the Protestant Churches of Britain, and especially of those of 
 the north of the island, approved by the Presbyterian missionaries 
 themselves, already the agents of the Free Church of Scotland. 
 
 The formation of the Mission at Pesth was entirely owing to pro- 
 vidential circumstances, and the information obtained respecting the 
 numbers of the Jews there resident, and the prospect of openings of 
 usefulness among them, by the Rev. Dr. Keith, on his return from his 
 first journey to the Holy Land, and when arrested there for a season 
 by the hand of affliction. Dr, Duncan, its first missionary, was 
 wondrously qualified, both by his high character and extensive scholar- 
 ship, especially in scriptural and rabbinical literature, to lay its 
 foundations ; and he was peculiarly favoured in having the co-operation 
 and assistance of men of such Christian ardour, devotedness, and talent, 
 as Messrs. Smith and Wingate, its younger members. Mr. Smith, like 
 Dr. Duncan, had been ordained in Scotland ; but Mr. Wingate had 
 been acting with them merely as a lay-associate. On our arrival, three 
 of us Scottish ministers, providentially meeting together, formed our- 
 selves into a presbytery for the time being, and after the usual trials 
 of his qualifications preparatory to his receiving the concurrence and 
 appointment of the Church, and with the fullest conviction of his call 
 to the service of Christ, set him apart by prayer and the laying on of 
 hands, to the office of the holy ministry, though not to the pastorate of 
 those gathered around him and his colleagues. 
 
 "From several of the inhabitants of Pesth we received much 
 
1843.] PESTH BUDA PRESBURG THE GYPSIES. 373 
 
 kindness during our short residence there. Tasner Antal, the secretary 
 and friend of the eminently patriotic and liberal nobleman the Count 
 Szechenyi, gave us much of his time, and effectively aided us in all the 
 inquiries in which we sought to engage. He is a gentleman of high 
 literary attainments ; and some of the institutions of the place have 
 originated in his public spirit. We were much interested in a meeting 
 of the Hungarian National Literary Society -which has a considerable 
 body of active members to which he introduced us. The language 
 of the Gypsies some of whom, attending the fair at Pesth, he had 
 previously brought to us for examination to Dr. Duncan's was on that 
 occasion one of the subjects of our conversation. It was known to all 
 present that that language is of Indian origin ; but direct testimony on 
 the subject was received with much interest. The governor of Tran- 
 sylvania, who was in the chair, invited us to visit him, that we might 
 see some of these wanderers in his province, but our time did not 
 permit us to accept his invitation. Reference was made to the death 
 in the East of their distinguished member, Korose Csoma Sandor, who 
 had there wandered far and wide in the fruitless search for the parent 
 stock of the Magyars, and traces of their language ; to his unrivalled 
 acquisitions connected with the literature and religion of the Buddhists ; 
 to his Tibetan grammar and dictionary ; and to the kindness which he 
 had experienced from the Asiatic Society and the Government in India. 
 Mr. Kiss, one of the members resident at Buda, a day or two after the 
 meeting, exhibited to us his collection of ancient coins and medals, 
 which is rich in the Asiatic department. 
 
 " More than one gracious invitation reached us from the palace at 
 Buda, the residence of distinguished goodness as well as greatness. On 
 one occasion, Dhunjeebhoy and I appeared there, by particular request, 
 in our oriental costume, to the great amusement of the young princes 
 and princesses. We bade adieu to Pesth on the 31st of August. 
 Next morning we arrived at Presburg, where the Diet of Hungary was 
 holding its Sessions. In the evening we were presented to his 
 Imperial Highness the Archduke Joseph, the Prince Palatine of 
 Hungary. He conversed with us in Latin, the language which he was 
 accustomed to use while presiding over the Diet, and put many ques- 
 tions to us respecting India and the Holy Land, and other countries of 
 the East, with which, it was evident, he had a very extensive and 
 accurate acquaintance, as far as both their sacred and profane history 
 and geography are concerned. He expressed the warm interest which 
 he felt in the progress which Christianity is making in different regions 
 of the earth, and congratulated Dhunjeebhoy on his embracement of the 
 
374 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1843. 
 
 truth. He also spoke in high terms of our friends at Pesth, and of 
 what he had heard of their prudent procedure. He entrusted me with 
 a message to their constitutents in Scotland. We formed a high 
 opinion of his intellectual powers and moral feeling, of which his 
 countenance and demeanour, as well as language, were the expression. 
 
 " Our onward journey to Britain, included in Germany, Vienna, 
 Linz, Ischl, Salzburg, Munich, Augsburg, Stuttgardt, and Carlsruhe. 
 When we got upon the Rhine we were almost at home among the 
 number of countrymen whom we met on board the steamer. Among 
 these was a distinguished officer of the Bombay Presidency, who has 
 reflected the highest honour upon it by his literary and scientific efforts 
 and antiquarian research, and by his wise and liberal counsels in the 
 governing body of India Colonel Sykes. We stopped with him and 
 his family a night at Mayence, to talk over matters connected with the 
 distant East. From Mayence we went to England by Cologne and 
 Antwerp. We arrived in London on the 23d of September, and in 
 the capital of Scotland on the 4th of November, in my case, after an. 
 absence of fifteen years from my native land, and a journey of nine 
 months from my adopted home in India. You can imagine the 
 emotions which I experienced, when, after the perils and vicissitudes of 
 a long residence and labour in foreign climes, and a pilgrimage through 
 many lands, both holy and unholy, I found my journeyings for a season 
 brought to a close at the home of Christian affection and love. Only 
 the language of inspiration, as in the hundred and seventh Psalm, can 
 form their expression." 
 
 " Any news about the Church of Scotland," had been his 
 first question to the boatmen who rowed him ashore at 
 Dover. "They're all out, Sir," was the reply, which Dr. 
 Wilson often afterwards quoted, adding " My mind was made 
 up. I would have gone out although I had had only half-a- 
 dozen associates." 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 1843-1846. 
 THE MISSIONARY SIDE OF 1843. 
 
 Scotland's Solution of the Church and State Difficulty India outside of 
 Party Strife Dr. Brunton writes to the Missionaries The Unanimous 
 Response of all Evangelical Anglo-Indians An Equitable Settlement of the 
 Mission Property Refused Dr. Wilson in Jerusalem Joins the Church of 
 Scotland Free Letters to Robert Nesbit, Dr. Brunton, and Dr. Gordon 
 General Assembly at Glasgow Dr. Wilson's Address Cotton Mather's Pre- 
 diction fulfilled First educated Brahman baptised at Bombay First Caste 
 Expiation Epistle from American Presbytery of North India Establish- 
 ment of the Nagpore Mission Stephen Hislop Sir Donald M'Leod, his 
 Correspondence with Dr. Wilson Kaffrarian Mission transferred to Free 
 Church Dr. Wilson at Oxford At the May Meetings of 1844, and the 
 Inverness Assembly Medical Missions Speech on Turkish Atrocities 
 Indignant Plea for Dhunjeebhoy's Ordination The Ideal of a Missionary 
 Church General Assembly's Farewell. 
 
" I love the Kirk with ages hoar; 
 I love old ways, but CHRIST far more ; 
 I love the fold, I love the flock, 
 But more my Shepherd and my Rock, 
 
 And the great Book of grace 
 
 That mirrors His dear face. 
 
 " sweet the story and the psalm, 
 And prophecy is healing balm, 
 Like virgin-comb apostle's lips, 
 Like fate the grand Apocalypse ; 
 But sweet, above all other, 
 Thou Saviour, Friend, and Brother." 
 
 Dr. WALTER SMITH : The Bishop's Walk. 
 
 " It was in the month of May 1843 that the Established Church of Scot- 
 land was rent in twain by the secession of those who formed themselves into 
 the Free Church. However anxious to avoid polemical matter, it would be 
 wrong not to state what Lord Jeffrey's opinion was, since he had a very decided 
 one, on this the greatest event that had occurred in Scotland since the Rebellion 
 in 1745, if not since the Union. . . . His view was, that, in theory and 
 while matters are all open, every pretence of exclusive ecclesiastical juris- 
 diction is to be received with distrust and alarm; but that the Church of 
 Scotland, which had owed its existence to its defiance of the civil supremacy 
 that had been claimed by the Stewarts, had been revived when the Stewarts 
 were put down, as it had been originally founded on the very principle of its 
 independence in spiritual matters ; that in the modern conflict it was demand- 
 ing nothing but what had immemorially been assumed in practice, and even 
 in judicial practice, to be its right ; that instead of implying ecclesiastical 
 tyranny, the system had worked so well that there never was a Church better 
 fitted for the people, or to which the people were more attached ; that though, 
 as usual in such collisions, there were faults and extravagances on both sides, 
 the dispute might have been adjusted if Government had interfered under a 
 due intelligence of the danger ; but that, deluded by the error that this was 
 not a question with the people, but only with a few restless priests, and 
 alarmed for English consequences, and smiling at the idea of clergymen 
 renouncing livings, it virtually abdicated its authority, and never put itself 
 into the state of mind necessary for averting a danger which it was assured 
 did not exist ; that the calamity might have been almost avoided by the mere 
 concessions that were made to the people after it had occurred ; that the 
 Church, as expounded, being a thing that they had never understood it to be, 
 honest men who held this opinion could do nothing but leave it ; that the 
 heroism with which this was done made him 'proud of his country ;' and that 
 the magnificent sacrifices by which, year after year, the secession had been 
 followed, showed the strong sincerity and the genuine Scotticism of the prin- 
 ciples on which the movement had depended. " 
 
 LORD COCKBURN'S Life of Lord Jeffrey. 
 
1843.] SPIRITUAL HEROISM OF DISRUPTION MEN. 377 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 WHEN Dr. Wilson left Bombay he was appointed a clerical 
 representative of the Church of Scotland in India, in the 
 General Assembly which met in Edinburgh on the 18th of 
 May 1843. On that day, the last of the old historic Kirk, 
 when Dr. Welsh, the Moderator, read the protest of 470 
 ministers who laid down their livings, and they and he, and 
 Thomas Chalmers, and elders representing a majority of its 
 people, went forth as the Church of Scotland Free, Dr. Wilson 
 was, on camel-back, entering for the second time the city of 
 Jerusalem. The church's evangelical ministers in Scotland 
 had sacrificed their all, how would its Indian and Jewish 
 missionaries act ? The moral grandeur of the spectacle on 
 that 18th day of May, in the Scottish capital, was such as to 
 extort the admiration of judges like Francis Jeffrey and Lord 
 Cockburn, 1 and of many who had no sympathy with the 
 spiritual principles involved, but saw in the protesters the 
 legitimate heirs of, and now the joyous martyrs for, the 
 principles of the Eeformation and Eevolution Kirk of Scotland. 
 The same party which did the wrong on that day have since 
 sought to undo it, by abolishing what was only an accident of 
 their principles lay patronage. Although the remnant of the 
 Church as still established has not yet blotted out what are 
 known as the Eescissory Acts, by which it endorsed the wrong 
 and departed from the Eeformation and Eevolution principle, 
 yet, so recently as this year, it has by the mouth of its 
 Moderator expressed admiration of the spiritual heroism of 
 
 1 See his Journal. 
 
378 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1843. 
 
 the men whom the Courts and the Legislature drove and 
 the minority of the last General Assembly barred out on that 
 day. Would the missionaries then, far away, dim or would 
 they increase the lustre of that sacrifice, by adhering to the 
 protest ? The chaplains of the Church thought it right to 
 cling to their monthly salaries from the Government, and 
 not to forfeit the pensions given by the East India Company. 
 No one will judge them. Every missionary, from Pesth and 
 Constantinople to Calcutta and Madras, Bombay and Poona, 
 joined the Church of Scotland Free. Yet the Kirk's Foreign 
 Mission had owed its origin to Dr. Inglis, father of the present 
 Lord President of the Court of Session, and was directed by 
 Dr. Brunton, both of the " moderate " party. The grandeur 
 of the testimony was complete. Missionaries, ministers, and 
 elders united with the people in 1843, under the guidance of 
 Thomas Chalmers, to work out in the vexed question of 
 Church and State the only true solution of the freedom of 
 each within its own proper sphere, yet the respectful alliance 
 of both, which Italy has since accepted ; which Mr. Gladstone 
 of English statesmen has most appreciated; and which, on 
 the part of a spiritually democratic Church, is as hostile to 
 the sacerdotalism of the Ultramontane as it is a protest 
 against Csesarism. 
 
 During the ten years which preceded the crisis of 1843, 
 all the missionaries and some of the chaplains at Bombay, 
 Calcutta, and Madras, sympathised with the evangelical party 
 whom conscience ultimately forced out. But they were far 
 removed from the conflict and its excitement. And they 
 had even higher work to do. In the face of a common 
 enemy, or league of enemies like the four great Cults of 
 Hindooism, Parseeism, Muhammadanism and Fetishism, all 
 non-sacerdotal missionaries, then and ever since, have formed 
 a union of the widest catholicity and heartiest co-operation. 
 From the first, too, foreseeing men like Wilson felt that they 
 
1843.] INDIA OUTSIDE OF PARTY STRIFE. 379 
 
 were laying the foundations of the future Church of India, and 
 that it was an evil thing to introduce into it the purely his- 
 torical and sectarian controversies of the warring churches 
 of the West. The best missionary he who knows the people 
 best is still a foreigner, and he and his translations must in 
 time give way to an indigenous and self-developing church 
 or churches, which may a second time illustrate the Christian 
 truth of the saying, " Ex Oriente Lux/' Hence the echoes of 
 the Ten Years' Conflict, as it is called in Scotland, were some- 
 what dull in India, as dull almost as those of the strifes of the 
 home churches now are to every earnest worker there. That 
 India knows no party is as true of ecclesiasticism as of 
 politics. What the land-tax shall be in a province ? whether 
 it shall have certain primary schools and village institutions ? 
 how far the historical creeds and sectarian confessions shall 
 be bound on the necks of the office-bearers of the native 
 churches? these are questions that aftect millions now and 
 hereafter. Such issues as these are the true politics of India. 
 Although correspondents kept Dr. Wilson well informed 
 of the inner life of their Kirk, and a visitor like Dr. Duff in 
 1840 brought back from Edinburgh the latest tidings, they and 
 their colleagues, being in the true front of the battle, left the 
 security of their base to be looked to by others. And at the 
 last the crisis in Scotland came with a rush. The evangelical 
 party, outraged by a majority of eight to five of the judges, 
 could not believe for a time that Parliament would set the 
 seal on such an interpretation of Scottish statutes, Union 
 contracts, the Eevolution Settlement. Parliament, never very 
 heroic itself and affecting a cynical disbelief in the heroism 
 of others, lent a willing ear to the small band of men of com- 
 promise, who, unprepared for sacrifice themselves, scouted the 
 idea of it in so many of their brethren. So it came about that, 
 when Dr. Wilson saw the last ot Bombay for a time, as night 
 settled down on Malabar Hill on the 2d January, he did 
 
380 LIFE OF JOHX WILSON. [1343. 
 
 not anticipate that his relations with Dr. Branton were so 
 soon to cease. At Cairo, when he heard of the Convocation 
 of 478 of the 1200 ordained ministers, who had consulted all 
 through a winter week, and resolved to resign their livings 
 if justice were not done to the principles of the Kirk, he must 
 have said for the first time, as his colleagues in Bombay ex- 
 pressed it " What will remain ? A Presbyterian Establish- 
 ment, but not the Church of Scotland ; nearly all that con- 
 stitutes nationality will have vanished." To them Dr. 
 Brunton had written officially, expressing the anxious wish 
 that all would continue as they were. The chaplains, Dr. 
 Stevenson and Mr. Cook, afterwards Dr. Cook of Borgue, did 
 so. The missionaries, Messrs. Nesbit and Murray Mitchell, 
 had kept the public informed of the conflict in Scotland 
 through the Oriental Christian Spectator, and the receipt of 
 the mail announcing the event of the 18th May saw them 
 ministers of the Free Church of Scotland. All the elders and 
 a majority of the members of St. Andrew's kirk also left it. 
 
 The missionaries had been in the habit of conducting a 
 service for Europeans residing at a distance from that church 
 in the Ambrolie Mission -house. That congregation, now 
 greatly increased, found accommodation in the neighbouring 
 chapel of the American Mission, until it could erect the 
 building which adorns the Esplanade. The new college was 
 about to be occupied ; and the missionaries who had strug- 
 gled for so many years in the confined and unhealthy rooms 
 of a native house had been looking forward with eager eyes 
 to the building for which they and their friends, chiefly on 
 the spot, had raised the necessary funds. They did not enter 
 it. Not only so, but at the close of the session of 1843, when 
 Dr. Brunton's committee established in it a new mission, 
 they had the pain of making over to the German agent who 
 was sent to demand the property, the whole library, mathemati- 
 cal, astronomical, chemical, and other educational apparatus, 
 
1843.] HOW THE DISRUPTION LOOKED ABROAD. 381 
 
 which were the fruit of their personal toil and their friends' 
 generosity. All was quietly given up and carried off, fortu- 
 nately without any such scandal as attended a similar act of 
 transference at Calcutta. It was well that Dr. Wilson was 
 spared his share of the pain. How he viewed the equity of 
 the proceedings his correspondence will show. On him, at 
 home, devolved the duty of furnishing the mission anew, and 
 selecting and sending out the first Free Church minister. In 
 all this the men who had chosen suffering for conscience sake 
 made no boast and no complaint they were Christian gentle- 
 men. "With Dr. Stevenson, who had been their colleague for 
 some time, their relations had been very close. They did 
 not fail to help their old Institution, as engaged with them- 
 selves in the one great contest. And now there is a pros- 
 pect that both may unite with the other evangelical churches 
 to form a strong and catholic Christian College like Principal 
 Miller's in Madras. 
 
 For upwards of two months on the march from Cairo to 
 Jerusalem, Dr. Wilson had been without news. As he sat in 
 the lodging-house of the Greek, Elias of Damascus, in the 
 Yia Dolorosa, at the end of March, and devoured his letters 
 and a file of papers sent him by the British Consul, he 
 wrote : " It would be difficult to say whether, for this day 
 at least, the natural Jerusalem in the land of Israel, or the 
 spiritual Zion in the land of Caledonia, was uppermost in our 
 thoughts and feelings. That the God of Zion reigneth above 
 gave us hope and peace." His second visit to Jerusalem with 
 Dr. Graham, and his distant journey to Damascus where he 
 left that missionary, caused the time to pass rapidly till he 
 returned to Beyrut, and rested there for a fortnight. On the 
 2d November 1840 Dr. Brunton had thus written to him : 
 " Our Church fever is by no means abated. It is carrying its 
 lamentable heats by far too much into private society, but it 
 has not as yet touched at all our committee. Nothing can be 
 
382 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1843. 
 
 more harmonious and united than it continues to be." As 
 the aggression of the Court of Session on the spiritual rights 
 in purely spiritual things guaranteed to the national Church 
 of ministers, elders, and people, continued, it became inevitable 
 that all its members should declare themselves. Thus, on 
 the 28th April 1842, Dr. Brunton met the otherwise pleasing 
 announcement of the proposed foundation of a mission at 
 Nagpore by Sir W. Hill by this response : " The only ground 
 of doubt is the present state of the Church. I am forced to 
 consider our funds as in a very precarious state. Even if 
 the Establishment escape from the wreck there will be more 
 or less of very embittered secession. Or, though things remain 
 as they are now, a great part of the bounty which used to 
 flow in the various channels of Christian charity, is directed 
 to the interminable lawsuits of the Church. Altogether, our 
 prospects are anything but cheering. Human aid seems of 
 little avail, but God is able to give deliverance. may He 
 send it speedily for His own name's sake ! " How it was 
 sent, and how it continued to be sent, the future of the Foreign 
 Missions of Scotland will reveal. 
 
 Dr. Wilson's first act was to write promptly to his col- 
 league, Mr. Nesbit, at Bombay. When he arrived at 
 Smyrna he despatched to Dr. Brunton his resignation, in 
 terms most honourable to both. At the same time he sent 
 on to Dr. Chalmers, as Moderator, his formal adherence to 
 the Free Church of Scotland. That document he caused to 
 be published in Bombay also : 
 
 " BEYRUT, 30th June 1843. MY DEAR ROBERT. A month before 
 this can reach you, you will have heard of the rupture which has taken 
 place in the Church of our beloved native land. It was unavoidable 
 as far as the faithful ministers of Christ are concerned ; and it will be 
 overruled, I doubt not, for the great extension of vital religion through- 
 out the country. From Smyrna for which I sail to-day in the Aus- 
 trian steamer I intend to send in my adherence as a minister and 
 missionary to the Free Church ; and I firmly believe that we shall all 
 
1843.] JOINS THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND FREE. 383 
 
 be found in the same fellowship. Whether any plan of co-operation 
 with the Moderates may now be practicable or desirable I do not 
 know, though a few weeks ago I dropped a hint to Dr. Brunton on the 
 subject. One thing is evident, we cannot be divorced from the coun- 
 sels and prayers of those whose principles and actings have our con- 
 scientious and strong approbation. 
 
 " The question connected with our mission property in Bombay 
 must, I think, be determined on principles of equity. It will be of 
 great consequence for us to get occupation as soon as possible of the 
 new buildings. The onus of legal proceedings should such be 
 resorted to will rest on the Moderates, if we are first in possession. 
 I shall propose that we give the Moderates a fair share of the price 
 should they ask it from us. 
 
 " A regard to the souls of the present and future generations of our 
 countrymen in India demands our decided action in behalf of the Free 
 Church. Assemble its adherents in Bombay and Poona, promise the 
 continuance of your services to them till regular pastors be provided, 
 and forthwith petition for these pastors. I hope that we shall hear of 
 your proceedings before the meeting of Assembly at Glasgow in 
 October. I shall do all there in my power in support of your prayer. 
 Tell Captains George and John Jameson, Archie Graham, Captain 
 Thornbury, Mr. Spencer, Mr. Fallen, Mr. Martin, and Dr. Malcolmson, 
 etc. etc., that I expect them in particular to be among the first who 
 will rally round the old flag of the Covenant." 
 
 To Dr. BRUNTON. 1 
 
 " SMYRNA, July 1843. MY VERY DEAR SIR. The rupture which 
 has taken place in our beloved Church, which to the last moment I had 
 fondly thought would have been averted by the Government considering 
 its righteous claims, or by both parties within the Church agreeing to 
 uphold at least its spiritual independence, has forced me impartially 
 and prayerfully to consider to which of the two separated bodies it is 
 my duty to adhere. My decision is in favour of the free protesting 
 Church ; of the principles professed and advocated by which I have 
 long conscientiously approved. 
 
 " In these circumstances it has become my painful duty to intimate, 
 as I now do, my withdrawal as a minister and missionary from the 
 Established Church of Scotland, with which I have so long considered 
 it an honour and a privilege to be connected. I take this momentous 
 step from my desire to bear and maintain a conscience void of offence 
 
 1 This is from a pencil draft, and not the original. 
 
384 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1843. 
 
 toward God and man, and, I trust, without a breach of that charity 
 which it becomes me to cherish towards those with whose judgment 
 my own has been found at variance. I take it with inexpressible 
 regret, as far as it involves the dissolution of that official tie which has 
 so long bound me to yourself, who have ever treated me with more 
 than paternal kindness, and strengthened my hands and encouraged 
 my heart in the work of the Lord more than I can declare. I feel at 
 this moment the unfeigned sorrow of a great bereavement, and it is my 
 humble but fervent prayer that the Lord may comfort us both in the 
 afflictive circumstances in which we are placed in His inscrutable provi- 
 dence. To the latest moment of my life I can never forget, or lightly 
 estimate, the multiplied favours which I have experienced at your 
 hands ; and if God will that we should soon meet together, I shall 
 tender to you the homage of my unfeigned gratitude. 
 
 " Your interest in the continued prosperity of our mission, which 
 you have done so much to advance, will, I am certain, remain un- 
 dirninished. In a postscript attached to my last letter I expressed the 
 hope that some plan of co-operation between the two sections of our 
 Church might be devised. The terms on which the separation has 
 taken place, however, have for the present annihilated that hope. 
 Had the Eesiduary Assembly not consented, as I humbly but firmly 
 believe it has done, to the utter overthrow of the scriptural and con- 
 stitutional liberties of the Church, the case might have been otherwise. 
 I am, my dearest Sir, yours in the bonds of Christian love and 
 gratitude, JOHN WILSON." 
 
 " BILSTANEBRAE, I2th June 1843. 
 
 "MY DEAR DR. WILSON. I have received with great thankful- 
 ness your very kind letter from Beyrut. I rejoice to find that you 
 have safely past a perilous part of your journey without harm, and 
 commit you for the remainder of it to the same protection. Your 
 packets to Dr. Keith I delivered immediately. The opportunity indeed 
 came, before I had the satisfaction of perusing them. I expect that he 
 will afford me that pleasure still In the meantime the details of your 
 progress which you have sent to myself, will, I am quite sure, awaken 
 in the public the same interest which I felt in reading them. 
 
 " The calamity which you anticipate has befallen ; and with an 
 extent and an exasperation with which I had by no means laid my 
 account. Our brethren who have left us have announced their purpose 
 to enter immediately on missionary enterprise ; I have rejected 
 repeatedly, and unhesitatingly declined such a proposal as the one 
 which you suggest. This theme I have uniformly shunned in my 
 
1843.] CORRESPONDENCE ON THE DISRUPTION. 385 
 
 correspondence with India, unless perhaps by a hint at its financial bear- 
 ing, because I could not see how the point in dispute could in the least 
 touch the status of our brethren in India. But, of course, after the 
 Disruption took place, I was directed to state to each of the Missions 
 that the Established Church was resolved to go on with all of her 
 schemes as before, and counted in her day of peril on the zealous 
 co-operation of those whom she had found so admirably qualified for 
 their work. Eeports are loudly circulated here that my appeal comes 
 too late. I cannot allow myself to believe it. I cannot think that 
 those with whom our intercourse hitherto has been so delightful to us, 
 would pledge themselves, as they are said to have done, without giving 
 us the shadow of warning. This would be to peril to an enormous 
 extent the safety of our great cause ; as well as, in many other respects, 
 to be a source of very painful feeling. Even now, when it has become 
 necessary to make a direct appeal, I have in no one instance introduced 
 one word of personal pleading ; but you will easily understand how 
 painful my personal feelings are. May the Lord Himself direct you to 
 that which is right, and may He who is able to bring good out of evil, 
 cause this sore calamity to minister to the advancement of His glory 
 and of the gospel cause. It is not easy for man to see how this result 
 is to be reached ; but with Him all things are possible. We are deter- 
 mined, through his blessing, to persevere. So far as human aid avails 
 we have the prospect of abundant funds. But if works of the purest 
 charity are to be henceforward channels for estrangement, and contention, 
 and strife, my whole heart shrinks from what used to be its joy. 
 
 " I cannot mix up this subject with any other ; indeed I have 
 nothing else that is interesting to communicate. I need not say how 
 very anxious I shall be to hear from you, nor how much I am, your 
 affectionately, ALEX. BRUNTON." 
 
 "MUNICH, I4tk September 1843. 
 
 " MY VERY DEAR SIR. On the evening of the day on which I last 
 addressed you, I received your kind letter of the 12th of June. 
 Though it could not alter the decision, which I had intimated to you, 
 of my adherence to the Free Church, I could not peruse it without the 
 deepest emotion. It made me realise in all its extent your exceeding 
 kindness and consideration during the whole period of our official con- 
 nection, and imparted to me the deepest sorrow. To no individual do 
 I feel a stronger attachment, and for no individual do I cherish a more 
 profound regard than yourself ; and could anything of a personal 
 nature have prevailed with me in my choice of the ground which I 
 
 2 C 
 
386 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1843. 
 
 should occupy after the rupture in our beloved Church, I should have 
 been found still ranged by your side in the missionary enterprise. 
 
 " I feel it extremely difficult at once to do justice to the credit 
 which I give to those from whom I differ in my judgment as to late 
 events in our Church, and to express the conviction which I feel that 
 my own sentiments are in accordance with the will of Christ. I may 
 be permitted to say, however, that I do think that the Free Church, as 
 far as constitutional principle is concerned, is essentially the Church of 
 Scotland, and that in cleaving to it I am only following out my ordination 
 vows according to my conscientious interpretation of them. In your 
 official correspondence with the missionaries you shunned, as you 
 intimate, all reference to the existing controversies, except in their 
 financial bearing ; and my former silence on the subject originated in 
 my respect for your own example, and my reluctance to hold out any 
 threat, however humble, to those with whom I might ultimately be found 
 at variance. Though as a missionary employed by both parties I was 
 silent in the discussion, yet as a member of the Kirk-Session of Bombay 
 I uniformly supported non-intrusion principles. I constantly opposed 
 premature division in India, and I have a letter from Mr. Cook 
 cordially thanking me for my co-operation and friendship. It was only 
 when the Government proved relentless, and multitudes conspired to 
 overthrow the spiritual liberties and discipline of the Church, that I 
 was compelled as a missionary to give in my adherence to the body of 
 whose principles and contendings I approved. Had your own chari- 
 table and peaceful remonstrances and pleadings for upholding the 
 authority of the Church, prevailed with the body with which you are 
 now associated, the schism I am persuaded would not have occurred. 
 
 " Had it appeared that our practical operations in India would 
 likely suffer by our leaving the Establishment, and that it was possible 
 for the Establishment immediately to supply our lack of service, I 
 should have considered it a duty for us to give adequate warning of 
 our intention to forsake that Establishment. I have not yet seen, 
 however, that any of our operations require to be abandoned ; and 
 should the Establishment send any faithful missionaries to India, I, for 
 one, shall most cordially bid them God speed, rejoicing that they preach 
 Christ to the heathen Hindus. 
 
 " Perhaps I have erred in thinking these few remarks of explana- 
 tion called for by your kind letter, if so, I am sure that you will excuse 
 me. I hope very soon to see you in Edinburgh ; and I confidently 
 trust that I shall ever vindicate the sincerity with which I subscribe 
 myself, as of old, yours most gratefully and affectionately, 
 
 " Rev. Dr. Brunton. JOHN WILSON." 
 
1843.] TO DR. GORDON ON THE DISRUPTION. 387 
 
 "MUNICH, 13th September 1843. 
 
 " MY DEAR DR. GORDON. On the 1 9th of July I addressed a letter 
 to Dr. Chalmers expressive of my adherence to the Free Church of Scot- 
 land as a minister and a missionary. I have some fears that my com- 
 munication may not have reached its destination, as I have not 
 received, as I had expected, any reply to some private epistles which 
 went by the same post. You will see the ground, however, which I 
 now occupy, and understand that I had no hesitation whatever about 
 taking my station upon it, though I did feel a severe pang on cutting 
 asunder the* official tie which bound me to Dr. Brunton, of whose 
 kindness to us as missionaries you are well aware. I exceedingly 
 rejoice at your appointment as his successor. I remember you with 
 much gratitude and respect as my own pastor for several years during 
 my attendance at the University, and that of my dear partner during 
 her residence in Edinburgh. 
 
 " As soon as I heard of the rupture in the Church of Scotland I 
 sent several letters to India calling upon the friends of the independence 
 of the Church there, to take measures towards supporting a ministry 
 for themselves, both at Bombay and Poona. I am quite hopeful that 
 we shall find that we have many adherents at both these places, and 
 that we missionaries will be left free to follow out our own peculiar 
 duties without being obliged to devote so much of our time and atten- 
 tion to our countrymen as we have hitherto done. Mr. Mitchell at 
 Poona is often overwhelmed on the Lord's Day by the demands made 
 upon him by the soldiery. The character of an evening service which 
 we had in Bombay for the benefit of the native youth understanding 
 the English language, was nearly, and almost as a matter of course, 
 completely changed, when the body of the congregation of St. Andrew's 
 church forsook it on the arrival of Mr. Cook. 
 
 " I expect to be in London within the last week of this month. As 
 the hour of my planting my feet on my native shores approaches, I feel 
 much solemnised by the thought that I am now a missionary from the 
 great heathen continent in the benighted East, to the highly-favoured 
 Christian island of the West. I am positively quite overwhelmed in 
 the view of the magnitude of those claims which I have undertaken to 
 plead ; and I really do not know where to begin and how to end. I 
 shall (D.V.} however take my seat and open my mouth at the Assembly 
 of the Free Church to be held in Glasgow in October. I shall hasten 
 to Scotland to have a timely conference with yourself and our com- 
 mittee, with reference to this matter. We must begin anew by 
 resolving to extend our operations. Another missionary, and one of 
 
388 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1843. 
 
 no ordinary qualifications, is imperiously needed at Bombay. The call 
 to occupy Nagpore is too urgent to be neglected. I am happy to say 
 that dear Dr. Duff entirely concurs with me in the view which I take 
 of this matter.* I have an admirable letter from him on the subject to 
 show to you. But without reference to particular openings we must 
 go forward. The field is the world, and it is far more easy to conduct 
 matters on a large than a small scale. To the Christian Church, as 
 well as to a nation, is applicable the saying of Napoleon, ' Quiconque 
 n'avance pas est perdu.'" 
 
 The General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, 
 which met at the end of May under Dr. Chalmers, had 
 necessarily to leave the details of organisation to be worked 
 out after it rose. Hence the meeting of a second General 
 Assembly in the same year, instead of such a " Commission " 
 of Assembly as holds quarterly meetings every year but with 
 restricted powers. At Glasgow, on the 17th October, and 
 with Dr. Thomas Brown of St. John's, Moderator, this special 
 Assembly met. The five months that had passed showed 
 754 congregations and 730 ministers and preachers. Of these 
 465 had given up their livings in the Established Church, 
 and 110 licentiates and others since licensed to preach, their 
 certain appointment to livings. There remained the twenty 
 missionaries, thirteen in India and seven to the Jews, and in 
 due time the adherence of all of these was announced. When 
 men like the last Marquis of Breadalbane ; Mr. Fox Maule, 
 afterwards Earl of Dalhousie, who had in vain brought before 
 the House of Commons " the question of the spiritual inde- 
 pendence of the Church and the rights of the Christian people 
 of Scotland;" Mr. Dunlop, M.P ; Dr. Chalmers and Dr. 
 Candlish had reported arrangements resulting in a response 
 from the country to the amount of 300,000 in that brief 
 period, Dr. Gordon submitted the report of the India Mission. 
 In answer to those friends of the missionary cause who 
 had deprecated the long defence of their spiritual rights by 
 the people of Scotland, on the ground that it was "not a 
 

 1843.] SOLUTION OF CHURCH AND STATE QUESTION. 389 
 
 religious question," lie pointed to " the striking fact that 
 the missionaries of the Church of Scotland, possessing in 
 an eminent degree the esteem and confidence of the Chris- 
 tian public both at home and abroad, as holy and de- 
 voted men of God quietly pursuing their pious labours far 
 from the scene of controversy, and as calm observers watch- 
 ing from a distance the progress of the conflict, should, the 
 moment that conflict ended, have unanimously and without 
 hesitation united themselves to their protesting brethren." 
 But while Dr. Chalmers could announce his third of a 
 million, chiefly due to that unique contribution to ecclesi- 
 astical economics, the Sustentation Fund for the ministers, 
 Dr. Gordon could, at that early stage, when no appeal had 
 been made, report only 327 as the fund with which the 
 Church nevertheless resolved, as Dr. Forbes put it, to con- 
 tinue the " gigantic scheme of Church Extension " among a 
 population which was then estimated at 160 millions, but will 
 be shown, by the second imperial census in 1881, to be nearer 
 260 millions as British India now is. The thirteen foreign 
 missionaries of 1843-44 have grown in number to forty 
 ordained men, Native and Scottish ; the 327 of October 1843 
 and 6402 of the whole year, to 30,657 a-year in Scotland 
 alone, and nearly double that if the whole annual revenue of 
 the Indian, African, and South Pacific Missions be con- 
 sidered. In the thirty-five years since that time the Church 
 of these thirteen missionaries has given in Scotland alone, 
 535,000 for foreign missions, and there is not a con- 
 tributor who does not admit that the amount might have 
 been and will yet be doubled. The conflict of the ten years 
 before 1843, and the struggles of Cameron, the Erskines, and 
 Gillespie before that, will not be exhausted until the three 
 great branches of the Eeformation Kirk of John Knox are 
 gathered once again into one reconstructed Church, as free 
 in its own legitimate sphere as the statutes of the Eeforma- 
 
390 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1843. 
 
 tion, the treaty of Union and the Eevolution Settlement ac- 
 knowledged it to be. This is, thus far, Scotland's contribution 
 to the question which Pope and Emperor in Italy and Germany 
 are trying to work out on the hopelessly irreconcilable, be- 
 cause intolerant, lines of Ultramontane tyranny and Csesar- 
 ist encroachment; and Dr. Wilson often declared it to be 
 so. The total freewill offerings of the members of the Free 
 Church of Scotland in the year ending 31st March 1878, for 
 all spiritual purposes at home and abroad, was 576,000. In 
 all it has raised the sum of twelve millions sterling 1 side by 
 side with higher moral aims and as the fruit of a deeper 
 spiritual life. 
 
 Dr. Wilson's first speech in the General Assembly is 
 remembered to this day for the length as well as the eloquence 
 of its statements of fact and pictures of Oriental superstitions 
 and missionary life. To the attitude of the religions of the 
 East towards the Christian demand for their surrender he 
 happily applied the remark of Tippoo, when the British forces 
 surrounded the last stronghold of Seringapatam " I am afraid, 
 but afraid not so much of what is seen as of what is unseen." 
 First in the list of the principal means of propagating the 
 Gospel in India he placed those used by the Lord and His 
 apostles, as he had done from the day he took possession 
 of Bombay " conversation, discussion, public preaching, 
 among all classes of men to whom they could find access, 
 and in all situations in which they could be advantageously 
 practised." After an account of the work of his colleagues, 
 
 1 According to Mr. W. Holms, M. P. , himself a member of the Established 
 Church, who stated in the House of Commons debate on the 18th June 1878 : 
 "There are 1517 churches attached to the Free and United Presbyterian 
 Churches against 1390 attached to the Established Church. And these last 
 comprise about 300 Highland charges, most of them very meagrely attended. 
 In regard to the money raised for religious purposes during the year 1877-78, 
 which was not an unfair test of vitality and power, 965,000 had been con- 
 tributed by Free and United Presbyterians, against 385,000 by the Established 
 Church." 
 
1843.] HIS FIRST SPEECH IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 391 
 
 and of the agents of other Churches in every case, he briefly 
 describes his own : " I have declared the doctrine of the 
 Cross in three languages, the Marathee, Hindostanee, and 
 Goojaratee, from the Shirawutee in Canara to Sirohee in 
 liajpootana, and from Bombay to Berar." Second in his 
 enumeration of agencies came the translation of the Scriptures 
 into the languages of India, and the publication of works show- 
 ing the evidence of their truth ; of " plain but affectionate " 
 expositions of their contents ; and of demonstrations of the 
 vanity, falsity, and immorality of the systems of error to 
 which they are opposed. Again after a generous tribute to 
 the work of others, he briefly states his own, adding, " it was 
 iny privilege to act for twelve years as secretary to the 
 different translation committees of the Bombay Bible Society." 
 Besides the English, Marathee, Goojaratee, Hindostanee, 
 Persian, and Hebrew, in which his own writings had appeared, 
 the missions of other societies had translated them into 
 Bengalee, Hindee, Tamul, and Canarese. On the third agency 
 of schools Dr. Wilson gave a fair and full summing up of a 
 question much disputed in this country, though long set at 
 rest in favour of education, higher and lower, by experienced 
 men of all churches in India, so far as Hindoos, Parsees, 
 Buddhists, and Muhammadans, or the non-aboriginal races, are 
 concerned. This was followed by equally weighty utterances 
 on the two questions which lie at the foundation of the 
 indigenous Church of India, native congregations and native 
 ministers. Going back to the saying of the New England 
 Cotton Mather, which he had quoted in his early Life of Eliot, 
 Dr. Wilson felicitously closed his first appeal to his country- 
 men by the prediction "There will be found a set of 
 excellent men in that reformed and renowned Church of 
 Scotland, with whom the most refined and extensive essays 
 to do good will become so natural that the whole world will 
 fare the better for them." The Moderator, according to the 
 
392 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1843. 
 
 newspapers of the day, in an eloquent address conveyed the 
 thanks of the General Assembly to Dr. Wilson. 
 
 While he was yet speaking there was intelligence on its 
 way from Bombay which gave a new point to the opinions he 
 so emphatically expressed. An educated Brahman youth, 
 now the Eev. Narayan Sheshadri and long one of the most 
 successful ordained ministers in India, asked to be baptized. 
 He was one of the few Hindoos who had clung to the mission 
 college when the Parsee baptisms in 1839 produced a panic 
 throughout native Bombay. The first educated Brahman 
 baptized in the island, he was the direct fruit of the higher 
 Christian education, and a worthy associate of the two Parsees 
 who had anticipated him. Mr. Nesbit's loving gentleness, 
 and Dr. Murray Mitchell's efficient instructions, had con- 
 tinued the good work begun by Dr. Wilson. It seemed 
 likely that both Narayan and his younger brother Shripat 
 would have been allowed to live and study together, holding 
 kindly intercourse with their parents. But the prospect was 
 too much for those who had recently seen toleration trium- 
 phant in the case of the two Parsees, and were the more 
 determined " to contest every inch of ground with advancing 
 Christianity." So the appeal was again made not to reason 
 or truth, but to the civil courts, for Shripat was not sixteen 
 years of age. The " age of discretion " rule, the intelligence 
 and sincerity of the youth rather than the age by the 
 horoscope ever difficult to be proved, were pronounced by 
 Sir Erskine Perry to be " not worth a farthing," and Shripat 
 exclaimed, when declared too young to exercise the rights 
 of conscience " Am I to be compelled to worship idols ? " 
 
 The scene has often since been repeated in the courts 
 of India, purely English as well as those administering 
 Hindoo and Muhammadan law ; and legislation has yet, in 
 this matter alone happily, to complete the little code securing 
 bare toleration, which Bentinck and Dalhousie began, and 
 
1843.] FIRST CASTE CONCESSION BY THE B RAHMANS. 393 
 
 Sir Henry Maine and Sir James F. Stephen have amplified. 
 "To this sorrowful question of Shripat's," writes an eye- 
 witness, " no answer was returned. Mr. Nisbet was greatly 
 attached to Shripat, and when the weeping boy bade him 
 farewell as they quitted the court-house, he kissed him with 
 much affection, and wept with him." Shripat was never 
 allowed to become a Christian, but it took a long time to 
 shake him by arts such as Faust has made the colder West 
 believe to be but the legendary fictions of a dark age. And 
 since Shripat had eaten with his baptized brother, his case 
 became the first, also, of a long series of gradually weakening 
 concessions by caste, as Christianity practically teaches that 
 God has made of one blood all nations of men. Not only in 
 Maharashtra, but in the holiest conclave at Benares, and 
 among the most exclusive of the five Koolin clans of Bengal, 
 the very practical question was hotly debated " Can Shripat 
 be purified and restored to caste ? " Hindooism was on its 
 trial, for if it yielded now what horror might not come next, 
 till the one last bond was cut in every link ? A rich minority 
 spent vast sums to develop dogmatically Hindooism into 
 something that would tolerate the Zeit-G-eist, ease their own 
 consciences, and perhaps connive at their forbidden pleasures. 
 Thus, travelling by railway was afterwards sacerdotally sanc- 
 tioned, for would not the pilgrim arrive at his journey's end 
 with more in his purse ? But the year 1843 was too early 
 for the minority, who had got Shripat to swallow the five pro- 
 ducts of the cow (its urine, etc.), and enriched a priest to 
 conduct the purification. All who had thus combined were 
 themselves threatened with excommunication, and the priest 
 was as severely handled as if he had been a Christian. The 
 " liberal " Brahmans publicly confessed their fault, and drank 
 water in which an idol had been washed and ten Brahmans 
 had dipped each his right foot. For the rest the scandal 
 was hushed up, many feeling it would have been better if 
 
394 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1843. 
 
 Shripat had never been dragged before the English judges. 1 
 While Narayan and Pestonjee continued their studies for 
 licence and ordination in Bombay, Dhunjeebhoy Nourojee com- 
 pleted his college examinations in Edinburgh, and as a preacher 
 and speaker gave a vivid interest to the missionary cause in 
 Scotland. 
 
 The day before the General Assembly sat at Glasgow the 
 Presbytery of Bombay had received a formal letter of sym- 
 pathy from Allahabad, one of the four presbyteries in north 
 India of the church of the United States. The brotherly docu- 
 ment was signed by the Eev. J. Warren and the Rev. J. Owen, 
 the latter a learned scholar who was long spared to build up 
 the native church. It has more than a curious interest, as con- 
 tributing the experience of a Republic which, itself born of 
 the intolerance of the Tudors and the Stewarts, has never 
 found a difficulty in recognising and protecting the legiti- 
 mate spiritual independence of all churches, even that of 
 Rome. The letter anticipated the time, since realised as to 
 co-operation, when all Presbyterians in India may meet in 
 fellowship, and ultimately in General Assembly. 
 
 In his address to the General Assembly Dr. Wilson de- 
 clared the most clamant need of India to be the establishment 
 of a Christian mission in its Central Provinces. At Nagpore, 
 nearly equi-distant from Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras about 
 seven hundred miles, a Raja of the Bhonsla family of Marathas 
 reigned, like the Gaekwar at Baroda, Holkar at Indore, and 
 Sindia at Gwalior. He had been guided by a political 
 Resident so able as Sir Richard Jenkins, and was protected 
 
 1 Sir Erskine Perry, who still adorns the Council of India by his ability 
 and industry, would probably not now repeat all the opinions which he 
 gave on this occasion, and again as President of the Board of Education, when 
 he excluded low-caste boys from the public schools. See Dr. Wilson's reply 
 on the latter point in The Darkness and the Dawn in India, p. 83. There also 
 will be found a Sermon by " Narayan Sheshadri, Deshasht- Brahman, Preacher 
 of the Gospel," 1853. 
 
1843.] THE NAGPORE MISSION AND STEPHEN HISLOP. 395 
 
 by a combined force of British troops and Madras sepoys at 
 the adjoining cantonment of Kamptee. Stationed there as 
 Deputy Judge - Advocate - General, was a Madras officer, 
 Captain, now Sir "William Hill, K.C.S.I. He and his wife 
 had long lamented the want of a missionary to evangelise the 
 people. Nor had their desire been fulfilled by the establish- 
 ment, two hundred miles away, of the industrial or artisan 
 mission of Pastor Gossner of Berlin among the aboriginal 
 Gonds, whose cause Sir Donald M'Leod, when a district 
 officer among them, had long advocated. On the death of 
 his wife Captain Hill resolved to devote her small fortune of 
 2000, adding to it 500, the whole in three per cents, to 
 the 1 endowment of a mission to the people of Kamptee, 
 Nagpore, and the neighbourhood. He applied to Dr. Wilson, 
 in February 1842, as the missionary best known to him by 
 reputation, offering the amount for a Presbyterian or Church 
 of England Mission. The fruitless result of Dr. Wilson's 
 application to Dr. Brunton has been stated. But his repre- 
 sentations to the committee of the Free Church met with 
 such a response that the only difficulty left was to secure a 
 missionary, at a time when every licensed preacher, young and 
 old, was required at home. Happily Stephen Hislop offered 
 himself, a man, as it proved, after Wilson's own heart. Fresh 
 from a distinguished career at the Universities of Glasgow 
 and Edinburgh and the New College, he was an accurate 
 scholar and a keen naturalist. He proved to be a patient 
 linguist, a worker of rare political insight and administrative 
 power, and above all, an enthusiast in the spiritual work he 
 had undertaken. All the arrangements at the home end, for 
 fitting out and securing the success of the new mission fell 
 upon Dr. Wilson, as those in India had devolved upon him 
 in the case of the Irish settlement in Goojarat. But in spite 
 of the need for rest, and the general work of the Church, he 
 and Mr. Hislop so co-operated that, by the end of 1844, the 
 
396 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1843. 
 
 new apostle in time to prove a martyr by his death in the 
 midst of duty left for the scene of his labours. We shall 
 hear more of Stephen Hislop. 
 
 " As soon as you get a regular beginning of your operations made," 
 Dr. Wilson wrote to him, "be sure to make an appeal for another 
 ordained colleague, founded upon the necessity of the work, both 
 among natives and Europeans. Your appeal I shall strongly support ; 
 and I do not think it will be without success. The people will give 
 for India, if our committee liberally act for India. I am day by day 
 convinced of this, as I see outbreakings of zeal in different parts of the 
 country, when addresses are delivered. The late tidings from Calcutta 
 will have a good effect in strengthening this zeal. 
 
 " In studying the Marathee you will find it of great use to have 
 some children to catechise, and to write a good deal with your own 
 hand. Don't make your pundit an authority in every case. The 
 most learned natives greatly neglect the vernaculars, and they require 
 to be systematically trained by their pupils ! I can perfectly well 
 understand the possible changes which may occur around'' you in refer- 
 ence to your European friends. Should those who are now around you, 
 however, be removed from the station, they will encourage you by 
 their correspondence, and others in divine providence will be raised 
 up for your support. I have often found this to be the case in 
 Bombay." 
 
 This Nagpore Mission is consecrated by the memory of 
 another Christian official of the civil service, as Sir William 
 Hill was of the military Sir Donald M'Leod who, after a 
 brilliant career ending as Lieutenant-Go vernor of the Punjab, 
 and giving his last days to philanthropic work in 'London, was 
 killed when attempting to enter a train in motion, on his way 
 to a meeting of the Christian Vernacular Education Society. 
 
 Donald M'Leod was the man to whom this double testi- 
 mony was borne by a Eajpoot and a Sikh. Behari Lai Singh, 
 a Eajpoot official subordinate to him, was led to believe that 
 " Christianity was something living," and ultimately died an 
 ordained missionary of the Presbyterian Church of England, 
 by what he described as " the pious example of this gentle- 
 
1843.] SIR DONALD M'LEOD AND GENERAL LAKE. 397 
 
 man, his integrity, his disinterestedness, his active benevo- 
 lence. Here is a man in the receipt of 2000 or 3000 rupees 
 annually; he spends little on himself, and gives away the 
 surplus for education the temporal and spiritual welfare 
 of my countrymen. This was the turning-point of my reli- 
 gious history, and led to my conversion." More recently a 
 Sikh declared, " If all Christians were like Sir Donald M'Leod 
 there would be no Hindoos or Muhammadans." Of the 
 M'Leods of Assynt and proprietors of Geanies, one of the 
 three great branches of the old Norwegian clan, young Donald 
 passed from the Edinburgh High School to Putney, where he 
 had Lord Canning and Henry Carre Tucker for schoolfellows ; 
 and to Haileybury, where he first won the admiration of Lord 
 Lawrence. When at his first station of Monghyr in 1831, he 
 learned from his countryman, the Eev. A. Leslie the Baptist 
 missionary who helped Sir H. Havelock to adopt the words 
 of Pascal as his own : Eeligion has " abased me infinitely more 
 than unassisted reason, yet without producing despair ; and 
 exalted me infinitely more than pride, yet without puffing up." 
 When he passed to the Thuggee department, created by Lord 
 William Bentinck to put down organised robbery and murder 
 by strangling, and on to the administration of the Saugur and 
 Nerbudda highlands, ceded by the Marathas in 1818, where 
 Seonee was his head-quarters, 1 he was soon attracted to Dr. 
 Wilson. From 1836, to his death in 1872, they assisted each 
 other in philanthropic enterprise and scholarly research. To 
 his first letter we find this reply from Dr. Wilson, who was 
 six years his senior : 
 
 "NiRA BRIDGE, 1 5th March 1837. 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR. I have been very long in answering your very 
 kind and peculiarly acceptable and gratifying letter, dated the 2d of 
 
 1 See " Sir Donald M'Leod, C.B., K.C.S.L : A Record of Forty-two Years' 
 Service in India. By Major-General Edmund Lake, G.S.I. 1873." Since 
 that little work appeared, General Lake himself, a man of like spirit, and 
 another ornament of the Punjab or Lawrence school of officials, has passed away. 
 
398 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1843- 
 
 November last. You will probably have found, however, that I was 
 not altogether inattentive to your commission which it contained. 
 I only regret that we could not send you all the books which you 
 requested. Perhaps some of those wanting -may ere long come in my 
 way. The Bombay Asiatic Society, before its incorporation with the 
 home Society, published only three volumes of Transactions. They 
 are now exceedingly scarce, and I was able to procure only the third. 
 We publish no Journal, but send on papers to London for publication 
 in the Journal and Transactions of the Eoyal Asiatic Society. The 
 Agricultural Society of Bombay are about to commence the publication 
 of a Quarterly Journal of Agriculture and Statistics. If the pro- 
 spectus, which you will see in the Courier, please you, you may 
 perhaps subscribe to it. Martyn's Controversies I hope to be able to 
 procure for you. I doubt whether the tract by Muhammad Ali, men- 
 tioned by Dr. Ross in the Christian Keepsake, be forthcoming; but 
 I have written to Edinburgh on the subject. The author of it I know 
 to be a convert indeed to the Christian cause. I have seen many of 
 his private letters. It was once proposed that he should join me in 
 Bombay, but the Eussian Government will not allow him to leave 
 Kazan. 
 
 " I cannot give you an idea of the pleasure with which I viewed 
 your communication, and I assure you that you may depend upon my 
 most humble but most zealous endeavours to aid you in disseminating 
 useful, but especially religious, knowledge in this benighted land. 
 You will find the pleasures of benevolent exertion more than a com- 
 pensation for all the thought and trouble which it may cost. Our 
 holy faith, which speaks both peace to the conscience and purity to 
 the heart, is destined to triumph in this land ; and it requires only a 
 very partial observation to see that the sovereignty has been given to 
 our* nation that it may have free course and be glorified. Truth of all 
 kinds, to whatever extent it may be proposed to the natives, will aid 
 its progress ; but there are no obstacles to its full and simple announce- 
 ment, and the advocacy of all its claims. Your friend Mr. Wilkinson, 
 whose talents and zeal I much admire, is too much of a gradual 
 emancipist for me. I most cordially, however, bid him God speed, 
 except in so far as he makes the science of Europe play into the hands 
 of the Brahmans, as is the case in Subaji Bapu's extraordinary work, 
 instead of demolishing in toto the fabric of their superstitions. I have 
 some intention of taking the liberty of writing to him. I agree with 
 him in thinking that the vernacular languages and alphabets, particu- 
 larly the Dev-Nagari, will be the most efficient media of the instruc- 
 
1843.] MISSIONS IN AFRICA FEMALE EDUCATION. 399 
 
 tion of the people. I hold this opinion with another not inconsistent 
 with it, that the study of English will be the readiest and most effect- 
 ual mean of acquiring knowledge by those who are to be teachers." 
 
 When in Central India, Sir Donald M'Leod had given all 
 his, at that time scanty, income to the support of the Berlin 
 missionaries, whom lie indeed had brought out to settle 
 among the Gonds. Malaria and ignorance of the country- 
 slew several of them, and the survivors sought health in 
 Nagpore. Sir Donald offered to support them by sub- 
 scribing not less than 120 a year so long as he remained 
 in India. 
 
 To the India Mission, thus increased, the Free Church 
 added, in 1844, the African stations in Kaffraria, offered to it 
 by the Glasgow Missionary Society ; and it soon after sent 
 out two other ministers familiar with Dutch, who for a 
 time conducted missionary operations in Cape Town itself. 
 Thus a new impetus and extension were given to a mission 
 which has made the Lovedale Institution not only the centre 
 and head of all civilising work among the natives of South 
 Africa, in the opinion of observers like Mr. Anthony Trollope 
 and Sir Bartle Frere, but the base of that advance into the 
 Lake Region which has resulted in the establishment of 
 the Livingstonia settlement on Nyassa. The cause of native 
 female education also, in India, made a fresh start. The 
 Ladies' Association was strengthened by the co-operation of 
 the Glasgow India Association on behalf of female educa- 
 tion in South Africa up to 1865, when both combined to 
 form the present invaluable agency which is carrying light 
 into the Zananas of the most caste-bound families. 
 
 Hardly had the Glasgow Assembly risen when Dr. Wilson 
 found himself absorbed for a time in preaching and addressing 
 large audiences of all the evangelical Churches, now on the 
 Free Church of Scotland's assertion of its principles, but more 
 frequently on the missionary claims of India. In November 
 
400 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1844. 
 
 1843 he opened the new Free Church in his native town of 
 Lander, to which nearly the whole community nocked to hear 
 the youth who had done such great things in India. His old 
 master, Mr. Paterson, took care that he should preside at the 
 examination of the school, in circumstances very different 
 from those under which he used, on his tours, to stoop under 
 the leafy sheds of the jungle schools of the Konkan, or the 
 low roofs of the bungalows of Bombay and Surat. Invitations 
 to preach flowed in upon him from all parts, from Dr. James 
 Hamilton of London to Dr. James Lewis and Mr. Thorburn 
 of Leith. It was when Dr. Wilson addressed the children in 
 St. John's Leith, that his present biographer first saw the 
 even then youthful apostle, and heard the rhythmic roll of 
 his sentences as hundreds learned from him for the first time 
 of the Hindoo idols and the Parsee fire, of the scattered Beni- 
 Israel, and the devil- worshippers and man-sacrificers of the 
 Indian hills. 
 
 Dr. Wilson was selected by his Church to accompany Dr. 
 Candlish to England. At Oxford, on the 17th March 1844, 
 he preached to the elite of the University and the Church of 
 England there a sermon on " The Church Glorious before its 
 Lord," from Ephesians v. 25-27. The academic tone of the 
 discourse, and the learning and long self-sacrificing labours of 
 the preacher, combined to call forth a degree of ecclesiastical 
 appreciation as well as missionary sympathy which a local 
 journalist thus expressed when it was published : " The 
 great movement in Scotland is a new thing under the sun. 
 It is little less than a breaking up and recasting of a 
 nation. It is developing events which mere politicians cannot 
 understand, and which they will be unable to guide. The 
 freedom of the Christian Church in its corporate character 
 has been asserted. And, as we believe, the further assertion 
 of the freedom and equality of Christian men, and of every dis- 
 tinct Christian assembly will follow." At the annual meeting 
 
1844.] ROMAN CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT MISSIONS. 401 
 
 of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, Sir George Eose in the 
 chair, he was introduced by Dr. Bunting ; when, answering the 
 attacks of the late Cardinal Wiseman on Protestant Missions, 
 he made a valuable contribution to that little-known subject 
 Eoman Catholic Missions in India ; referring to such Portu- 
 guese authorities as the Life, of Juan de Castro, one of the 
 earliest Viceroys, and a letter from John I. of Portugal, to be 
 found in that classic. " Dr. Wiseman thinks very little of 
 Protestant efforts," he concluded, " but the Brahmans make a 
 great deal of them. I this morning read a tract written 
 against Christianity and addressed to myself by a Brahman. 
 He tells his countrymen that, unless they act together, all 
 their power and religion are doomed. And, for the sake of 
 the inhabitants of India who have been most marvellously 
 placed under the sway of this Christian country, we wish the 
 doom of Brahmanism. Wishing them good, we must en- 
 deavour to save them from the contaminating and ruining 
 power of sin, and prepare them for the glories of heaven. . . . 
 Increase your labourers' in India, and look for the divine 
 blessing." Addressing the Baptist Society, over which Mr. 
 W. B. Gurney presided, and the British Society for the Jews, 
 he excited enthusiasm by his fresh and generous descriptions 
 of the labours of their agents, and his appeals for a wide exten- 
 sion of their agencies. " The names of Carey, of Marshman, 
 and of Ward, had been long familiar to me," he said to the 
 former, " before I finished my studies at the University. Dr. 
 Marshman gave me the right hand of fellowship before I 
 proceeded to India; and he was among the first, with a 
 generous heart, to welcome me to its shores." 
 
 From his English raid he hurried back to be present as a 
 representative of Bombay at the General Assembly of 1844. 
 There, at its successor, and at the remarkable Assembly of 
 Inverness in August 1845, when Dr. Macdonald of Ferintosh, 
 the Moderator, preached in Gaelic, from Dr. Wilson's familiar 
 
 2 D 
 
402 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1844. 
 
 text " Those that have turned the world upside down have 
 come hither also " the Bombay missionary was true to his 
 calling. At the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church 
 in Ireland, held in 1844 in Londonderry, he was received with 
 "loud acclamations" as the co-founder of the mission to the two 
 millions of Kathiawar ; and he afterwards gave much of his 
 time to providing means for the extension of that mission. 
 At the Birmingham meeting of the Synod of the English 
 Presbyterian Church in 1845, he stood, side by side with Mr. 
 Milne from China, as a deputy with Dr. Beith from the Free 
 Church of Scotland. When, in the same year, addressing the 
 Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society, which has since done 
 much for the people of India, he said " I recollect being 
 asked by Sir Eobert Grant, the late Governor of Bombay, what 
 would be the effect of dissecting a dead body in the Poona 
 Sanscrit College ? Why, said I, the first effect certainly would 
 be that the Brahmans would jump out at the windows ; and 
 the second effect would be, on their re-entering, that the gods 
 would jump out also ; or, in other words, their religious pre- 
 judices would take to flight." The Grant Medical College in 
 Western, and the Bengal Medical College in Eastern India, 
 where a Brahman student of Dr. Duffs was the first Hindoo 
 to dissect the human subject, have produced great results. 
 It was in emphatic language that he induced the Assembly of 
 1844 to memorialise Her Majesty's Government on the im- 
 potence and misrule of the Ottoman Porte alike in Asia and 
 in Europe. Nor did he spare Kussia's intolerance. 
 
 In all Dr. Wilson's correspondence, confidential as well as 
 public, we have met with no expression of his opinions more 
 worthy of his whole work for and relation to the Native 
 Church of India, than the following letter on the ordination 
 of Dhunjeebhoy to Dr. James Buchanan, who had succeeded 
 Dr. Gordon at the head of the Foreign Missions Commit- 
 tee. He pleaded, and with success finally, for what at the 
 
1844.] ORGANISATION OF THE NEW MISSION. 403 
 
 present time ' it is difficult to believe even those most 
 ignorant of India could have doubted, the spiritual and 
 ecclesiastical rights of the educated native converts, in the 
 light of justice and expediency, of the equality of Presby- 
 terianism and the future of the Indian Church. The Parsee 
 " probationer " himself, who had already become popular as 
 a preacher all over the country, intimated that, unless full 
 evangelistic power and liberty were conceded to him, he 
 would not enter the service of the Free Church, and Dr. Wilson 
 reported to Mr. Nesbit, " his firmness in this respect has been 
 admired. We are for natives being ordained, after due pro- 
 bation, as missionaries or evangelists like ourselves," 
 
 It was well that he and Dr. W. S. Mackay of Calcutta 
 happened to be in Scotland when their Church, naturally 
 absorbed in its domestic and internal organisation, was also 
 called to lay anew the foundations of its Foreign Mission 
 broad and deep. The missionary buildings at Poona were 
 not affected by the ecclesiastical changes, and those at Madras 
 had been rented only. But the property made over to the 
 Established Church had cost 10,000 at Calcutta and 8000 
 at Bombay, exclusive of libraries and apparatus. The duty of 
 raising 20,000 for a new start fell upon Dr. Wilson and Dr. 
 W. S. Mackay, then on sick leave from Calcutta. Plow 
 generously the whole India Mission was aided, not so much 
 by the public effort as by private and anonymous gifts, the 
 missionary correspondence of the period reveals. Even more 
 remarkable was the liberality of Christian men of all sects in 
 India itself. To that the Free churches in Bombay and 
 Calcutta owe their existence. 
 
 " 28th November 1846. MY DEAR DR. BUCHANAN. As I have to 
 go over to Fife to address a missionary meeting to-night, and to assist 
 at a sacrament to-morrow, and cannot get back in time for your con- 
 sultation on Monday, I shall mention to you in writing the opinion 
 which I have formed relative to the ordination of our dear young 
 friend Dlumjeebhoy. To the opinion which I expressed at the last 
 
404 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1846. 
 
 meeting of our India Mission Committee I am disposed still to adhere. 
 I think it expedient that Dhunjeebhoy's ordination should take place 
 in this country. I believe him to be as highly qualified for the 
 ministry of Christ in India, both spiritually and mentally, as any 
 individual on whom our presbyteries can lay their hands j and I 
 believe that the Christian meekness, courage, constancy, and self-denial, 
 which he has displayed under the frowns and threats and assaults of 
 numerous mobs and conclaves in India, and the smiles and plaudits 
 and blandishments of numerous friends and coteries in Scotland, have 
 formed a probation of his character which should fully satisfy the 
 most scrupulous anxiety. How we can call one of our own white- 
 faced students from our Divinity Hall, and ordain him per saltum 
 to the ministry among a people of whom he understands nothing 
 and knows nothing, as we have more than once done, and pass 
 over a black-faced student, duly licensed and qualified, and tried 
 by extraordinary providences, and bone of the bone and flesh of 
 the flesh and every way cognisant of the people to whom he is 
 to be sent, I do not see ; although certainly I do think, with our 
 venerable and esteemed father Dr. Gordon, that we should look 
 to the possible effect of our procedure as forming a precedent in 
 regard to other cases of native preachers in India, which we may not 
 be so easily able to dispose of as at present. 
 
 " Referring to the matter of precedent, however, I do not see that 
 we should be afraid of consequences. The sanction of our Foreign 
 Mission Committee is by the laws of the Church a preliminary to any 
 ordination by the presbyteries in India. That Committee, I presume, 
 is quite ready to try every case by its own merits, after it is informed 
 of the position and attainments of parties by those who are particu- 
 larly acquainted with them in India. Hormasdjee is in the same cir- 
 cumstances as Dhunjeebhoy, and I presume he must be treated in the 
 same way in the usual course of procedure. I do not think that any 
 of the other licentiates in India yet occupy this position, for the 
 advanced converts and students at Calcutta have been removed to the 
 ministry of the upper sanctuary. If, however, there are any other of the 
 students or licentiates in a proper state of forwardness and personal 
 probation, let us, on being duly satisfied on these heads, and requested 
 by themselves and the missionaries in India, give the warrant for their 
 ordination, and that with fervent gratitude to the Lord of the harvest, 
 who is hearing our prayers, and thrusting forth labourers to his own 
 vineyard. 
 
 " With regard to the opinion incidentally expressed by one of our 
 
 
1846.] ORDINATION OF NATIVE MISSIONARIES. 405 
 
 friends at our last meeting, that the native missionaries should be 
 ordained only to a specific pastoral charge, I would beg respectfully to 
 say that eighteen years' experience and observation as an Indian mis- 
 sionary, as well as considerations of general Christian expediency, lead 
 me to come to an entirely different conclusion. I believe that the 
 Christian Church would grievously retard the progress of the Kedeemer's 
 cause in India were it to act on this principle. Native ministers, with 
 a full evangelistic commission such as we ourselves receive as mis- 
 sionaries, and with full powers to enter into those doors of usefulness 
 which may be opened up to them on their own knocking, are, under 
 Christ, my great hope for the evangelisation of India. I should not, 
 in their case certainly, put the particular before the general, but the 
 general before the particular. I would give to them a very extensive 
 latitude, that they and we may have the benefit of a very extensive 
 experience. I would give them an apostolical liberty, with our respon- 
 sibility for life and doctrine. I have not a particle of fear of their 
 abusing that liberty. The more we trust them the more they will 
 trust and defer to ourselves. Centralisation, to the extent that it is 
 desirable, will in due time come. I have not the remotest suspicion 
 that the Free Church of Scotland will lay down the doctrine and estab- 
 lish the practice that the natives of India are to be ordained only as 
 pastors ; but were it to do so, I am persuaded that some vacancies would 
 occur in its present establishment of European missionaries. A caste 
 disqualification would make our indignation boil above the Pleiades." 
 
 As the Sustenation Fund, devised by the greatest writer and 
 most practical worker in the field of Christian and Philan- 
 thropic Economics, Dr. Chalmers, became consolidated for the 
 support of the home ministers, it would have been well if a 
 somewhat similar self-acting and self-developing arrangement 
 had been then made proportionately for the growing foreign 
 missions. This was afterwards done in the form of an 
 association in every congregation able to give more than an 
 annual offertory. But Dr. Wilson seems to have attempted 
 the institution of a system which, it is to be hoped, all the 
 churches will yet adopt in the place of, or in addition to desult- 
 ory offerings. He induced Dr. Candlish and Dr. Gordon to 
 arrange that St. George's and the New North congregations 
 should provide the support of the two Parsee missionaries. 
 
406 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1846, 
 
 The former, which gave 63 for the object in 1840, now 
 subscribes to the Foreign Mission Fund about 600 of its 
 whole annual contributions of 1 OjOOO. 1 If it undertook directly 
 to provide for two missionaries, who would report to it as 
 well as to the central committee, the congregational life would 
 be completed on its missionary as well as home side ; while 
 the missionaries would be brought into closer contact with the 
 churches and with their youth, who are to be their successors. 
 Only where each congregation, able to raise at least 200 a 
 year in addition to the income of its own minister, thus does 
 its duty to the Master by sending forth an ordained Native 
 or European missionary, will the wide fields of Heathenism 
 and Muhammadanism be adequately overtaken, and the 
 churches of Christendom prove their spiritual loyalty. 
 When that union of sects, for which Dr. Wilson longed, 
 conies about, so that ecclesiastical waste and suicidal divisions 
 shall be reduced to a minimum, this ideal may be reached. 
 
 It was in the year 1844, when he was forty years of age, 
 that Dr. Wilson sat to Mr. James Caw for that portrait which 
 has since adorned the walls of the Free Church College in 
 Bombay. It was painted at the request of the students, and 
 was pronounced a good likeness of the founder of the mission 
 there. A fine mezzotint engraving by Mr. Henry Haig was 
 made for the public at home. The General Assembly of 1846 
 formally declared that they " rejoiced in the prospect of Dr. 
 Wilson's return to Bombay in renovated health. They give 
 him also the assurance of their sympathy and prayers, and 
 trust that he may be long spared to prosecute his important 
 labours as a missionary to the heathen." They recommended 
 all ministers of the Church, " at least once a year, about the 
 opening of the college session" in November, to bring the 
 claims of foreign missions specially before their congregations, 
 and " to enforce upon them the duties of prayer and self-denial." 
 
 1 St. George's, Edinburgh: A History; by Mr. David Maclagan, F.R.S.E. 1876. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 1845-1847. 
 
 AMONG BOOKS SECOND MARRIAGE OVER EUROPE TO 
 BOMBAY. 
 
 Lieut. -Colonel Jervis, F.R.S., and intercourse with Civil and Military 
 Officers Establishment of the North British Review Reception of Dr. 
 Wilson's Works by the learned of Europe Elected Fellow of the Royal 
 Society Correspondence with Colonel Jervis Baron Hiigel, the modern 
 Marco Polo First Attempts to introduce Lithography into India First 
 Proposal of Postal Money Order System Death of Dr. Welsh Writers in 
 the North British Review Letters to Westergaard and Hugh Miller, and from 
 Dr. Falconer Second Marriage Isabella Dennistoun of Dennistoun A 
 learned Jewish Convert Dr. and Mrs. Wilson leave for India Lassen and 
 William Erskine at Bonn Researches in Egypt Welcomes at Bombay 
 Lord Hardinge announces Suppression of Suttee, Infanticide, and Slavery, 
 in many Native States George Clerk and Memorial Church of Colaba 
 Gaikwar of Baroda dies. 
 
" He that is weary, let him sit. 
 
 My soul would stirre 
 And trade in courtesies and wit, 
 
 Quitting the furre 
 To cold complexions needing it. 
 
 " Man is no starre, "but a quick coal 
 
 Of mortall fire, 
 Who blows it not, nor doth controll 
 
 A faint desire, 
 Lets his own ashes choke his soul. 
 
 " Life is a businesse, not good cheer ; 
 
 Ever in warres. 
 The sunne still shineth there or here, 
 
 Whereas the starres 
 Watch an advantage to appeare. 
 
 " Oh that I were an orange-tree, 
 
 That busie plant ! 
 Then should I ever laden be, 
 
 And never want 
 Some fruit for him that dressed me." 
 
 GEORGE HERBERT : The Temple. 
 
1845.] PHILANTHROPIC LAYMEN IN INDIA. 409 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 WE have seen how, throughout the first period of Dr. Wilson's 
 Indian career, he was encouraged and supported in his purely 
 missionary as well as philanthropic and scientific labours by 
 laymen, chiefly civil and military officers, who united with 
 him in dedicating to the very highest ends their intellectual 
 powers, their social influence, and their Christian culture. 
 Even at that early time he became the centre and the 
 stimulus of the best society in Western India. One of the 
 most remarkable of the officers with whom he formed a very 
 close friendship was Lieutenant-Colonel T. B. Jervis, F.K.S. 
 To his educational work in the Konkan, and erection of the 
 Bombay College, transferred on its completion to the Estab- 
 lished Kirk, we have already referred. Born in India, and 
 with a hereditary interest in its people like the majority of 
 the Anglo-Indian officials under the East India Company, 
 young Jervis gained extraordinary honours at Addiscombe 
 and entered the Engineer Corps, became superintending 
 engineer of the Southern Konkan which had just been made 
 British territory, and surveyed that large tract of Western 
 India. His maps still form part of the uncompleted Atlas 
 of India. He made such a reputation that, when in England 
 in 1837, he was nominated successor to Sir George Everest 
 as Surveyor-General of India, an appointment he did not 
 take up. On finally retiring from the service, shortly 
 before Dr. Wilson's departure from Bombay, he received a 
 letter of touching farewell, and a copy of the best edition of 
 the Bible which could then be procured, " as a small token of 
 
410 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1845. 
 
 Christian affection and gratitude for his admirable design for 
 the General Assembly's Institution in Bombay." 
 
 With no one was Dr. Wilson in such close correspond- 
 ence all through his visit to Great Britain, especially on 
 literary and scientific undertakings for the good of India, as 
 with Colonel Jervis. While the missionary was striving to 
 devote every hour he could snatch from ecclesiastical engage- 
 ments to the preparation of his elaborate work, The Lands of 
 the Bible, the engineer was projecting a series of Memoirs, 
 Voyages, and Travels, original and translated, illustrative of 
 the geography and statistics of Asia. The collection would 
 have formed a modern Hakluyt, and is still a desideratum in 
 European literature, in spite of similarly fragmentary attempts 
 to supply it by both German and English editors, for the 
 health and the resources of Colonel Jervis did not allow 
 him to do more than issue in 1845 a first volume Baron 
 Charles Hiigel's Kaschmir und das Eeich der Siek, in an 
 English dress. 
 
 The two friends were farther interested in the success of 
 the North British Review. Evangelical men of all parties 
 in Scotland had, even before -the events of 1843, desired to 
 see established a Quarterly which, to the literary ability of 
 the Edinburgh Review and its great rival, would add the dis- 
 cussion of theological questions which were then beginning 
 to occupy thoughtful minds no less in England, where the 
 Tractarian movement was at its height, than in Scotland. 
 Men like Drs. Chalmers and Welsh, Cunningham and Fleming, 
 in the Scottish Universities and Church, and writers like 
 Sir David Brewster, Isaac Taylor, and Merle D'Aubigne, 
 formed a nucleus to whom only the leisure of letters was 
 wanting in those stirring times, to make success as lasting 
 as it proved to be brilliant for a time. For the North British 
 Review anticipated that discussion of the deepest theological 
 problems, and of all questions on the platform of the highest 
 
1845.] THE "NORTH BRITISH" AND "CALCUTTA" REVIEWS. 411 
 
 principles, which has of late marked the higher periodi- 
 cal literature. In the thirty years of its existence it more 
 than justified the other boast with which its prospectus was 
 concluded: "The latest discoveries in mental and physical 
 science will be regularly unfolded by men themselves of the 
 highest inventive genius. In all departments individuals of 
 the greatest celebrity in this and other countries have pro- 
 mised to adorn our pages with their contributions." Dr. Welsh 
 at once laid hold of Dr. Wilson for his staff. It should be 
 noted that the same month of May 1844 which saw the first 
 number of the Scottish Keview, witnessed the birth of another 
 Quarterly which has a history in the East quite as remark- 
 able as that of the Edinburgh in the West the Calcutta 
 Review, edited, after its first number, by Dr. Duff, and still 
 prospering. 1 At a much later period, and for some time, Dr. 
 Wilson contributed articles to the Bombay Quarterly Eeview 
 and to the British and Foreign Evangelical Eeview. 
 
 The reputation which Dr. Wilson had gained in the circles 
 of the learned of Europe by his work on the Parsee Eeligion 
 was increased when his Lands of the Bible appeared, and, 
 during his occasional visits to London, caused his society to 
 be sought by men like Lord Castlereagh, afterwards fourth 
 Marquis of Londonderry, who had himself been travelling in 
 the East. In the addresses of 1869 and 18*70 to Dr. Wilson, 
 the public and the Asiatic Society of Bombay thus sum up 
 contemporary opinions on these two books : 
 
 "Your learned and comprehensive work on the religion of the 
 Parsees, published on the eve of your journey to Europe in 1843, was 
 recognised by the few scholars then competent to form an opinion as 
 the most complete investigation into the sacred writings of the Parsees 
 that had up to that time appeared. A distinguished Oriental scholar, 
 whose learned labours have reflected honour on Bombay, Mr. William 
 
 1 See an article on " The First Twenty Years of the Calcutta Review" in 
 the number for July 1874. 
 
412 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1845. 
 
 Erskine urged you, in reference to this and other works, ' to go on and 
 enrich the world of letters, while you think chiefly of the religious 
 world and religious benefit of the human race ;' and Professor Wester- 
 gaard of Copenhagen, whose own valuable labours in this branch of 
 Oriental research are so well known, thankfully recognised the value of 
 the services you had rendered himself, which he said he valued the 
 more from the prominent place you hold amongst Oriental philologists, 
 and for your having signally contributed to the furtherance of acquaint- 
 ance with the Zoroastrian lore. Your great work, the Lands of the 
 Bible, was hailed on its appearance, as being in itself a complete 
 storehouse of biblical research, and as abounding in materials illus- 
 trating the state of the Christian sects and churches of the East, of 
 the Eastern Jews and Samaritans, of Mahomedanism, and the numerous 
 questions connected with the ancient people and languages of Palestine, 
 Syria, and other parts of the East. The President of the Royal 
 Geographical Society, in directing the attention of the learned to 
 what was new and important in the work specially pertaining to 
 questions of geographical, topographical, and antiquarian research, 
 remarked how much could be done in gleaning what was new in 
 such countries as those you had travelled in, by travellers who 
 enjoyed, as you did, the advantage of understanding the language of 
 the people, and of entering into the spirit of the manners of the 
 East." 
 
 Of The Parsi ^Religion the Asiatic Society of Paris thus 
 wrote in their Eeport of 1843 : 
 
 " Tous ces ouvrages sont destines a servir 1'eclaircissement d'une 
 grande controverse qui s'est elevee, a Bombay, entre les missionaires 
 protestants et les Parsis, et qui, dirigee, du cote Chretien, par un 
 homme savant et intelligent comme M. Wilson, a donne naissance a 
 plusieurs ecrits remarquables dont la science doit tirer profit." 
 
 But the practical criticism which Dr. Wilson valued most 
 was the blue riband of science in Great Britain. On the *7th 
 February 1845 he was elected a Fellow of the Eoyal Society. 
 
 Dr. WILSON to Colonel JERVIS. 
 
 "EDINBURGH, IQth August 1844. 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND This is the first moment of leisure which I 
 have found to write to a friend since my return from Ireland. I have 
 not, however, been unmindful of the matters referred to in your letter 
 
1845.] ARTICLES IN THE "NORTH BRITISH REVIEW." 413 
 
 of last month. Owing to Dr. Welsh's absence from Edinburgh I had it 
 not in my power to put your letter in his hands till a couple of days 
 ago, when I was dining with him, along with Sir David Brewster. 
 He received it with much satisfaction, and I have no doubt that he 
 will write to you accepting your proposal. I am happy to say that the 
 second number of the North British Review is as great a favourite as 
 the first, and that there is not the slightest doubt of the complete 
 success of the undertaking. My article, you will see, was in time. 
 (On The Vishnu Purana, translated by H. H. Wilson, 1840.) 
 
 "EDINBURGH, 11 tli November 1844. MY DEAR MAJOR JERVIS. 
 I begin with Baron Hiigel. l Your Preface is in every respect suitable. 
 Do not allow a day to pass without sending me a copy for the Review, 
 as all articles for the next number of the Review should be in Dr. 
 Welsh's hands by the 1st December December being the printing 
 month. Send me too the original of Hugel and the number of the 
 Foreign Quarterly. The model of the planet Saturn which you gave me 
 in London I left with Mr. Laurie to forward to Bombay." 
 
 Colonel JERVIS to Dr. WILSON. 
 
 " 9 KEGENT'S VILLAS, AVENUE EOAD, 30^ December 1844. 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND. I have got a beautiful woodcut of the sun 
 
 rising between the hills of Caranja, over the harbour and island of 
 
 Bombay and Back Bay, as viewed from Malabar Hill, near the Rev. Dr. 
 
 Wilson's house, to be the heading of an instructive illustrated journal 
 
 1 The Austrian Baron Hiigel, extolled by- continental writers as "the 
 second Marco Polo," and recently far distanced by the Prussian Baron von 
 Kichthofen, spent six years in travelling from Greece by Syria to Egypt 
 across India to Ceylon, Australia, and China. Returning to India he passed 
 in a continuous journey from Cape Comorin to Kashmere in 1835, where 
 he was protected by Runjeet Singh. His spoils have enriched the Imperial 
 Library and Museum at Vienna, which, to the present day, shows a keen 
 interest in Oriental research and commerce, witness its Oriental Museum, 
 of which A. Von Scala is director. When in Kashmere Baron Hiigel and Mr. 
 Vigne set up this inscription in black marble on the Char Chinar Island 
 "Three travellers in Kashmir, on the 18th November 1835, the Baron Ch. 
 Hiigel from Jamu ; Th. G. . Vigne from Iskardu ; and Dr. John Henderson 
 from Ladak, have caused the names of all the travellers who preceded them 
 in Kashmir to be engraven on this stone. Bernier, 1663. Forster, 1786. 
 Moorcroft, Guthrie, and Trebeck, 1823. Victor Jacquemont, 1831. Joseph 
 Wolff, 1832." Hieronymus Xavier was the first European who penetrated to 
 Kashmere, but his remarks, as given in what Dr. Wilson calls that very scarce 
 work, Hajus de Rebus Japonicis, Indicis, etc. (Antwerp, 1605), are pronounced 
 by Baron Hiigel to be " of no particular value." 
 
414 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1845. 
 
 for general circulation among the natives of India. Will you write an 
 article for it ? I propose in every case to give the writer's names." 
 
 " I2th February 1845. MY VERY DEAR FRIEND. I cannot express 
 to you the great delight I experienced, and those also to whom I read it 
 aloud from the review of my work in the North British. You have grasped 
 and epitomised all that was worth knowing on the subject in so masterly 
 and delightful a manner that I have got a far clearer view from it of the 
 Baron's real merit and the happy selection I had made of my preliminary 
 volume than I could ever have hoped for elsewhere. It has given courage 
 to a sinking spirit, and will do more for the recommendation and sale 
 of the work than all the advertisements or exertions I could make. 
 
 " I sent you the testimonial (a copy) of your election as Fellow of 
 the Eoyal Society and a noble testimonial, and well supported it was, 
 by Dr. Buckland, and Murchison President of the Geographical Society, 
 and Greenough President of the Geological Society. I am sorry to say 
 our kind friend Mr. Greenongh is laid up with influenza, very severe. 
 On Thursday the Koyal Society meeting was put off for the death of 
 the Princess Sophia. Another meeting I went down, and the old 
 dame, the porteress at the door, said, ' Oh dear, Major Jervis, his good 
 majesty Charles the First was martyrised to-day, and you are not the only 
 gentleman who has been disappointed and had a long walk for nothing 
 to Somerset House.' The set day came at length, and I was at my 
 post, Sir John Lubbock in the chair, and rejoiced to communicate to 
 you the tidings of your admission into the long list of 750 Fellows, 
 some eminent for taste and talent, and on the whole the most remark- 
 able men in Europe of the present generation, or perhaps, any in 
 modern times. The honour of your election is mutually yours and 
 that of the great public body, and I always think that a grain of good 
 salt thrown into the leaven will correct many acidities, and tend to give 
 a wholesome zest to the discoveries of intellectual knowledge. 
 
 " I have thought to call my little lithographic establishment the 
 International Press ; I tried first how Polygraphic Press would sound, 
 because I can command every kind of work, woodcutting, lithography, 
 copper-plate of every kind, and in fact all the known processes of 
 illustration for maps, drawings, designs, or works of any sort, among 
 the little establishment which I have got together, in the first style of 
 art. Baron Hugel's portrait is a specimen of the portrait work on steel ; 
 the yellow title-page, of lithographic writing ; the vignettes and two 
 of the illustrations, of my wood-cutting ; and the other two, of Palmer's 
 glyphography, poor, bad, but infant attempts of this art. This, my 
 friend of the Royal Institution said, smacked of commercial business, 
 
1845.] LITHOGRAPHY INTRODUCED INTO INDIA. 415 
 
 I therefore bethought myself of the Asiatic Engineer Institute, because 
 I first gave my attention to lithography for the cause of education with 
 my brother in 1826, 1 when he founded and organised the Engineer 
 Institution in Bombay. 
 
 " I have got the view of Bombay, between the hills of Caranja, as 
 seen from the top of Malabar Hill, close to the Eev. Dr. Wilson's 
 bungalow, sketched from nature and painted in oils by Mrs. Jervis. 
 It is a glorious, magnificent scene. 
 
 " I have sent out a lithographed Post-office money order, of which I 
 bethought myself as an admirable advertisement and recommendation 
 to H.M. Indian Commissioners, to the Court of Directors, and to the 
 Government of India. I propose to send it to Sir Henry Hardinge 
 and all the Governments of India. It is of course merely a sketch 
 in petto. You know better than I can tell you, if a poor servant or 
 sepoy wishes to send a small sum from Kashmir or Delhi to Cape 
 Comorin or Malabar, he can do so by hoondee (bill), but they lose by the 
 exchange, and my device is to cut off this loss in the first instance. 
 Next, the greater part of such little remittances are made through 
 private channels. How much fraud, dishonesty, untruth, murder, 
 thuggee, etc., is occasioned by the remittances so made. Our dear 
 friend Nelson, an experienced judge, of Malabar, when he first cast his 
 eyes upon it, said : ' How many a murder will this save ! ' " 2 
 Dr. WILSON to Eev. EGBERT NESBIT. 
 
 "EDINBURGH, 1st February 1845. MY DEAR EGBERT. As I am 
 sitting up again a whole night writing letters, you will not expect me 
 to enlarge. The North British Review, No. IV., is sent to you by this 
 mail. The writers of the articles whom I am at liberty to mention to 
 you, are : 1. Dana Dr. Fleming (Aberdeen). 2. Thornton Eobert- 
 son (B.C.S.) 4. Fitchett J. M. Bell. 5. Arnold Maitlandj (Edward). 
 6. Hugel John Wilson. 7. Poor Laws Chalmers. S.Palestine Isaac 
 Taylor. 9. Christian Union Professor Eddye. 10. Jesuits an Italian. 
 
 " Dr. Welsh, our great leader, I grieve to tell you, is threatened 
 with a fatal disease of the liver. Save, Lord ! 
 
 " The Eeview is now established as first-rate. Our Scotch circula- 
 tion is ahead of the Edinburgh's ; and we are making way in England 
 
 1 Colonel George Jervis, Bombay Engineer Corps. It is believed that the 
 two officers were the first to introduce lithography into India. 
 
 2 The Post-office orders, proposed to the Indian Government, were not 
 taken further notice of. Since then, as is well known, they have extended 
 not only to India but to every civilised country, and are the greatest boon to 
 all classes. 
 
416 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1845. 
 
 and on the continent. Westergaard is delighted with it. The Edin- 
 burgh prints 5000 copies, and we 3000 for the present. 
 
 " I have been strongly urged by friends here to write an essay on the 
 Millennium ; but I can't find time. I grudge every day I am away from 
 my books. I hope that the Encyclopaedia Britannica, sent by the Brahman, 
 will reach you safely. Two gigantic globes, with a few volumes, I send 
 off next week. Put one of the globes in the Institution, and keep 
 the other at Ambrolie for native visitors and the female schools." 
 
 "6th March 1845. I came up to London last week to sign the 
 statutes of the Koyal Society, of which, a short time ago, I was elected 
 a member on the recommendation of nine of the great masters of 
 science and literature, of whose unsought patronage I am very 
 unworthy. At the Eoyal Asiatic Society on Saturday, I reported 
 progress in the decipherment of the Hiinyaritic inscriptions of the south 
 of Arabia, some of which, the most eminent orientalists here and else- 
 where being witnesses, I have now clearly made out. Mr. Foster and 
 Dr. Bird are both wrong. Gesenius was partly right and partly wrong. 
 Rodiger is nearly right. I have not time to tell you how I forged the key. 
 
 " I am with Jervis, who is doing great and good things for the East. 
 Yesterday morning he forwarded to Prince Albert, without my know- 
 ledge, my proof of the raised map of Palestine. The Prince himself 
 laid it before the Queen, who was much pleased with it, and ordered 
 her private secretary to inform us that Her Majesty will graciously 
 accept the dedication of the map from him and Dr. Wilson." 
 
 " 5th June 1845. Our Assembly has passed off well ; but we missed 
 the hallowed form of Welsh. The loss which we have sustained by his 
 death is unspeakably great. Mr. Edward Maitland, advocate, receives 
 charge of the North British Review in the meantime." 
 
 Dr. WILSON to Professor WESTERGAARD. 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND. I was delighted to hear that you had got on so 
 well on your arrival in the capital of Denmark. It is not every 
 orientalist who, like yourself, is permitted to bask in royal favour, 
 and it speaks -much for his Danish Majesty that he has done some 
 justice to your claims on his regard. I feel a great interest in your 
 present studies. You will not doubt this as far as the Zand-Avasta is 
 concerned. I hope to profit from them much in my future dealings 
 with Zoroastrianism. I have all along been much inclined to take the 
 view you mention of the seven Amshas' frauds. The Parsees them- 
 selves, in fact, in modern times even, seem to have had some idea of 
 the impersonation to which you refer. See the Sifat-i-Sirozah, in the 
 
1 "- '! COBBESPQ9DKEICE WITH WEOTZBGAABD, 417 
 
 Appendix to 117 work, 7%* P*rrf Jfc%i*n, I am of opinion that 
 
 tl.O n,,: ,1 .,:,, ,,f |.|,,: ,-l- ! ;, 1 ,,< ::.:-.:.:! !,,;. - , : .;. : P , , | ,, M 
 
 that of the 8atnides, 
 
 I -..si.:!,, Xrnophor,, I 'I I J UP :h , QfogHMI UotfOPj '^r., WT': ... V..P-. ,=.1. 1 , -, ,.,.!. 
 
 of the antagonism of the tiro principle* of the Pa wee*. It i* probable, 
 however, that Judaism and Christianity may about the time of the 
 
 MaAjM havo holpod thorn fegfol form to th.-.ir thoorio-., ;u,.l to multiply 
 
 their legends You would observe perhaps that in the second number 
 of the Nvrth MM, Bwiew, tmder the head of Howee Wflforft trans- 
 lation of the Vishnu Parana, I allnded to the great iimilarity between 
 theVedaiandtheLitiirgicalwoiiwofthePaweetJ. This, a weU as the 
 affinity of the Samerit and Zand, marks the early connection of the 
 two yrtero. Tour discovery about the nmflarity of the Rturian and 
 Zand will throw farther light on the matter, I long to see the result 
 of your investigations. It may be interesting to yon to be informed 
 that Mr, Norris, of the Boyal Asiatic Society, has deciphered the fee- 
 simile of the large Pahlavi inscription brought by Hanson from 
 Afghanistan, It is a counterpart of one of the Edicts on the rock of 
 Girnar in the Pali language, the letters reading from right to left ! 
 I happened to be in London ten days ago when Norris read his paper, 
 H, H, Wilson evidently did not like this ubiquity and antiquity of 
 Jiii'I'lhi.-.iM, Uiouxli of coiiBM h: OCpBMMd l.li-: |PBatr:Mt in tonal in j.oor 
 
 Norris*s discovery. He aid, for anything he had yet observed, t.h< ; 
 inscriptions at Girnar might be Brahmanical, as tenderness to life is 
 common both to Buddhism and Brahmanism, I directed his attention 
 to the form of the ancient temples on the Girnar mountain and to 
 
 I.Ii: liii'l'llii.-.t. foniii.hi. on tJi-- .-ni,,.!! (tone, M dedltfl agrfflfl him. 
 
 Animal tacrinces, as he well knows, I might have added, were a part 
 
 of the ancient Brahmanism. I should not be surprised to hear thut 
 
 , , :: , '. ',mt: analogiei h-.t.w:.rn J:u'Mlii..ni ;i .n.i ZOPM,, !.!;. ,.!,;.. ni. 
 
 Buddhism in its day would at least modify the ancient fire-worship 
 
 vJicn it. ouiir: in r:ont.;i/:t. with it. in t.hf. nor1.li of fnli;i. I hoj.. : rli.it. 
 yd will n,;,.k: much both of your Z.unl ;,.n.| l';..hl;ui MSS. My X-Mi-l 
 MSS, I intend to take back with me to India ; but if you intend to 
 publish a text of any of th<- Z;m<] writings I shall with much pleasure 
 let you have tint loan of thorn when you <:<>in>-. ovet to gee me. 
 
 1845. I have read with \i\\\<-\\ intoron.t your paj)eT in tin: 
 il.'ir. Kii.n.il'-. <l>.: M<,r>/' ///// //.///, , which I regularly receive 
 Yon speak of making a resume* for tin: /;o///.A</// ./>///,///./>./. Thin may bo 
 
 Ufll, but. I. -I. Ill'- III,''' Vill to |,|.-|,;i.|.- illl Ullir.li; nil tint f'|| liri |i ,| m 
 hi . ll|ili'>li. ll III.: .\,jlt.h. A'/' . It VVOIlM b: V.-jy .i."-,-p|..,.b|, : 
 
 J r: 
 
418 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1845. 
 
 to the editor ; and you would receive at the rate of 14 for the printed 
 sheet as an acknowledgment, which, considering the bad requital of 
 oriental study, is worthy of acceptance. Come prepared to write such 
 an article when here ; I shall be happy to keep you right in the matter 
 of English idiom, but you are in no danger of going wrong even in 
 this respect. I am constantly hearing from Bombay, and shall have 
 a whole budget of news to give you respecting it when you get 
 over. Dr. Bird has contrived to read the inscriptions backwards like 
 a witch's prayer. I can now prove that Rodiger is substantially correct ; 
 and I have made out some of the inscriptions in a satisfactory manner. 
 Henderson wishes to leave the Elphinstone College, and to join our 
 Institution. He says that great evil is arising from the exclusion of 
 religion from the Government school. Dr. Stevenson has returned to 
 Bombay ; but he finds most of his congregation left and joined to the 
 Free Church, which in India, as here, is destined to be predominant. 
 Our missionary friends on the whole are tolerably well. I do hope 
 that you will again visit us in the far East. A journey with you would 
 be a great luxury to me ; and such a journey I do hope to make. 
 There are many un visited temples in the Western Ghats. The King of 
 Denmark, as in the case of Mebuhr, ought to give you a couple of 
 artists when you go abroad next. You could do a great deal of good 
 in India by a little systematic arrangement." 
 
 " COPENHAGEN, 1*7 th October 1845. MY DEAR DR. WILSON. I 
 am taken up by the writing and publishing for the use of our Danish 
 students a Sanscrit anthology and grammar that I wish to get through 
 the press before the beginning of next term, i. e. before the middle of next 
 month, of which I shall of course have the pleasure to present you with 
 a copy as soon as the book is published, as I have already done with a 
 little English treatise on the Cuneiform Inscriptions of Persia, which I 
 this summer have written in the journal of our Society of Northern 
 Antiquarians, and which I earnestly recommend to your critical ex- 
 amination and kind forbearance. The Zand and Pahlavi types are not 
 yet cut and founded ; here is only one man able to do it, and he has un- 
 fortunately plenty of work on hand. Still I hope to carry my project 
 this winter, and to begin the printing of the Zand and Pahlavi book 
 next autumn or winter. I have divided the task with a learned German, 
 Dr. Spiegel, and I hope that by this division the whole will be better 
 and quicker executed. It is our intention to give, besides the original 
 texts, a Zand and Pahlavi grammar and dictionaries, and farther is he 
 to undertake a German translation of the whole, and I an English ; 
 and though I shall endeavour to translate as faithfully as if I were my- 
 
1845.] LETTER TO HUGH MILLER. 419 
 
 self a true fire- worshipper, still I fear that my translation in many 
 points will not agree with the received or the fancied opinions of the 
 Parsees. I shall by and by write to you about such points, to receive 
 also your opinion about these things. We have at Copenhagen many 
 and beautiful copies of Vandidad, Yagna and Vispard, but only a few 
 copies of the Yask Nyaish, etc., though I think we'll have them all ; 
 if, therefore, among your manuscripts you should be able to do without 
 the use of all these minor parts of the Zand-Avasta, and would lend me 
 these at Copenhagen for about a year, you would do me one favour 
 more, and I hope likewise a great service both to science and to 
 that cause of which you are one of the most eminent defenders. I 
 shall return the manuscripts to any place you may direct as soon as 
 you may wish to get them, or as soon as the text is published. A 
 smaller work I have in hand at the present is the publication of 
 MaMivanso, of which you know Tumour has published the first part ; 
 but I feel a great want for one or two copies, as the one we have is in 
 some places a little indistinct and incorrect. As I know your readiness 
 to assist and help any one, I request you to look for one copy at least 
 of Makdwanso. 
 
 " In my private life I have made a great change. I have married in 
 the end of May a young and amiable Danish girl, who loves me. And 
 now I think I am happier than I would have been if it had happened 
 otherwise. Pray tell me how our Indian friends do live. I seldom hear 
 from that part of the world that occupies a bright place in my remem- 
 brance. Before all, tell me how you yourself are doing. I am now 
 determined to do as if I were in India, to write to you once every 
 month." x 
 
 Dr. WILSON to HUGH MILLER, Esq. 
 
 " 24th July 1845. MY DEAR SIR. I have the pleasure of sending 
 for your examination most of the fossils which I brought from Lebanon. 
 The ichthyolites are certainly neither placoids nor ganoids. I have so 
 little practical acquaintance with such remains that I cannot positively 
 say whether they are ctenoids or cycloids, though I am inclined to think 
 that they are the latter. One of the species seems to belong to the 
 
 1 As this sheet passes through the press we learn the death of this amiable 
 and erudite scholar at^Copenhagen, on the 9th September 1878. Son of a 
 joiner and builder, Westergaard took his M.A. degree at nineteen, and gave 
 up the rest of his life to the study of Zand, in which his death now leaves the 
 Bavarian Spiegel facile princeps. He entered political life in the first Danish 
 Rigsdag, only to help in passing the Liberal Charter. Born in 1815, he was 
 eleven years junior to Dr. Wilson. 
 
420 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1846. 
 
 salmonidse. Most of the shells and impressions of shells I picked up in 
 the Jurassic Hills between Jazln and Deir-el-Kamr, south-east of Beyrut. 
 One or two of them are from the under indurated chalk between Deir- 
 el-Kamr and Beyrut. The small packet in white paper is from Ehdur, 
 near the cedars. The recent species of buccinum is for comparison 
 with the largest impression. I send also the specimens of fossil wood 
 which I brought from the Egyptian desert, south-east of Basdtin, and 
 from Jebel-el-Tih, in the Mount Sinai peninsula, north of the granitic 
 range. You will oblige me by asking Mr. Sanderson when he may 
 call upon you, to cut them so as to exhibit a section of them, and to 
 prepare a slip of each for the miscroscope, like those which you yester- 
 day showed to me. You are most welcome to take pieces of them as 
 hand specimens, etc., for yourself. I have a good many other articles 
 here on which I must ask Mr. Sanderson to operate at a future time." 
 
 Dr. FALCONER to Dr. WILSON. 
 
 "BRITISH MUSEUM, 1st May 1846. MY DEAR SIR. I com- 
 missioned a friend who went out lately to Bombay to send all the 
 information he could gather for me about the Perini island fossils, 
 more especially the Dinotherium and Mastodons. I have received a 
 number of sketches of the specimens in the Bombay Society's Museum, 
 but none of the Dinotherium, and my friend Mr. Winterbottom 
 was informed by Professor Orlebar or Dr. Buist that you had got 
 a cranium of the Dinotherium, and taken it with you to this country. 
 Might I ask the favour of your informing me if such is the case, or if 
 you have any good specimens of Mastodons or Dinotherium teeth from 
 Perim island, and whether I could get access to them for illustra- 
 tions and description in our ' Fauna Antiqua Sivalensis.' My dear Sir, 
 yours very faithfully, H. FALCONER." 
 
 Dr. "Wilson's second marriage took place in June 1846, to 
 Isabella, fourth daughter of James Dennistoun of Dennis- 
 toun, and of Mary Kamsay, fifth daughter of George Oswald 
 of Auchencruive. For more than twenty years she proved to 
 be a devoted wife, and no less a self-sacrificing missionary 
 than her husband was. Admirably did she fill the place left 
 vacant by the Bayne sisters, alike at the head of the female 
 schools, among the families of the native converts, and in 
 general society. Sprung of a house which, through the alliance 
 of one of its members with Robert the Steward of Scotland, 
 
1846.] MARRIED TO ISABELLA DENNISTOUN. 421 
 
 could declare, "kings have come of us, not we of kings," Isabella 
 Wilson ever showed the truest marks of gentle birth and 
 training in the unobtrusive piety and unselfish simplicity 
 of her character. Dr. Wilson himself thus alludes to his new- 
 found happiness and strength : 
 
 Dr. WILSON to Eev. EGBERT NESBIT. 
 
 " EDINBURGH, 5th June 1846. 
 
 " MY DEAR ROBERT. You will learn the Lord's great goodness to 
 me in giving me the prospect of being united in the most endeared 
 relation to one every way worthy of the most devoted human love ; 
 and who by her piety, talents, accomplishments, and personal and 
 family influence, would reflect credit on any missionary or Christian 
 establishment in the world, Miss Isabella Dennistoun of Greenlaw 
 House, near Paisley. I am happy to say that her mother and sisters 
 most cordially approve of our intentions. Her eldest brother, who is 
 daily expected from Rome, has not yet been informed respecting them ; 
 and it is feared that lie may be able to judge of them only according 
 to the principles of the world. He is a Deputy-Lieutenant of Dum- 
 bartonshire, and is married to the daughter of Lord Cringletie. I have 
 mentioned to Christina some of Miss Dennistoun's other connections, 
 merely to satisfy her curiosity. I am happy to say that dearest 
 Christina has been able to send me her warmest congratulations. ' I may 
 safely say/ she writes to me, ' that in the warmest and most heartfelt 
 manner I can enter, my beloved brother, into your feelings, and join 
 with you in gratitude and praise to the great Giver of all good for 
 having thus led and guided you to one so estimable in every respect, 
 and who seems so much calculated to promote your own personal 
 comfort and happiness, and one who in that great work to which you 
 have devoted yourself is ready in heart and soul to co-operate with 
 you, and willing to bear the burden and heat of the day. I am glad 
 to say your beloved one is not altogether a stranger to me. I 
 have had the pleasure of seeing her ; and I assure you (though not 
 much acquainted) formed at the same time a very high opinion of her. 
 Dear Catherine too, will, I am sure, be every day able more and more 
 to enter into your feelings.' I am happy to say that during the 
 Assembly I had an opportunity of introducing my dear friend to 
 Catherine, and that they got on remarkably well together." 
 
 " \1tli October 1846. I am gratified with the good wishes which you 
 express in reference to my dear partner and myself. You will find, I 
 doubt not, in her all that can be desired in a friend and fellow-labourer 
 
422 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1846. 
 
 Our marriage was consummated in very comfortable circumstances, and 
 with the fullest approbation of all the members of the family. We 
 have received the kindest treatment from all the numerous relatives, 
 and they seem all highly satisfied. They are also pleased with the 
 other marriage which was celebrated along with our own. Mr. Mitchell 
 is a very opulent merchant and landed- proprietor, and extremely 
 amiable, and thoroughly pious. He is an elder in the United Secession 
 Church, and contributes .300 per annum to the Synodical funds. 
 His father was Dr. Mitchell, Professor of Divinity. He is a nephew of 
 Mr. Oswald, M.P. for Glasgow, and through his aunt he got acquainted 
 with the Dennistouns. 
 
 " I have promised to assist Mr. Sachs in establishing himself at 
 Aden. He has got seriously unwell, and what may be the issue I 
 do not know. Perhaps it may be best to take him on to Bombay for 
 a season. He is the most learned Jewish convert whom I have yet 
 met ; a great linguist and philologist ; prone to kill himself by study. 
 
 " I have many calls from the conductors of periodicals here, and 
 high offers of remuneration ; but I can do nothing at present. I have 
 a department in the North British, but except in the way of conversa- 
 tion and recommendation I have done nothing in it since the fourth 
 number appeared. I have also made an engagement with Lowe's 
 Magazine at the request of Dr. Candlish, and the new Editor under him. 
 I hope to get your co-operation when I get out and open my budget. 
 The North British gives 14 a sheet, and Lowe 10. An article 
 enables us to add to our Library." 
 
 From Professor WESTERGAARD. 
 
 "COPENHAGEN, I8t/i March 1847. 
 
 "MY DEAR DR. WILSON. In my Zand studies I am making 
 good progress, and I spend at present all the time I can spare in tran- 
 scribing and comparing our MSS., and in collecting the materials both 
 for a critical edition of all the Zand texts that are within my reach, 
 and to a grammar and dictionary of the Zand language. If God spares 
 me, and I find the necessary support, I hope to be able to commence 
 the printing of the text in the end of next year or the beginning of 
 1849, and to finish both volumes about the middle of 1850; and 
 before that time I shall scarcely get leisure to any Pahlavi study. The 
 most incorrect of all copies is the Bombay lithographed Vandiclad 
 work, and the less incorrect copies that exist are our ancient copies 
 from the beginning of the fourteenth century; following these, I 
 shall try to restore the text ; and the grammar and dictionary, in which 
 
1847.] FORMATION OF TEXT OF PARSEE SCRIPTURES. 423 
 
 you may overlook at one glance all the forms of every word that are 
 found, will be the best test for the correctness of the text on any 
 particular place. I shall proceed in the same way to the Pahlavi and 
 Pazand (or Persian) remains, and conclude with a translation of the 
 whole, which I hope to get through the press before ten years have 
 passed. Now, my dear Dr. Wilson, I have shortly exposed to you the 
 plan of my proceeding, which, as far as I can see, is the only one that 
 can lead to any certain results. At present I shall only ask you for 
 the loan of all the minor Zand texts, the Yask, Nyaish, Baj which 
 constitute the Khurda Avasta, of which we have only modern copies; 
 and besides, the Sanscrit translation, if you possess one. The Pahlavi 
 MSS. I shall not be able to use satisfactorily at present, and it will be 
 much better that you keep these until that time, which cannot arrive 
 ere 1850 or 1851. You may then perhaps be once more in your 
 native country, or, at any rate, it will not be difficult to send them off 
 from Bombay if you think me deserving it. 
 
 " I have left the Asiatic section of the Eoyal Society of Northern 
 Antiquaries. In my attempts to reform it I was beaten, but did not at 
 all lose the courage, and I am now standing at the head of a new 
 Society (the Northern Literature Society) which I have founded in 
 connection with those men that stand at the head of our literature. 
 The Society, although but two months' old, numbers already 330 mem- 
 bers, and similar Societies will, I hope, ere long be founded in Norway 
 and Sweden in connection with that of mine. The first number of our 
 publication is already out. Though absent from me you are constantly 
 present in my thoughts, near and dear to my heart ; and I shall 
 never forget those happy days I spent in your society in the far East. 
 When in Bombay I expect letters from you twice a year ; I shall be 
 sure to write as often. Give my best regards to Mrs. Wilson. May 
 the God of blessings bless your efforts to advance His reign. Believe 
 me, my dear Dr. Wilson, ever to be yours most affectionately 
 
 " N. WESTERGAARD." 
 
 Dr. WILSON to Professor WESTERGAARD. 
 
 "LONDON, 3d July 1847. 
 
 "My DEAR FRIEND. In a box which I forwarded to you to-day, 
 I enclose a copy of my work on The Lands of the Bible for the Eoyal 
 Society of Northern Antiquaries at Copenhagen, to the Secretary of 
 whom I have addressed this note : ' London, 3d July 1847. My dear 
 Sir. It is only a few weeks since I received at Edinburgh your letter 
 acquainting me with my election as a founder and member of the 
 Eoyal Society of Northern Antiquaries at Copenhagen, even though 
 
424 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1847. 
 
 that letter, and the accompanying diploma, are dated in the early 
 part of 1843. Your parcel must have lain at some of our public 
 Institutions without being forwarded to me. Allow me, however late, 
 to thank your Society for the honour it has done me in electing me 
 a founder, and also for adding my name to the list of the Collabo- 
 rateurs des Memoires in the Asiatic Section. With this editorial 
 committee I shall have pleasure in co-operating on my return to India, 
 for which I am about to set out.' 
 
 " And now, my dear friend Westergaard, I send you all my Zand 
 and Pahlavi MSS. for collation, except a few Zasts which one of my 
 boys has by mistake put into one of my Indian boxes. They are in 
 eight volumes, viz. : 1. Par si Rawayats, Zand, Pahlavi MSS., etc. 
 2. Collection of Zasts, Zand MSS. 3. Great Sirozah and Bazes, Zand 
 MS. 4. Sirozahs, Zand MSS. 5. Khurda Avasta, MS. 6. Zand and 
 Pahlavi Minor MSS. 7. Nyaislies, Zand MSS. 8. Star-Stir, Zand and 
 Pahlavi MS. You will find my name on them all. When you have 
 collated them I will thank you to return them to me at Bombay, 
 where the Parsee may perhaps again fight with me as the wild beasts 
 with St. Paul at Ephesus." 
 
 Tims, by his MSS.. in Scotland as by his personal inter- 
 course and influence in Bombay, he co-operated with the 
 learned Westergaard in producing what is still, and must 
 long be, the only complete text of the extant Parsee scrip- 
 tures. At the same time we find the then venerable Colonel 
 Briggs invoking his aid in researches into the development of 
 the great vernacular languages of Northern and Central India 
 from the Sanscrit, and their relation to the Dravidian and 
 aboriginal tongues of the South. About this time Lassen" 
 announced to him his election as a Corresponding Member of 
 the German Oriental Society. 
 
 The month of September 1847 found Dr. and Mrs. Wilson 
 on their way to India. Their route lay through the north of 
 France, Belgium, and the Ehine country, Switzerland, Italy, 
 and Malta, that he might* report on the state of religion on 
 the Continent, and the duty of the Free Church, which 
 supports many preaching stations there, and aids the indi- 
 genous Eeformed Churches of France, Italy, and Bohemia. 
 
1847.] VISITS LASSEN, THE ORIENTALIST. 425 
 
 In his letter to the Rev. J. G. Lorimer, Convener of the com- 
 mittee on the subject, he describes his meeting with Lassen : 
 
 "In Rhenish Prussia my intercourse with different parties was 
 entirely of a literary character. At Bonn I had the pleasure of seeing 
 Professor Lassen, one of the greatest Orientalists of the Continent. 
 At present he is engaged in the preparation of a truly great work on 
 the History of India, which, I trust, will ere long become well known 
 in our native country as well as in the distant East. It is entitled, 
 Indisclie AlterthumsJcunde, von CHR. LASSEN. I was favoured with the 
 sheets of the work, so far as it has been printed. After a topographical 
 and ethnographical description of India, the author proceeds to investi- 
 gate its ancient history. His acquaintance with its sacred language 
 and antiquities gives him advantages, which he turns to a wonderful 
 account. At the same place I met Mr. Erskine, the son-in-law of Sir 
 James Mackintosh. He was one of the founders of our Bombay Asiatic 
 Society, to which he contributed several most able papers on the 
 Parsees and the Cave-temples of India. He has been devoting his 
 attention of late to the Muhammadan History of India, as set forth in 
 its original authorities. He introduced me to Mr. Konig, who has 
 patronised oriental literature, perhaps more than any other individual 
 of our day, by the publication of many works in the Sanscrit and 
 other languages." 
 
 To Dr. J. Buchanan he wrote : 
 
 " At Cairo I purchased from the Karaim Jews a complete 
 copy of the Hebrew Scriptures, neatly written on 1386 leaves of parch- 
 ment. Though it is only three hundred and fifty-seven years old, it has 
 peculiar interest as belonging to a recension of which few or no copies 
 are in the hands of Europeans, and as having the text in many places 
 arranged according to the Hebrew poetry. By the help of Mr. Lieder, 
 the esteemed missionary, we were able speedily to equip ourselves for 
 a journey through the land of Goshen, which we were able to accom- 
 plish in a very satisfactory manner. At the Tern el-Yehud, near 
 Thibin, we found undoubted and numerous tokens of an ancient site, 
 and, if we mistake not, traces of the Onion built by Onias in imitation 
 of the temple of Jerusalem. We successfully explored the Tell el- 
 Yehud near Belbies, probably the site of the Vicus Judseorum of the 
 Antoninian Itinerary. At the Ten el-Basta, the Bubastis of the 
 Greeks, and the Pi-Beseth (the first of these syllables being the Egypt- 
 ian article), as well as other places, we procured some valuable antiques 
 
426 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1847. 
 
 which have an historical import. We visited a site corresponding 
 with the Thon of the Antoninian Itinerary, and perhaps the Pi-Thorn 
 of the Israelites. We examined the site of Heroopolis, the Barneses of 
 the Septuagint ; and we there disinhumed the large image of Rameses 
 II., the Sesostris of the Egyptians. We found what is now generally 
 admitted to be the land of Goshen most minutely accord with the 
 intimations and exigencies of Holy Writ. We went to the Red Sea by 
 a route seldom traversed; and on its interesting shores we observed 
 fresh proofs of the accuracy of the views which I have ventured to 
 express in The Lands of the Bible, on the great question of the passage 
 of the Israelites. We felt very thankful to the Father of mercies when 
 we arrived at our desired haven. 
 
 " Our friend Dr. Miller took us on shore early on the morning after 
 we cast anchor in the harbour. We met Mr. Mitchell, and Mr. Hender- 
 son, and Dhunjeebhoy and Hormasdjee, and then the Abyssinian youth 
 most kindly hastening to bid us welcome, Mr Nesbit, who has since 
 joined us, being then absent from Bombay. Since our establishment 
 in the mission-house we have had crowds of visitors, particularly of all 
 tribes and classes of natives, by many of whom, former acquaintances, 
 we have been received in the most affecting manner. Several of my 
 controversial opponents have proffered their renewed friendship, which 
 is very acceptable, alleging that they never could take offence at what 
 I have written, as I ' uniformly avoided disagreeable personalities.' 
 I have recommenced my usual Sabbath services, both predicatory and 
 catechetical ; and two week-day lectures in English and Marathee, 
 which have hitherto been remarkably well attended. I am inspecting 
 the educational operations of the mission with a view to the immediate 
 resumption of my duties in that department. You will ever pray that 
 grace may be given to us all to make full proof of our ministry, incal- 
 culably solemn in all circumstances, but especially so in this great land 
 of heathen darkness and death. 
 
 " Dhunjeebhoy has set out on an important tour with all juvenile 
 ardour and Christian zeal and humility. Gabru, one of the two 
 devoted Abyssinian youths, accompanied him as an attendant and 
 assistant. Hormasdjee is preparing discourses with a view to his ordina- 
 tion, which we hope will soon take place ; particularly as. of all the 
 converts in the East, he has endured the greatest trials and suffered 
 the greatest earthly losses in consequence of his embracement of the 
 cause of Christ. I feel it an unspeakable privilege to be restored to 
 the fellowship of the dear converts." 
 
1847.] WELCOMED BACK TO BOMBAY. 427 
 
 " Welcome ! welcome again on the Indian shores ! " wrote 
 one whom we may take as representative of all the Eev. B. 
 Schmidt, of the Church Missionary Society, who had long 
 evangelised the Tamul country, and had returned to India to 
 work among the tribes of the Neilgherry hills. "I almost 
 apprehended that you would find so much to do at home for 
 the mission cause that you would not come out again into the 
 encampment. But a true Crusader cannot stay at home as 
 long as one Turk is in the field ! Although born in different 
 countries, wearing different uniforms, preaching Christ in 
 different languages, in different provinces, yet we reach each 
 other the right hand of fellowship we are one in Christ ! " 
 And as, when beginning his mission in Bombay, Dr. Wilson's 
 first privilege was to announce, in the Oriental Christian 
 Spectator for January 1830, the suppression of Suttee in what 
 was then British India, so now, on resuming his editorial 
 labours in January 1848, he published the notification, by 
 the Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief Lord Har- 
 dinge, that proclamations had been issued by the Maharaja 
 of Kashmere, the notorious Goolab Singh, and a majority of 
 the principal feudatories, prohibiting widow-burning, infanti- 
 cide, and slavery throughout their States. " The Governor- 
 General abstains on this occasion from prominently notic- 
 ing those States in which these barbarous usages are still 
 observed, as he confidently expects at no distant day to 
 hear of the complete renunciation of them in every State 
 in alliance with, or under the protection of, the Paramount 
 Power of India." That good work was completed a few 
 years afterwards by his successor, the last of the East India 
 Company's Governor-Generals, the Marquis of Dalhousie. 
 
 The famous " Political," George Clerk, whose very name 
 had been a tower of strength on our north-west frontier all 
 through the Cabul disasters and the first Sikh War, and at 
 whose feet Sir Henry Lawrence had sat, was now at the close 
 
428 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1847. 
 
 of his first term of office as Governor of Bombay. He laid 
 the foundation-stone of the Colaba Church at its extreme south 
 point, to commemorate our countrymen who had fallen victims 
 to a policy against which many of them had protested, and, 
 as the evangelical bishop of those days expressed it, " to 
 acknowledge the hand of Almighty God, which was equally 
 seen and felt in the victories bestowed. This monumental 
 church will be conspicuously seen by every vessel entering 
 our beautiful and commodious harbour, and our countrymen 
 newly arrived, whether in a civil or a military capacity, will 
 be reminded that although far removed from the land of their 
 fathers, they are still in the land of the God of their fathers." 
 And Dr. "Wilson found his old colleague and some new 
 scholars in the Asiatic Society eagerly discussing those slabs 
 sent to Bombay by Sir Henry Rawlinson, which had been 
 dug up from the ruins of Mneveh. The Governor directed 
 plaster castings to be made from them for his own collection ; 
 and the work, the first of the kind in Bombay, was executed 
 by Abyssinian boys rescued by the Indian Navy from the Arab 
 slavers. 
 
 The death, at forty-eight, of his old acquaintance, 
 Syajee Eao, the Gaikwar of Baroda, on the 28th December, 
 drew from Dr. Wilson this public notice of him : " Sagacity 
 and suspicion were prominent traits in his character ; and it 
 was in consequence of the latter that he sometimes became 
 the dupe of designing men. In 1835, the principles of Chris- 
 tianity were pretty fully unfolded to him at his own request. 
 He heard the communications which were made to him with 
 respect, and stated his objections to some of the arguments 
 advanced by the Brahmans of his Durbar against the Christian 
 missionary." 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 1848-1856. 
 
 A NEW PERIOD TOUR IN SINDH THE BOMBAY SCHOOL OF 
 THE CATECHUMENS. 
 
 Empire of British India territorially completed Lord Falkland Satara 
 and Nagpore become British Districts The Conquest of Sindh Stung nearly 
 to death by Bees The Sorrows of Missionaries A Presbyterian Church in 
 Rome urged on Dr. Candlish Non-Christian Teachers in Mission Schools 
 Anglo-Indian Society about 1848 Sore sickness Missionary survey of Sindh 
 The Pool of the Crocodiles Through the hills to Sehwan Drugs versus 
 Wine A Penitent Apostate Meeting with Dr. Duff Through Kutch and 
 Kathiawar to Surat Bombay Presbytery to General Assembly on extending 
 Foreign Missions To Captain Eastwick on Political and Educational Reform 
 Almost a Christian A Gift of Lionesses On the Relation of the different 
 Races of India to Christianity Bishop Dealtry Another learned Parsee 
 Inquirer The Samaritans at Nablus Another Habeas Corpus Case First 
 Fruits from Sindh Parsee and Muhammadan Converts from the Government 
 College Renewed Excitement and Government Inquiry Lord Elphinstone 
 Government learning the Principles of Toleration The Goojaratee New 
 Testament and Native Scholarship Dr. Wilson on Judson and the Karen 
 Christians. 
 
" To Simplicianus then I went, the father of Ambrose (a Bishop now) in 
 receiving Thy grace, and whom Ambrose truly loved as a father. To him I 
 related the mazes of my wanderings. But when I mentioned that I had read 
 certain books of the Platonists, which Victorinus, sometime Rhetoric Profes- 
 sor of Rome (who had died a Christian as I had heard), had translated into 
 Latin, he testified his joy that I had not fallen upon the writings of other 
 philosophers, full of fallacies and deceits, after the rudiments of this world, 
 whereas the Platonists' many ways led to the belief in God and His Word. 
 Then to exhort me to the humility of Christ, hidden from the wise and 
 revealed to little ones, he spoke of Victorinus himself, whom while at Rome 
 he had most intimately known : and of him he related what I will not con- 
 ceal. For it contains great praise of Thy grace, to be confessed unto Thee, 
 how that aged man, most learned and skilled in the liberal sciences, and who 
 had read and weighed so many works of the philosophers ; the instructor of 
 so many noble Senators, who also, as a monument of his excellent discharge 
 of his office, had (which men of this world esteem a high honour) both 
 deserved and obtained a statue in the Roman Forum ; he, to that age a wor- 
 shipper of idols, and a partaker of the sacrilegious rites, to which almost all 
 the nobility of Rome were given up ... he now blushed not to be the child 
 of Thy Christ, and the new-born babe of Thy fountain ; submitting his neck to 
 the yoke of humility, and subduing his forehead to the reproach of the Cross. 
 Lord, Lord, which hast bowed the heavens and come down, touched the 
 mountains and they did smoke, by what means didst Thou convey Thyself 
 into that breast ? He used to read (as Simplicianus said) the holy Scripture, 
 most studiously sought and searched into all the Christian writings, and said 
 to Simplicianus, (not openly but privately and as a friend), ' Understand that 
 I am already a Christian. ' Whereto he answered, ' I will not believe it, nor 
 will I rank you among Christians, unless I see you in the Church of Christ. ' 
 The other, in banter, replied, ' Do walls then make Christians ? ' And this 
 he often said, that he was already a Christian ; and Simplicianus as often 
 made the same answer, and the conceit of the ' Avails ' was by the other as 
 often renewed. For he feared to offend his friends, proud daemon-worshippers, 
 from the height of whose Babylonian dignity, as from cedars of Libanus, 
 which the Lord had not yet broken down, he supposed the weight of enmity 
 would fall upon him. But after that by reading and earnest thought he had 
 gathered firmness, and feared to be denied by Christ before the holy angels, 
 should he now be afraid to confess him before men, and appeared to himself 
 guilty of a heavy offence in being ashamed of the Sacraments of the humility 
 of Thy Word, and not being ashamed of the sacrilegious rites of these proud 
 dsemons, whose pride he had imitated and their rites adopted, he became bold- 
 faced against vanity, and shame-faced towards the truth, and suddenly and 
 unexpectedly said to Simplicianus (as himself told me), 'Go we to the Church; 
 I wish to be made a Christian.' But he, not containing himself for joy, went 
 with him. And having been admitted to the first Sacrament, and become a 
 Catechumen, not long after he further gave in his name, that he might be re- 
 generated by baptism, Rome wondering, the Church rejoicing." 
 
 ST. AUGUSTINE'S Confessions, in Dr. Pusey's version. 
 
1848.] OUR INDIAN EMPIRE TERRITORIALLY COMPLETED. 431 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 THE history of British India begins with the Marquis of 
 Dalhousie. Alike in conquest and in administration, the 
 work of Olive, Wellesley, and Bentinck, was a foundation 
 was a prelude. That of Dalhousie was consolidation was 
 completion. The second Sikh War gave the north-west its 
 natural frontier for ever; the most foolishly ambitious can 
 never make Cabul and Quetta, Balkh and Herat, Merv and 
 Meshed, more than outposts held by subsidised allies. The 
 strategic and commercial railways, the canals, the roads, the 
 cheap postage, the telegraph, the schools and universities of 
 Dalhousie gave the empire a more secure defence than all the 
 troops, by withdrawing which prematurely against his pro- 
 tests, the governments who fought the Crimean "War occasioned 
 the Sepoy mutiny. The lapse from failure of natural heirs of 
 chaotic States, which we ourselves had created, like Satara 
 and Nagpore, not only removed centres of disaffection, but 
 proclaimed the good of the people to be the reason of our 
 existence in India. It also left Lord Canning and Sir Henry 
 Durand a clear space on which to write the new body of 
 international law guaranteeing, by patent, permanence to 
 every feudatory sovereign's house, on the sole conditions 
 of loyalty to the empire and fair administration of their 
 estates. With the last echo of the artillery cannonade of 
 Guzerat on the 22d February 1849, and when Sher Singh 
 and Chutter Singh gave up their swords to General Gilbert 
 on the spot where Alexander the Great had once conquered, 
 British India became what it now is, save only Pegu after- 
 wards forced upon us. 
 

 432 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1848. 
 
 Wellesley and Bentinck were united in the victories of 
 war and of peace which Dalhousie won before he was forty. 
 Henceforth, whether we look at the events of history or the 
 lives of individuals who worked them out each in his own 
 way, like John Wilson, we are in a new atmosphere. Winter 
 is past ; the time of sowing, too, is here and there passing into 
 the blossoming that betokens harvest. Let but the great 
 baptism of blood in 1857 be over, and we shall see the bad as 
 well as some of the good of the Company destroyed obstruc- 
 tion giving way to rashness sometimes, but always to light ; 
 tradition yielding to fickleness often, so that continuity is 
 sacrificed, but never again choking progress. The Mutiny 
 secured a new start at least, and that in the direction which the 
 missionary, from Carey to Duff and Wilson, had never ceased 
 to demand. In Bombay Sir George Clerk was too soon 
 succeeded by Viscount Falkland, of whom the best that can 
 be said is that he had a clever wife who made society bright, 
 and that he kept the place warm for Lord Elphinstone in 
 1853. But Lord Falkland had as his principal adviser in 
 council Sir J. P. Willoughby, whose minute on the Satara 
 case, which Lord Dalhousie pronounced the text-book on the 
 law of adoption, gives a mark to the administration. On the 
 defeat of the last of the oppressive Peshwas in 1817 we 
 rescued the representative of their master Sivajee from 
 captivity, and created the principality of Satara for the old 
 man. On investing him Sir James Carnac warned him of 
 the possibility of lapse. When, in spite of his treason, we 
 acknowledged his successor, and that successor died childless, 
 the very considerations which had recommended the creation 
 of the State justified its extinction as a failure. Apart from 
 his knowledge of the two Eajas and the people, Dr. Wilson 
 had an interest in Satara, for it was during several years the 
 seat of a branch mission under Mr. Aitken. Satara, however 
 had less interest for him than the fate uf Nagpore. About 
 
1848.] TOLERATION THREATENED IN NAGPORE STATE. 433 
 
 the same time Lord Hastings had restored it, and with the 
 same melancholy results in the misgovernment of the people, 
 in spite of the control of a Political Eesident like Sir E. 
 Jenkins. Aided by Sir W. Hill's endowment Dr. Wilson had 
 sent out Mr. Hislop to the military station of Nagpore, 
 Kamptee, and he was afterwards joined by -Mr. E. Hunter. But 
 the new missionaries soon found that toleration was not 
 recognised in the native State of Nagpore outside of the 
 British cantonment. Dr. Wilson had successfully established, 
 or helped to set up, missions in other States, such as those of 
 Goojarat, Kathiawar, and Kutch, and was soon to do so in 
 Eajpootana. But the imprisonment of a Brahman convert, 
 afterwards the Eev. Baba Pandurang, in 1848, showed that in 
 Nagpore the rights of conscience and civil liberty could be 
 disreg'arded, till the very existence of a mission became as 
 impossible as it still is in Eussia. When in 1853, the death 
 of the Eaja after his persistent refusal to adopt an heir left 
 the fate of Nagpore to the decision of the Government of 
 India, the substitution of British for native rule, and ulti- 
 mately of a vigorous Chief Commissioner for an incompetent 
 subordinate officer, gave the mission the same fair play which 
 the rest of British India had enjoyed since the Charter of 
 1833. 
 
 During Dr. Wilson's absence from India the province of 
 Sindh had been added to the empire as a result of the 
 Afghan campaigns. As if the policy of childish interference, 
 directed by military incapacity, had not at Cabul given a 
 sufficient blow to the moral prestige of our Government and 
 the fidelity of its sepoys, Sir Charles Napier was allowed by 
 Lord Ellenborough to repeat the criminal blunder in the 
 desert and the delta of the Indus. Outram's protests were as 
 vain as the indignation of all whose opinion was worth con- 
 sideration. Nor was the conquest all. No longer a foreign 
 country, Sindh ceased to be attractive to the sepoys who 
 
 2F 
 
434 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1848. 
 
 had looked there for the batta or extra allowances allowed on 
 active service beyond the frontier. First some Bengal and 
 then some Madras sepoy regiments mutinied because the 
 allowances were refused, and then their immediate commander 
 condoned the heinous offence. The experience of 1857 was 
 anticipated on a scale sufficiently large to warn observers like 
 Sir Henry Lawrence, and to lead Lord Dalhousie afterwards to 
 suggest reforms. But the only effect at the time was, in 1844, 
 to hand Sindh over to Bombay to be garrisoned by its army. 
 It fell to Lord Dalhousie so soon as he had personally 
 received the submission of the Punjab, a few years after, to 
 visit Sindh that he might provide for those administrative and 
 engineering improvements which promise to make young 
 Egypt one day more than rival old, although the Indus can 
 never equal the Mle. 
 
 It was natural that John Wilson should not have been long 
 at his old post in Bombay, without turning his eyes north- 
 wards to the new province, in the hope of taking possession 
 of it for his Master. The policies of rulers might be evil or 
 good and on that question too no man could express a more 
 weighty opinion, or one that these rulers themselves more 
 desired to avail themselves of beforehand. But by whatever 
 means a door was opened, he, or some one stirred up by him, 
 must enter in. He was soon to be the first missionary who 
 had delivered the divine message in Sindh. His companion 
 was Dr. Duff, who, having been consulted whether he would 
 succeed Dr. Chalmers in the New College, had agreed 
 merely to go to Scotland in 1850 to advise regarding the 
 needs of the India mission. The two apostolic men met at 
 Sehwan, on the Indus. Dr. Tweedie had meanwhile become 
 convener of the Foreign Mission committee in Edinburgh. 
 
 STUNG NEARLY TO DEATH BY BEES. 
 
 " BOMBAY, 1st April 1848. 
 "My DEAR MR. TWEEDIE. Mr. Henderson (he had resigned a 
 
1848.] STUNG TERRIBLY BY BEES. 435 
 
 Government professorship to join the Mission) and I have experienced 
 a painful affliction associated, however, with many striking mercies 
 which unfits us for the use of the pen. When we were engaged 
 with a few friends, and some of the pupils, in making researches into 
 the natural history and antiquities of the adjoining island of Salsette, 
 we were attacked by an immense cloud of wild bees, which had received 
 no sensible provocation from any of our party, and nearly stung to 
 death. Mr. Henderson was the first who was attacked. He soon sank, 
 on one of the jungle roads, in the hopeless attempt to guard himself 
 from injury ; and he had lain for about forty minutes in a state of 
 almost total insensibility before he was found by our friends and any 
 relief could be extended to him. It was on my joining him, from 
 behind, when he first gave the alarm, that I came in contact with the 
 thousands of infuriated insects. I sprung into a bush for shelter ; but 
 there I got no adequate covering from their onset. In my attempt to 
 free myself from agony and entanglement I immediately slid over a 
 precipice, tearing both my clothes and body among the thorns in the 
 rapid descent of about forty feet. From the number of bees which 
 s'till encompassed me and multiplied upon me, and my inability to 
 move from them, I had a pretty strong impression upon my mind that, 
 unless God himself specially interposed in my behalf, all my wander- 
 ings and journeyings must then have been terminated, though by the 
 humblest agency the insects of the air. That interposition I ex- 
 perienced ! I had kept my hold of a pillow, with which I had gone 
 to Mr. Henderson ; and tearing it open on the bushes, when I was 
 unable to rise, I found within it, most unexpectedly, about a couple of 
 square yards of blanket. It was to me, in the circumstances, like a 
 sheet sent down from heaven to cover my head ; and partially pro- 
 tected by it, I lay till the bees left me. When, from the poison of the 
 numerous stings which I had received, violent vomiting and other 
 agitation came on, and my pulse failed and my heart fainted, a native, 
 a Thakoor, one of the aboriginal sons of the forest, who had come up, 
 pulled me into the shade, and made a noise which was heard by our 
 friends, including Mrs. Wilson, who had set out in search of me after 
 they had learned from Mr. Henderson that I had shared in the 
 calamity, and who otherwise would probably never have sought for me 
 in the locality in which I was lying. Among these friends was Dr. 
 Burn, to whose treatment, under God, our resuscitation is in a great 
 measure owing. We were conveyed to our tents, principally in native 
 carts, and on Saturday we were brought to Bombay. Through the 
 kindness of that heavenly Father to whose grace we owe our signal 
 
436 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1848. 
 
 deliverance, we are both doing well, so much so, indeed, that we hope 
 in a few days to be free from all pain, if not inconvenience, arising 
 from this affliction. I have known instances of natives losing their 
 lives by such an attack as we encountered ; and our friends from India 
 will explain to you the danger from which we have escaped, nay from 
 which we have been delivered. t They compassed me about like bees,' 
 is one of the appropriate figures of the Psalmist. The wild bee of 
 India, of a dark chocolate colour, and about an inch and an eighth in 
 length, is of the same variety which I have seen in the Holy Land ; 
 and that illustration of the Psalmist has to us an intensity of meaning 
 which we had never before realised. When I was a boy I used to 
 think that John the Baptist's fare of locusts and wild honey was not of 
 a very indifferent character ; but I now see that at least it must have 
 been somewhat difficult of acquisition. 
 
 " The affliction which I have now mentioned is that of the body ; 
 but those of the soul, often experienced by Christian missionaries in a 
 heathen land, are still more grievous. One of this latter character I 
 have likewise to bring to your notice. The fond and ardent hopes 
 which we had been led to cherish in connection with the young Parsee 
 whose baptism, in most interesting circumstances at Surat, I brought to 
 your notice in my last letter, have been disappointed. That promising 
 neophyte has, I am most sorry to mention, made shipwreck, for the 
 present at least, of his Christian profession, and returned to the bosom 
 of his caste. This he has done under powerful influences and tempta- 
 tions, arising from Parsees, Hindoos, and Muhammadans confederated 
 together." 
 
 A PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN ROME SUGGESTED. 
 
 "BOMBAY, 15th April 1848. 
 
 " MY DEAR DR. CANDLISH. I am delighted to observe that you 
 contemplate bringing the claims of Italy, in some form or other, before 
 the General Assembly. They are, in my opinion, paramount, in pre- 
 sent circumstances, to those of any other country of the Continent. A 
 single hint I venture to throw out. Mr. Eobert Stewart has mastered 
 the Italian language, and mastered the Italian movement. Let a 
 substitute be provided for him at Leghorn, and let him be set free to 
 move about for the encouragement of that evangelical reform which has 
 begun to appear in various parts of the country. Let him maintain a 
 confidential correspondence with the Church at home, and act as its 
 general agent. He could, by his discreet bearing, judicious counsel, 
 and steady and prudent zeal, subserve the cause in various ways. Per- 
 
1848.] THE STATE OF ANGLO-INDIAN SOCIETY. 437 
 
 haps he would organise a congregation of Presbyterians speaking the 
 English language at Rome, which would be a great step in advance." 
 
 NON-CHRISTIAN TEACHERS IN MISSION-SCHOOLS. 
 
 " IZth September 1848. 
 
 " MY DEAR DR. LEITH. It is certainly to be expected that there 
 should be a difference of opinion among Christians about many sub- 
 jects connected with the economy of Christian missions. That to 
 which you refer is one connected with which I myself at one time felt 
 great difficulties, as is sufficiently obvious from the first report which I 
 presented to the public ; and I can well sympathise with any mind 
 still entertaining these difficulties. I do not think them insurmount- 
 able, however, when the real order and procedure of our schools is 
 attended to. Our heathen teachers bind themselves to abstain from 
 teaching heathenism in our schools; and, from the closest inspection 
 of them, I believe that they do .so abstain. We use their services only 
 in the mechanical processes of teaching. The Bible, and Bible truth, 
 found in our books, are self-defensory, and to a certain extent self- 
 explanatory. Our whole hortatiye and explicative teaching of Chris- 
 tianity is by ourselves and native Christian assistants ; and it is so full 
 and regular, both at the schools and mission-house, that, in regard to 
 Christian knowledge, our pupils are on a par with the best instructed 
 in our native land. Four of our Bombay teachers have been baptized 
 since the commencement of the Mission, and an encouraging number 
 of the pupils. The young Brahman last baptized by Mr. Mitchell of 
 Poona told me the other day, that he owes his first acquaintance with 
 Christianity and good impressions to our vernacular schools in Bombay, 
 and their collateral services." 
 
 TO MR. WEBB, C.S., ON THE STATE OF ANGLO-INDIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 " December 22, 1848. 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND. I am glad indeed to find that you reserve to 
 yourself the liberty of again returning to India. Relative ties and 
 wants at home will be modified in a few years. India appears to me 
 more than ever to need the presence of faithful witnesses and labourers 
 for Christ. There is a spirit of hostility to true holiness among the 
 majority of our countrymen here, which threatens to have an out- 
 break. Of this I see many symptoms. The warlike spirit, generated 
 and inflamed by our movements on the frontier since the invasion of 
 Afghanistan, has much deteriorated public sentiment and feeling. 
 
438 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1848. 
 
 Puseyism, by its doctrines of sacramental, ceremonial, and priestly 
 grace, has, in the view of multitudes, obscured the sovereignty of the 
 Father, and the saving work of both the Son and the Holy Spirit, and 
 involved them in mere formalism, imparted to them a delusive peace, 
 and destroyed their charity to those who confide in the Saviour. 
 Plymouthism the recoil from Puseyism while gloriously setting 
 forth the sacred duty of every Church availing itself of the gifts and 
 graces of all its members for the edification of the body of Christ, runs 
 counter to Christ's ordinance of a stated ministry, withdraws many 
 from its benefits and blessings who are in great need of them, and 
 sadly neglects the ignorant and perishing multitudes who are ' with- 
 out.' The disturbances which have occurred, both in the West and 
 East, have intimidated the Government, not resting on the principle 
 that * righteousness is the strength of a nation,' and made it far more 
 tender and indulgent to heathenism, and inclined to give it support, 
 than it was wont to be even a few years ago. The fruits of the 
 ungodly system of the education of the natives so long pursued by 
 Government, are beginning to be matured in the conceit, pride, 
 infidelity, and insubordination of the more active part of the rising 
 generation. In some Mission Institutions the evangelistic element is 
 in danger of being subordinated to the literary and scientific. The 
 heavenly seed is not so copiously sown at ' all waters ' as the promises 
 and performances of God lead us to expect. Pre-millennarianism is 
 more anxious to get old saints out of their graves than to get new 
 ones." 
 
 SICKNESS IN INDIAN EXILE. 
 
 " MAHABLESHWA.R, 27 th December 1848. 
 
 " MY DEAR DR. TWEEDIE. As you may easily suppose, I have 
 felt it to be a very heavy affliction to experience, so soon after my 
 visit to Europe, the return of the very serious and dangerous complaint 
 which forced me for a time to leave the shores of India, and when 
 the wants of this great country and varied openings of Providence, 
 and encouragements of Christian friends, seemed to unfold to me a 
 wider and more important sphere of usefulness than ever. What has 
 occurred, however, has not happened without the divine appointment, 
 directing it, we cannot doubt, to most important ends, and leading me 
 I trust more and more to value the unspeakable privilege and grace 
 given me to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of 
 Christ. It is a matter of gratitude to me, too, that during my illness 
 I was divested entirely of those cares and anxieties by which I am 
 
1850.] FIRST MISSIONARY TO SINDH. 439 
 
 sometimes harassed in the view of the state of our enterprise in this 
 great land ; and that I then saw and felt more clearly than ever the 
 warrant of our hope and peace and joy in the accepted sacrifice of 
 Christ, and the glory of that bliss which He has prepared for the 
 humblest and most unworthy sinner who rests in the righteousness of 
 God as thereby manifested. 
 
 ' When languid nature in deep fever burning, 
 
 Feels all her vital springs are parched and dry, 
 From side to side still restless, ever turning, 
 
 And scared by phantoms of delirium bye ; 
 How sweet, but for a moment's space, to ponder, 
 
 Surrounded by those bitter burning things, 
 "Where fresh cool life and gushing health flow yonder 
 
 From pure celestial and immortal springs. ' " 
 
 Accompanied by two of the converts, Bapu Mazda and 
 Malharee, Dr. Wilson reached Kurachee on the first day of 
 1850, to begin a missionary survey of what he then described 
 as " the Ultima Thule " of British conquest to the north-west 
 of our eastern empire. Two years before one of the American 
 Presbyterian Missionaries to the Protected Sikhs had sailed 
 down the Indus. But Dr. Wilson could, with justice, write 
 thus in his journal, "4th January 1850. I went down early 
 in the morning with Bapu to the bazaar of the native town, 
 and officiated as the first Protestant missionary who has 
 opened his lips in Sindh. Many of the people understood 
 Hindostanee and Goojaratee. We found a Muhammadan 
 and a Brahman able to read the Sindhee in the Nagaree 
 character, and we gave them a copy of the large portion of 
 the Gospel of Matthew as translated by Major Stack. The 
 demand for books in other languages was very considerable." 
 While in the steamer, where the Eev. Mr. Cotes, the first 
 assistant chaplain sent to Sindh, was his fellow-passenger, he 
 had held discussions in Persian with a Muhammadan mer- 
 chant from Khelat. Of the friends who competed for the 
 pleasure of showing him hospitality Dr. Wilson selected Major 
 Preedy, the Collector or civil administrator, because he could 
 thus have access to all the official facts on the country and 
 
LIFE OF JOHN WILSC 
 
 people, which, with a map, he set himself at once to compile, 
 as was his custom. Even in far Kurachee, and at this early 
 period of British occupation, he found converts and students 
 from the Christian college of Dr. Duff holding the highest 
 positions and influencing all around them for good. When 
 examining the subscription English school near the native 
 town, attended chiefly by camp-followers and Sindhians 
 proper, and expressing surprise at its efficiency, he discovered 
 the fact thus recorded in his journal. " It is rather remark- 
 able that the influence of both Bengal and Bombay missions 
 is apparent in this school. Mr. Moodoosoodun Seel, the 
 teacher, a convert to Christianity baptized by the Eev. Mr. 
 Jennings, 1 at Cawnpore, was for four years a pupil in our 
 Calcutta Institution. One or two of the books used in the 
 school were composed by our Bombay missionaries ; while one 
 of the most promising pupils, baptized by myself, is the 
 grandson of the first Hindoo woman who was admitted into 
 the church under my ministry, and who, lately under much 
 trial and affliction, has maintained a consistent Christian 
 profession. She was delighted to see me in this distant part 
 of the world." With the old chieftain the Jam of the Jokees, 
 who was on a visit to the new port from his native hills, and 
 with Naumahal, the most important Hindoo resident, who 
 had avenged on the Ameers their forcible circumcision of his 
 father by assisting the English army at its first appearance on 
 the Indus, Dr. Wilson had interviews. The former remarked 
 
 " Sir Charles Napier was ' altogether a just man.' If he sincerely 
 holds this opinion, it is not unlikely that his conscience has responded 
 to this straightforward epistle which was addressed to him by that 
 distinguished General on the 15th April 1843: ' JAM. You have 
 received the money of the British for taking charge of the dawk (post) ; 
 you have betrayed your trust, and stopped the dawks ; and you have also 
 
 1 This Chaplain baptized Maharaja Dhuleep Singh also, after his training 
 under the American Presbyterian Mission, and fell in the Delhi massacre 
 of 1857. 
 
1850.] THE CROCODILE POOL OF KURACHEE. 441 
 
 attacked the troops. All this I forgive you, because the Ameers were 
 here, and they were your old masters. But the Ameers are now gone 
 from Sindh for ever. They defied the British power, and have paid 
 the penalty of so doing. I, as the Governor of Sindh, am now your 
 immediate master. If you come in and make your salam, and promise 
 fidelity to the British government, I will restore to you your lands and 
 your former privileges, and the superintendence of the dawks. If you 
 refuse, I will wait till the hot weather has gone past, and then I will 
 carry fire and sword into your territory, and drive you and all belong- 
 ing to you into the mountains ; and if I catch you I will hang you as 
 a rebel. You have now your choice ; choose. C. J. NAPIER.' 
 Happily for the Jam he chose submission. It will be a matter of no 
 small difficulty to convey instruction and education to his scattered 
 tribe." 
 
 In the lack of steamers on the Indus, about to be 
 supplied by Lord Dalhousie, Dr. Wilson followed a track 
 to the ancient town of Sehwan, on camels, through the 
 hilly wilderness which divides Sindh from Beloochistan. 
 At every stage the geology and natural history of the 
 country were carefully observed. His first march led him past 
 the Muggur Pool, or crocodile lake, which is still one of 
 the sights near Kurachee. It is formed from the water of 
 some hot springs within 150 square yards " the space of 
 a barn-yard pond," and accommodated seventy-five monsters 
 of all sizes, from the baby of a cubit long, to the patriarch, 
 Mor Saheb, who was eleven feet long, and was marked with 
 red lead, and worshipped by the Hindoos. " They seemed 
 quite tame, as they allowed us to lay hold of their tails, and 
 turned round at the call of the fakeers, expecting a dainty 
 meal on some unhappy goat. We found the Mor Saheb 
 asleep, but poked him up with our sticks. He opened his 
 jaws about a cubit wide, and then hissed and blew like a pair 
 of smith's bellows. He had lately had a dreadful duel of it 
 with a competitor for the championship, and as the battle 
 was a drawn one and threatens to be renewed, he is kept 
 apart from his fellows. They are all of the species * crocodilus 
 
442 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1850. 
 
 communis.' The illiterate keepers form a community of 
 Muhammadans more remarkable for the practice of pleasant- 
 ries than austerities. They both give and get in marriage, 
 and live quite comfortably with the gardens and fields which 
 the popular superstition has permitted them to appropriate, 
 and with the offerings presented at the shrine of their founder, 
 which they take care to keep in good repair." They could 
 not read the Injil in Arabic, so that a copy was not put in 
 their hands. Delayed by a thunderstorm, he " resolved to 
 take a practical lesson in natural history." 
 
 "9th January 1850. I repaired to the pool of the crocodiles. It 
 was with difficulty that I could rouse some of those hideous reptiles 
 lying basking in the sun like trunks of the date-tree covered with mud. 
 I dropped the shell of a cocoa nut on the cranium of Mor Saheb's rival, 
 which made him start from his sleep, and run straight into the pool 
 with a speed which I little expected. I observed a pony standing in 
 the pool, eating some tufts of grass, without the slightest fear of its 
 companions. When I asked a boy why the crocodiles did not gobble 
 it up, he said, ' How should they devour it without a huhim (order) ? 
 they are contented with what is given to them !' According to this 
 view of matters some naughty boys might take a lesson from them. 
 The Muhammadans make the taming of them a great wonder, as 
 doubtless it is ; and the ancient Egyptians did the same. Though they 
 do not worship them themselves they have no objection that the 
 Hindoos should, and to share the spoil. Serpents, we see, are not the 
 only < creeping things ' into which the glory of the incorruptible God 
 has been changed by foolish and apostate man. 
 
 " 10^. We saw to-day a considerable number of locusts. Our 
 guides ate of them with nearly as much relish as we do of a dish of 
 prawns. We passed a few Jat herdsmen. They are the descendants 
 of a Scythian tribe (the GET^B of the West). Those in the neighbour- 
 hood of the Muggur-Peer were JoJcees. The thermometer stood in the 
 shade at 70 at one o'clock. In the evening I addressed the -whole of 
 our cavalcade ; and some of its members listened with much attention. 
 
 " 1 4th. We passed a large quantity of petrified wood, like that near 
 Cairo, about 4 kos (8 miles) from the end of our journey, and carried off 
 some characteristic specimens. There were many rounded concretions 
 of nummulite near it, some of which we also put into our bags. 
 Among the large tamarisk bushes I observed, for the first time in 
 
 
1850.] THROUGH THE SINDH DESERT TO SEHWAN. 443 
 
 India, the pendant titmouse. My attention was first directed to it 
 by its peculiar chirp. It called up many pleasing associations in my 
 mind, and to this circumstance it owed its escape from the destructive 
 missiles of my servant. I noticed afterwards the starling stealthily 
 jumping and hopping among the bushes, and some ugly vultures in the 
 leeward of a dead camel which the sun was cooking for their delicious 
 repast. 
 
 " 1*1 th. This, I think, was one of the coldest mornings we have 
 yet had, the thermometer at sunrise standing at 38 in the tent. Before 
 we started a 10 A.M. it had risen to 68. Our road was much as 
 yesterday, though a little more to the west, till the afternoon, when, 
 after passing over the shoulder of a small hill, we found ourselves 
 turning in the contrary direction, and emerging on the plain of the 
 Indus, north of the Lakhee mountains, and south of the lake 
 Munchur, and the Aral proceeding from it in the direction of Sehwan. 
 The river was not visible ; but we observed the smoke of two steamers 
 rising from it, in one of which, we afterwards learned, was the Governor- 
 General on his way to Bombay. It was pleasing indeed for us to see 
 these tokens of civilisation in this comparatively barbarous land, and 
 still more pleasing for us to contrast the most fertile and productive 
 portion of the valley of the Indus into which we had entered, with the 
 Barren desert in which we had been wandering for the last ten days. 
 
 " 1 8th. I reached Sehwan at 1 1 o'clock A.M., and ascended the 
 ruins of the fort, where Captain Partridge, the Deputy Collector, kindly 
 ordered a tent to be pitched for me in the neighbourhood of his home, 
 and from which I could have an excellent view of the surrounding 
 country. This view is very interesting. The many green fields, 
 especially on the right bank of the river, are very refreshing to the eye. 
 The mountains beyond them are absolutely sterile. No hills are here 
 visible on the eastern side of the Indus. The river is about a kos (2 miles) 
 distant from the old fort. It is certainly a magnificent stream. The 
 whole scene appeared to me as having much of an Egyptian character, 
 especially in its fruitful fields and contiguous desert. The fort, too, is 
 like one of the Tels or mounds of ruins which I visited in the north- 
 east of Egypt in 184*7. The town of Sehwan, which I traversed and 
 reconnoitered in the evening, has, with its narrow and winding streets, 
 and houses and cottages of clay and chopped straw, its analogues also 
 on the banks of the Nile. 
 
 " 19th. This morning I re-examined Arrian's account of the pro- 
 ceedings of Alexander the Great connected with the Indus. I have no 
 doubt that Sehwan, where I now am, and which at present is written 
 
444 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1850. 
 
 by the Brahrnans Sinhawan, is the Sindomana of that author, whose 
 king, probably denominated from the place, is called by Arrian Sambus, 
 and by Plutarch Sabbas. This identification is not new, though the 
 reading of the last named author has, as far as I am aware, not been 
 referred to in its confirmation. The Brahmans here, as I have learned 
 from themselves, esteem Sehwan the Sauvtr of the Mahabha"rat, etc. 
 Kakaldas, the most learned of their number, of the Pushkar caste, says 
 to me that the most ancient name of Haidardbad was the city of Patola, 
 which doubtless is the origin of Arrian's PATTALA, at the head of the 
 Delta. He was surprised at the inference which I drew from it, as he 
 is entirely ignorant of the Greek accounts of Alexander. The claims 
 of Tatta, or rather Thatd, which have been generally admitted since 
 the days of Robertson, must now be dismissed. The OXYDRACI^E of 
 Arrian I would not place with Mr. H. T. Prinsep in Kachi, but at 
 Uch, below Multan, with Sir Alexander Burnes. Porus was probably 
 the king of some Pura Puras, in the pure form a city, so denomi- 
 nated by way of distinction, in the same way as we have Taxilas, the 
 king of Taxila, probably the Chelas of M. Court. 
 
 " 20th, Sabbath. I have been occupied throughout nearly the 
 whole of the day in conversing with and addressing different companies 
 of natives who have visited me at my tents, and delivering to them 
 religious books and tracts. The Gurmukhi character, in which the 
 Granth or Book of the Sikhs is written, seems better known to the 
 Hindu merchants than the Devandgari or Shdstri as it is here called, 
 in which the Gospel of Matthew, translated into Sindhee by Capt. Stack, 
 and edited by Dr. Stevenson, has been lithographed ; but it seems very 
 desirable that a knowledge of the latter should be propagated in the 
 country. I went over a part of the Sindhee Gospel with the learned 
 Brahman Kakaldas ; and he allowed that it was translated into the 
 proper language of the country, of which there are several dialects. 
 One of these dialects he considers the Kachee, in which language I pre- 
 sented him with a copy of the Gospel of Matthew as translated by the 
 late Eev. James Gray, and edited by myself for the Bible Society. 
 This translation he found perfectly intelligible ; and I consequently 
 gave away a few copies of it to other Sindhians able to peruse it. 
 Among the recipients was a very intelligent man named Girdhardas, a 
 follower of Nanak and the Granth of the Sikhs, without reckoning 
 himself a member of their community. I had noticed in the contents 
 of the Granth the title of a Marathee poem by Namdeva,one of the oldest of 
 the Marathee poets ; and Girdhardas confirmed me in my opinion of the 
 remarkable, and hitherto unnoticed appropriation of this work by the 
 
1850.] DRUGS V. WINE MEETING WITH DR. DUFF. 445 
 
 followers of Ndnak in the Punjab. He admitted to me the analogy of 
 the doctrines of Kabeer and Nanak. I directed his attention and that of 
 others to some of the principal objections to be urged against them both 
 theologically and philosophically, and to the great themes of sin and 
 the Saviour as set forth in the Christian Scriptures. 
 
 " 24th. The inhabitants of Sehwan are already tolerably well 
 aware of our detestation of Pir (Saint) worship. The numerous beggars 
 who used to assail me on my arrival in the name of Lai Shah Baz, 
 now make their appeals in the name of Khudd, the only living and true 
 God. Some of these beggars are rather formidable characters, as they 
 use large quantities of bhang (hemp) and other narcotic and intoxicating 
 drugs, to the dangerous excitement of their passions and permanent 
 impairment of their judgment. Well might it have been for the 
 followers of Muhammad had they been allowed the moderate use of 
 simple unadulterated wine. In their deprivation of it they have 
 sought out many evil inventions, as bhang, opium, etc., the mischief of 
 which is apparent through the whole empire of Islamism, from the 
 Carpathian mountains to the Kashmir lake. 
 
 " 2,9th. Among my auditors at worship was a poor renegade 
 Koman Catholic from the neighbourhood of Bassein, who has been for 
 some years settled in Sindh, and who abjured his Christianity in the 
 presence of the Muhammadans at least, to obtain a wife. He has now 
 listened to the truth on five or six occasions since I came to Sehwan. 
 He professes to be penitent ; and if I give him any encouragement he 
 would go with me to Bombay. But where he has dishonoured Christ 
 before men he should first acknowledge Christ before men. 
 
 " 31st. I translated the two first chapters of one of my tracts into 
 Persian in my tent at the river-side. On the completion of this ex- 
 ercise I took hold of my telescope, and sweeping with it the Indus 
 before me to the north, I discerned what I took to be Dr. Duff's boat 
 gently dropping down the river and approaching the spot where I was 
 encamped. My ardent hopes and wishes were realised ; and we soon 
 embraced one another with the heart as well as with the hand. The 
 emotions of both of us, meeting at the very ends of the earth after an 
 interval of ten years so eventful to our families, our missions, and our 
 Church, and after multifarious labours and sufferings, and extended 
 travel by land and by sea by both of us, were well nigh overpowering. 
 The gracious and faithful providence of God to us both it was impos- 
 sible for us to overlook." 
 
 By the battlefield of Meeanee and the fort of Haidarabad, 
 
446 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1850. 
 
 where the Governor-General had just before received the 
 homage of the chiefs and landholders of Sindh, the two 
 missionaries went slowly on to Tatta, whence they struck 
 across the delta to Kutch, through the salt desolation of its 
 Eunn, and surveyed the Irish mission stations. At Surat 
 they took steamer to Bombay, whence the presbytery sent 
 home to their Church, by Dr. Duff, a powerful appeal for more 
 missionary agents. In his periodical letter to the home 
 committee Dr. Wilson described the speech of Dr. Duff at the 
 annual examination of the college as exciting a controversy 
 on the subject of the purely secular and often antichristian 
 education in the Government schools, which did not subside 
 till it issued in reform in 1854. He also recorded the death 
 of an old student, Madhavarao Moroji, who had won the 
 admiration of the political officers by his influence as tutor of 
 the chief of Jamkhundee. He lived and died like many 
 since, a Christian in all but the name. Through not a few 
 like him the missionary colleges in India are honeycombing 
 Hindoo society. 
 
 To Captain EASTWICK, C.B. "BOMBAY, 17 'th April 1850. 
 
 " MY DEAR CAPTAIN EASTWICK. I have just returned from an 
 interesting journey in Sindh, the scene of your important political 
 labours in this distant East. I am of opinion that a good deal may 
 yet be made of that province. The people seem to like the English 
 government. This is some consolation to us amidst the misgivings 
 which exist as to our treatment of the Ameers. I read your able 
 speech in their favour, and the two blue books, on the banks of the 
 Indus. I came to the conclusion that the Ameers at last intended to 
 crush us if they could, but that some palliation could have been found 
 in the fact that they were dogged and driven to desperation. I felt, 
 too, that if Pottinger and yourself had been at your quondam posts, 
 this would not have been the issue. I was sorry that I had not your 
 "brother's Dry Leaves with me during my wanderings and meanderings 
 in Young Egypt. Your friend, the Bev. Mr. Cotes, was my fellow- 
 passenger to Kurachee. He has a very vigorous and energetic mind, 
 and is deeply interested in the improvement and the conversion of 
 the natives, which I always reckon a good sign in a chaplain. I am 
 
1850.] POLITICAL AND EDUCATIONAL REFORM. 447 
 
 just sending off a teacher for an English school which he wishes to 
 establish at Haidarabad. I missed both Mr. Pringle and the Governor- 
 General on their descent of the river by a few hours. By the bye, the 
 Governor-General was very reserved in the Durbar he held at Haidara- 
 bad, which is rather to be regretted. He gave great satisfaction to the 
 folks in Bombay. 
 
 " You will speedily have a great many questions raised in con- 
 nection with this great country in the prospect of the discussion of the 
 question of a new Charter to the Company. I hope that every question 
 of importance will be settled without party feeling and prejudice. 
 While I am of opinion that the government of the Company should 
 undoubtedly continue, I think that it will be better to shape out a 
 course of administration for it by Acts of Parliament, than to place it 
 under arbitrary control. Encouragement should be given on a large 
 scale to the employment in India of European capital and European 
 enterprise, destitute of which, the country, which may be made so pro- 
 ductive, will be involved in fiscal ruin. All the Government contribu- 
 tions to the temples, which are not chartered, I think should be 
 devoted to the support of elementary education through every town 
 and village of the country ;* and of education not wholly paid for by 
 Government, but partly supported by the people in private Institutions, 
 provision being made only for the teaching of secular knowledge ; 
 while all should be at liberty, on their own responsibility, to supple- 
 ment that education by religious instruction as they may please," 
 
 In this letter we find one of the too few examples in his 
 correspondence of that political insight as well as information, 
 and those broad economic views regarding European enter- 
 prise as well as the prosperity of the natives, with which, in 
 conversation, Dr. Wilson used to delight his friends. These 
 questions, too, no less than his scholarly and scientific re- 
 searches, he subordinated to the absorbing aims of the Chris- 
 tian missionary and the exacting work of the practical 
 
 1 When, in one of the frequent and friendly discussions between the 
 Church of England Evangelical chaplains and the Serampore missionaries in 
 Aldeen, the home of Brown and Henry Martyn, Dr. Marshman asked 
 Claudius Buchanan whence he expected to get funds for the endowment of the 
 ecclesiastical establishment set up in 1813, he replied, "The temple lands 
 will supply the churches and the Brahmans' lands will do for the ministers." 
 To this the Nonconformist and eager educationist replied with emphasis, 
 " You will never, never obtain them, Dr. Buchanan." 
 
448 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1850. 
 
 philanthropist. In all respects his programme of reform was 
 soon carried out, save in the disendowment of idol shrines 
 'and mosques, but the property rights of these alone are now 
 protected only by the civil courts. The mal-administration 
 of the priestly guardians side by side with the growth of 
 intelligence and Christianity among the people, may yet 
 result in the voluntary application to education of the vast 
 temple lands which cannot be squandered, 
 
 The continued success of the mission, and the address on 
 the Christian, as opposed to the purely secular, education of 
 native youth, raised a storm in two quarters. The local press 
 and certain Professors of the Government College waged a 
 bitter controversial warfare against missionaries, urging that 
 these should have nothing to do with education, the effects of 
 the positive moral and spiritual elements of which they did 
 not relish. And communities like the Parsees, still resenting 
 the aggressiveness of truth so as to confine their youth to the 
 Government schools, began to find that even there truth 
 pursued the conscience, and would not leave it alone till 
 many became almost, and some had the courage to profess 
 themselves openly altogether, Christians. It was about this 
 time that the fermenting process was seen to work most 
 evidently, as the first generation of educated youth went 
 forth from the Mission college, on the one hand ; and on the 
 other, the persistent discussions, translations of Scripture and 
 other publications, preachings, and tours, began to tell on the 
 varied native communities, already affected by the numerous 
 and often nameless influences of growing western civilisation. 
 Among the educated cases were not unfrequent like that of 
 Victorinus, as described by Simplicianus, the spiritual father 
 of Ambrose, to Augustine. 1 From the unlearned in Bombay, 
 and all the region around the Indian Ocean of which it is 
 the commercial centre, a small but steady stream of inquirers 
 
 1 See the extract from his -Confessions at the beginning of this Chapter. 
 
1850.] HIS SCHOOL OF THE CATECHUMENS. 449 
 
 flowed in to what had become no less a school of the cate- 
 chumens, spiritually and intellectually, than the famous 
 Didaskaleion Catechumenorum of Pantsenus (the first his- 
 torical missionary to India), Clement and Origen at Alexandria. 
 Nor does the parallel fail on the female side. For just as 
 that Christian institute made the Egyptian Serapeum the 
 last fortress of decaying polytheism, so the Bombay college 
 stirred up the purely Hindoo and Parsee communities to 
 rival efforts in education. Such passages as this are not in- 
 frequent in Dr. Wilson's missionary correspondence : When, 
 on 10th May 1850, appealing to his home committee for more 
 liberality, and announcing that Mrs. Wilson had been com- 
 pelled to add two more female schools to the Ambrolie estab- 
 lishment, he adds : 
 
 " The students of the Elphinstone College have been setting up 
 some schools of their own from which all Christianity is excluded, and 
 they have sought to fill them from our schools by prejudicing the 
 minds of their parents. I have got hold of one of their circulars, with 
 which I could easily expose their system ; but I think it better to 
 allow them to work it to death themselves. Dadobd Pandurang (the 
 president of their society, and superintendent of Government vernacular 
 schools on a salary of Rs. 300 per mensem,) called on us the other even- 
 ing and oifered his own daughter, and those of some of his friends, to 
 Mrs. Wilson as pupils, and they now come regularly under the charge 
 of a peon. When Mrs. Wilson congratulated him on having already 
 taught his wife and daughter to read, lie said, l This is all the fruit of 
 what I myself learned in Ambrolie many years ago/ The knitting 
 and sewing here are great recommendations to him. He abhors 
 Hinduism and respects Christianity. You must remember him. His 
 companion, Ndna Narayan, is now English translator to the Gaikwar, 
 on a salary of Rs. 175 a month." 
 
 DR. WILSON TO HIS PARENTS. 
 
 " 25th July 1850. I lately heard from my two young Abyssinian 
 friends, indeed, I may say, ' sons in the Gospel.' They have given to 
 me the two African lionesses presented to them by the king of their 
 country. These are objects of great curiosity to the natives of Bombay, 
 hundreds of whom come to see them in my ' compound.' I find it, 
 
 2G 
 
450 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1850. 
 
 however, very expensive to maintain them, as they devour a goat at a 
 meal. I have been offered a thousand rupees for them, and I shall 
 soon part with them, devoting the proceeds to the enlightenment of 
 Abyssinia. I must not forget to tell the children with you that they 
 are very tame. They followed Gabru and Maricha for several days' 
 journey like dogs. When they came to a bush, when they were tired, 
 they used to get into it and rest till they were thumped up with clubs 
 to proceed on the march. Their growl is terrible. I have two other 
 curious animals beside them a squirrel about the size of a cat, with a 
 tail like a sweep's brush ; and a pangolin, or ant-eater, with horny 
 scales lying on its back like a covering of tiles on a house. I took 
 home a stuffed specimen of the last-mentioned animal, which some of 
 you may remember to have seen. The natives of this country call it 
 the ' tiled cat.' These tiles prevent it being stung to death by bees, 
 or bitten by the ants, on which it lives." 
 
 RELATION OF THE DIFFERENT RACES IN INDIA TO CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 " I must make a general remark, not unworthy of the attention of 
 the friends of missions at home. The first races who entered India 
 were undoubtedly from Turania, or the eastern Scythia. They are 
 principally represented at present by the different nations and tribes in 
 India located to the south of the river Krishna, and speaking the 
 Canarese, Tooloo, Telugoo, Malayalam, and Tamul languages, which 
 have still a great affinity with the Tartar dialects. The distinctive 
 peculiarity of the religion of these races is the worship of ghosts and 
 demons whom they seek to conciliate by offerings of blood. The races 
 which, in the second instance, entered India were from Ariana, the 
 eastern part of Iran, or Persia, probably the original seat of the Indo- 
 Teutonic family of nations. They are located in India to the north of 
 the Krishna ; and their languages are all derivatives from the Sanscrit, 
 which is cognate with the Persian, Gothic, Pelasgic, Greek, Latin, and 
 many other European languages. Of these last-mentioned races, in 
 their eastern dispersions, the * prayer-bearers,' or ' Brahmans/ by 
 degrees became the hereditary priests. At first their worship, as developed 
 in the Vedas, was directed to the personified agents and elements of 
 nature. Afterwards it assumed the monstrous mythological and sub- 
 limated spiritual form, which is developed in the Epics, Law-books, and 
 Puranas. The Aryan tribes in conquering India, urged by the Brah- 
 mans, made war against the Turanian demon-worship, but not always 
 with complete success. The mountain and forest aboriginal tribes are 
 
1850.] HIS VARIED WORK FOR ALL RACES. 451 
 
 still, as far as Bralimanism is concerned, sturdy nonconformists. In 
 many districts, as in Canara, referred to by Shamrao, Bralimanism has 
 been compelled to make a compromise, and now fattens on the abund- 
 ant offerings made to the devils. It is among the Turanian races, and 
 the devil- worshippers, as in Tinnevelly and other places in the south 
 of India, which have no organised priesthood and bewitching literature, 
 that the converts to Christianity are most numerous. The day of their 
 merciful visitation seems to be at hand. That of the Brahmanical 
 Aryan tribes, with all their pride of caste and systematic creed, seems 
 to be more distant. No equitable comparison of the results of Christian 
 missions in India can be made with the forgetfulness of this fact." 
 
 Dr. WILSON to Dr. DUFF. 
 
 " 2d November 1850. One of our Koman Catholic pupils, a youth 
 of fair talents and attainments, lately entered the Free Church. An- 
 other of our pupils was baptized lately at Mangalore. There are some 
 hopeful characters about us ; but they present no very decided appear- 
 ances at present. Hadjee, the young Beloochee, gets on well, and so does 
 a Brahman who followed us from Kathiawar. Altogether, I have a very 
 full house here. The last individual who has joined us is a Chaldean 
 Christian boy (R. C.) from Baghdad. I have already taught him to 
 read Arabic, by giving him myself a daily lesson. I continued my 
 Wednesday evening lecture throughout both the hot and rainy seasons, 
 and it has been well attended by native youth. For four nights I 
 discoursed on the Religious History of Western India, as illustrated by 
 its ancient Remains ; for four, on the introduction and diffusion of the 
 Turanian and Iranian races in India, principally with a view to the 
 illustration of the origin and progress of Brahmanism ; for thirteen, 
 on Natural Theology, and the desirableness and necessity of a Divine 
 Revelation. I am at present discussing the question, Where is a Divine 
 Revelation to be found ? and in connection with this I am reviewing the 
 sacred writings of the Hindus, according to their classes. I have 
 directed a good deal of attention lately to the Vedas. My geological 
 class, which meets only on Friday mornings, is a very select one ; and 
 the native gentlemen attending it. Among them is the son of our 
 principal Hindoo, Juggonath Shunkurset, who is never absent." 
 
 MRS. WILSON ON BISHOP DEALTRY. 
 
 " AMBROLIE, 16^ November 1850. 
 
 " The two lions at present here are the Nepaulese ambassador and 
 suite (Jung Bahadoor), and the Bishop of Madras with his wife. He is 
 
452 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1850. 
 
 Dr. Dealtry, who was for a long time at Calcutta as Archdeacon. We 
 have met them several times. He is an excellent, evangelical, liberal- 
 minded man, who abhors Puseyism, and takes every opportunity of 
 lifting up his testimony against the prevailing errors of the present 
 times. I hope his visit to Bombay may do good, as nearly all the 
 chaplains are tinged more or less with high church views and feelings. 
 The Bishop and his party breakfasted with us yesterday morning, along 
 with a few other friends. He kindly examined some of the classes of 
 our Institution, and expressed himself as highly pleased with all he 
 heard and saw. We had also a good many of the girls of our schools 
 collected, about one hundred and forty, who were examined, and the 
 Bishop and Mrs. Dealtry were both delighted with them, and seemed 
 quite 'surprised to see the intelligent countenances of the little things, 
 and to hear the ready manner in which they replied to the questions 
 put to them. Indeed it was not a little gratifying to hear the Bishop 
 say he had seen nothing like it in India, and it was a scene he could 
 never forget. He never says what he does not feel, and he is not afraid 
 to speak out the truth. He is so much opposed to the Government 
 system of education in India (I mean the exclusion of Bible teaching 
 from its seminaries), that he has never visited one of their schools, 
 though again and again requested to do so. We have been asked to 
 accompany the Bishop and a few other friends to Elephanta this after- 
 noon. It will be a smaller and in some respects a more congenial 
 party than on the occasion of our last visit to the caves." 
 
 Bishop DEALTRY to Dr. WILSON. 
 
 "BOMBAY, 25th November 1850. 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND. I cannot leave this island without offering our 
 warmest thanks to you and Mrs. Wilson for your Christian kindness 
 and attention to us. We can never forget it, I assure you ; and both 
 Mrs. Dealtry and myself have formed a most sincere Christian attach- 
 ment to you, and we shall carry such feelings with us until we trust 
 we may meet in the everlasting kingdom of our Heavenly Father. I 
 hope, however, that we may meet again on earth. If you should ever 
 come to Madras you must be our guests, please ; and we shall rejoice to 
 make your stay there as happy, or at least attempt it, as you have made 
 ours here. God bless you, and pour the graces of His grace upon your 
 Mission, and make you the honoured instruments of gathering many 
 precious wandering souls into His fold, and may your crown at last be 
 resplendent with such. In haste, but ever yours with Christian love, 
 
 " T. MADRAS." 
 
1850.] A LEARNED PARSEE INQUIRER. 453 
 
 TO DR. TWEEDIE ON A LEARNED PARSEE INQUIRER. 
 
 " On my return from my annual evangelistic tour, which this year 
 extended to the province of Kathiawdr, where our Irish friends so ably 
 and faithfully labour, I was waited upon by Bamanji Dosabhai, the 
 most learned Oriental scholar among the Parsees of India, and the son 
 of Dosabhai Sorabji the priest and moonshee who was hired by the 
 Parsee sanhedrim to write a reply to my lecture on the Vandidad, 
 who informed me that, acting on the advice of a European friend, he 
 had lately re-perused the controversy, and especially my own two works, 
 and had, by the gracious assistance of the Spirit of God, arrived at the 
 conclusion that Parseeism is utterly false and that Christianity is cer- 
 tainly true. On this he put into my hands a letter in English, filling 
 four sheets, and expressive of his views and feelings. This I found to 
 be one of the most powerful and touching documents which I have 
 ever perused. After showing in an interesting and satisfactory manner 
 the reasons of the hope that is in him, he thus concludes : ' Freedom 
 of opinion and liberty of conscience being the leading characteristics of 
 the spirit of English law, I consider myself fully entitled to act con- 
 formably to the dictates of my conscience, and am therefore ready to 
 undergo the sacred rite of baptism, in doing which, I will incur I am 
 afraid the displeasure of my countrymen, but I trust I shall obtain 
 the favour of my God/ 
 
 " I am sorry that I am not yet able to warrant you to realise the 
 hopes or to allay the fears which his most interesting case awakens. 
 After continuing to attend me for instruction, prayer, and conference 
 for some time, he told me that, suspicions having been awakened re- 
 specting him, he felt constrained to reveal his situation to his family. 
 This he did in a Goojaratee letter addressed to his father, carefully 
 prepared by himself at home, and copied in my house, from which it 
 was forwarded to its destination, after he had asked shelter from me 
 till the storm might blow over. The father, on receiving the tidings 
 forwarded to him, immediately drove to my house, and coming into its 
 inner rooms without any warning, 'he told me that much learning had 
 made his son mad, and that he must have an interview with him, 
 which was immediately granted. On seeing his son he embraced him 
 and burst into tears, and told him that if he did not return to see his 
 mother she would immediately destroy herself. ' You have nothing 
 to fear/ he added, ' you will ultimately be allowed to do whatever 
 you like, even though you should become a Muhammadan.' On the 
 assurance of protection the son said, ' Well, I shall go to see my 
 
454 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1853. 
 
 mother,' and left the house with his father. I have since had one 
 reserved note from him, which I suppose has passed through the hands 
 of his father, and from which I conclude that I shall not again see him 
 for some little time. I have native testimony that he stands firm, but 
 of course I feel about him the deepest concern, in which all who know 
 of his case fully participate. The native community are in great alarm 
 about him, and the father has prevented all discussion about him in 
 the native papers, except in the Ckdbook, which rejoices over the 
 calamity on sectarian grounds." 
 
 This period in the history of the mission was fruitful in 
 such cases, as well as in others. Now a father, who thirteen 
 years before had heard Dr. Wilson at Ajunta, seeks him out at 
 Bombay, unable longer to rest in Hindooism, and returns to 
 bring not only his family of eight, but a village friend, into the 
 one fold. Again, his last tour bears fruit at the same time as 
 this his second, in the baptism of Hadjee, a young Beloochee, 
 who had been drawn by his words in Sindh, and becomes "the 
 first fruit of Sindh unto Christ." By the hands of Mr. Gust he 
 receives an epistle in Old Testament Hebrew from Amram bin 
 Saleemah, the chief priest of the Nablus Samaritans, and replies 
 in like style, with none the less ardour that Dr. M'Gown had 
 reported from Jerusalem the " interesting fact that some of 
 them had lately applied to the Bishop for admission into the 
 Christian or rather Protestant Church; that they were first 
 led to inquire after the truth by Dr. Wilson's instructions 
 when he visited them, and since then by a Mr. Williams. 
 The Bishop had sent them the Scriptures, and set up schools 
 among them, and hoped soon to do more to find out how far 
 they really were grounded in the truth. Dr. M'Gown spoke 
 of Dr. Wilson with the greatest enthusiasm." This leads Dr. 
 Wilson to write to Dr. Graham, from whom Sir Henry 
 Havelock had brought him a letter, projecting a joint tour in 
 Syria to establish a mission in the Lebanon, such as the Free 
 Church subsequently adopted. Again, the drawing of the 
 educated native mind towards Christianity provokes another 
 
1853.] NEW CATECHUMENS AND THE NATIVE CHURCH. 455 
 
 " habeas corpus " case in the Supreme Court, in which " Sir 
 Erskine Perry, who had handed over Shirpat Sheshadri to 
 the tender mercies of the intolerant heathen," is compelled to 
 allow the girl Sai "to go where she pleases," because her 
 Hindoo father preferred the mission. The vernacular schools 
 alone are this time temporarily affected by the native excite- 
 ment, while nine persons join themselves to the class of 
 catechumens, and " none of them are idlers." Nor is the 
 excitement lessened when a Parsee youth of the wealthiest 
 family, and himself possessor of Es. 300,000, seeks spiritual 
 instruction. 
 
 So Dr. Wilson year by year followed the greatest of mis- 
 sionaries, Paul, in turning the world upside-down. In 1853 
 the whole mission agencies of his church in Western India 
 embraced 2159 students and pupils, of whom there were 1413 
 in Bombay, 546 in Poona, and 200 in Satara. Of the whole 
 number one-fourth were females; and one-fourth received the 
 higher education through English as well as the vernaculars. 
 At this time he prepared a course of lectures for his students 
 at Bombay, and for the English society both there and at 
 Mahableshwar, on " The Apostle Paul in Greece ; or Chris- 
 tianity in contact with the Hellenic faith and manners and 
 the Eoman magistracy, compared with Christianity in contact 
 with the Hindoo faith and manners and the British magis- 
 tracy." Of the Native Church, consisting of 126 adults, of 
 whom 55 were communicants and 42 baptized adherents, he 
 could write that it was in a prosperous spiritual state. In 
 1855 the value of the college as an evangelising no less than 
 a pioneering agency, showed itself in the baptism of the best 
 student, Guuputrao Ehogonath, of the respectable Parbhoo 
 caste. In the same year he writes to Dr. Tweedie on the 
 13th August : 
 
 " I had the pleasure of baptizing Ismail Ibraim, the first Bohora 
 who, as far as we know, has yet embraced Christianity in India. This 
 
456 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1855. 
 
 young man, who is about twenty-six years of age, made my accquaint- 
 ance a year ago, when he soon showed a disposition to embrace Christi- 
 anity, which was not unnoticed by his acquaintances, who resorted 
 even to violence to prevent him coming to the mission-house, cruelly 
 beating him, and wounding him on the skull so severely that he had 
 to be sent to the hospital. His own safety required that he should 
 have accommodation in the mission-house ; and this he obtained, 
 dwelling in the same room with Hadjee, the Sindhian convert, who has 
 been of great use to him both by way of precept and example. I gave 
 him regular instruction as a catechumen from the time he came to us, 
 through the medium both of the Goojaratee and Hindostanee languages, 
 with which he is acquainted. He is likely to be useful as a Christian 
 colporteur. The confraternity of Bohoras is noted for its mercantile 
 industry and application, and if he fulfil our hopes by carrying its 
 spirit into his new occupation, under the sanctifying influence of the 
 Gospel, he will be a valuable accession to our strength, notwithstanding 
 the fact that he has appeared among us not so much as a student as a 
 man of labour. He appears thoroughly divorced from Muhammad and 
 from All, the son-in-law of Muhammad, whom the Bohoras, or Initiated, 
 according to the meaning of the Arabic word from which the name is 
 derived, esteem an improvement upon his father-in-law, having a higher 
 degree of inspiration, which has in a good measure, as they imagine, 
 manifested itself among his successors, recognised by the Bohoras and 
 by the Ansairiyah, Ismailiyah, Drus, and Metawileh of Syria, who in 
 religion are their conquerors. I am thankful to God to be able to 
 report the baptism by Mr. French (now Bishop of Lahore) of the 
 Church Missionary Society, of a Bokhara Jew, several times mentioned 
 to you by Mr. Murray Mitchell, with whom he lived for some time, 
 who attended our Institution for several years, and who left us about 
 two years ago to return to his native country on account of a severe 
 illness, promising, if spared, to come back in order to enter the 
 Christian Church." 
 
 Mrs. Colin Mackenzie, whose journal, The Camp, the 
 Mission, and the Zenana, had been received in Europe as 
 revealing India more fully than any book since Heber's, had 
 sketched and published lithographs of the converts in Bom- 
 bay and Calcutta. Of one of the portraits Dr. Wilson wrote : 
 " The serene piety and devotion of Yohan Prem are well 
 brought out in the likeness. He lives on the word of God 
 
1855.] THE NEW COLLEGE EGBERT NESBIT's DEATH. 457 
 
 and prayer, and is mighty in the Scriptures. By many of the 
 Natives he is received as a sort of curiosity ; and he finds 
 access to circles into which others cannot penetrate. He 
 carries the testimony of Jesus with him wherever he goes, 
 and he brings many parties to the mission-house for religious 
 converse." Narayan Sheshadri was soon after ordained, and 
 Dhunjeebhoy, who had been evangelising in Goojarat among 
 his countrymen, baptised his first converts from the aboriginal 
 Dhecls. In 1854 Dr. Wilson thus reported the conversion of 
 Baba Pudmanjee, the ablest Hindoo student of the college : 
 " Though but a young lad he is already a Marathee authority of 
 distinction. I know no native so able to wield the press to ad- 
 vantage. His modesty is as remarkable as his ability. We have 
 looked, and laboured and prayed for his conversion for years." 
 Not till 1855, twelve years after they had built the first 
 college only to hand it over to others before entering it, were 
 Dr. Wilson and his colleagues able to take possession of the 
 present college buildings, erected to accommodate eight hun- 
 dred students and pupils, at a cost of 6800. But the joy 
 of the year 1855 was sadly dimmed by the sudden removal 
 by cholera, on the 26th July, of Eobert Nesbit, a few 
 months after his union to a lady who has ever since given her 
 life to female education. The most perfect speaker of Mara- 
 thee, so that even Brahmans could not detect a foreign accent, 
 with an uprightness of judgment which the natives regarded 
 as that of a god, and with a loving fascination which drew 
 all of every sect and class to his feet, Eobert Nesbit, in a few 
 hours after he closed his last class at the college, was re- 
 moved by death. The Eev. Adam White, who was in after 
 years to meet a like fate in the same sort of self-sacrifice, 
 and then Mr. W. Gardner, soon arrived from Scotland to 
 take his place. But who could restore the unique indivi- 
 duality and the experience which, from St. Andrews University, 
 and youthful intercourse with John Wilson on the border 
 
458 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1856. 
 
 hills, grew into ripeness in the southern Konkan, at the Cape 
 of Good Hope, and amid the upheaving of Bombay for nigh 
 thirty years ? 
 
 The East India Company's Government, as well as purely 
 English judges like Sir Erskine Perry, were to make another 
 advance in the understanding and practice of toleration. Sir 
 Erskine had in the last "habeas corpus" case decided that 
 fourteen was the age of discretion in the case of a woman, 
 while Shripat Sheshadri had been sent back to Brahmanism 
 against his will because he was not sixteen. The Company's 
 Government in every province of India had steadily de- 
 christianised the English professors, forbidding them, as well 
 as native teachers, to explain passages in English literature 
 referring to Christianity. Thus, it was thought, the leaven of 
 Christianity would be effectually kept out of the State colleges 
 and schools, while there was no official recognition by grants 
 in aid of even the secular education in the missionary and 
 independent colleges, although it was to men like Wilson 
 and Duff that, as we have seen, the Company owed its educa- 
 tional stimulus, example, and systems. 
 
 In 1854 Lord Elphinstone had become Governor of Bombay 
 after a successful experience of educational reform in Madras. 
 It was doubtless due to his personal influence that the 
 Bombay Government in 1856 decided that its teachers did 
 not violate duty when they gave simple explanations of 
 references in English text-books to Christianity. Four Parsee 
 students of the Elphinstone College, in spite of the prison 
 bars, which could not shut out the light, astounded Dr. Wilson 
 and Mr. White by addressing a letter to them which thus 
 began : 
 
 " We are fully convinced by the grace of God, that Parseeism is a 
 false religion ; and it consists of VAGUE and EXTRAVAGANT principles. 
 It is the INVENTION of man ; not the REVELATION of God. We have 
 found out, after inquiring nearly two or three years after the TRUE 
 
 
1856.] CATECHUMENS FROM GOVERNMENT COLLEGES. 459 
 
 RELIGION, that every comfort, joy, hope, success, and every good thing 
 in this world as well as in the world to come, are concentrated in the 
 Lord Jesus. We have now the greatest pleasure to inform you that, as 
 we are fully convinced of the TRUTH of CHRISTIANITY, we wish to be 
 baptized, and to be admitted into the visible Church of Christ. . . 
 Nothing has led us to join the Christian Church but the pure hope and 
 desire of the salvation of our souls." 
 
 Some days after, the youths, all married, appeared at the 
 mission-house, and a legal agent duly noted the circum- 
 stances and their ages from seventeen years and eight months 
 to nineteen years and nine months. A rush of Parsees was 
 made to the spot. For three days the families of the young 
 men, who had free access to them, plied them with the argu- 
 ments of the devout Zoroastrian, the sober deist, and the 
 arrogant scoffer, in vain. At last the representation that 
 their mothers were dying, and the express pledge that they 
 should have religious liberty at their homes and be allowed 
 to attend the mission for instruction, prevailed at first with 
 Darasha, and a day after with Bhicajee and Nussurwanjee. 
 Bairamjee Kersasjee alone remained faithful, and was in due 
 time baptized, but long required the protection of the law on 
 his way to and from the college. The Hindoos and Muhamma- 
 dans admitted the right of young men of that age to please 
 themselves. The Parsees began to denounce the Govern- 
 ment college in this case, as their fathers had attacked the 
 officiating Governor in that of Dhunjeebhoy. They vilified, 
 especially, one of their own tribe as a Christianiser, Professor 
 Ardaseer Framjee. A formal inquiry by Government resulted 
 in justifying him, and in the concession of liberty to the educa- 
 tional service so far as to explain Milton, for instance, to the 
 pupils, hitherto religiously doubtful, or passages of Shak- 
 spere ! The result was seen in the next baptisms, those of 
 another Parsee student of the Elphinstone College, Shapoorjee 
 Eduljee, and a Muhammadan class-fellow, Syud Hussan 
 Medinyeh. About the same time a Sikh, from the Punjab, 
 
460 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1856. 
 
 and a Muhammadan moonshee, were admitted to the Church. 
 Syud Hussan's family concealed his conversion from their 
 co-religionists as long as they could, but then openly set 
 their ablest Moulvies to argue with him. 
 
 All through this period Dr. Wilson carried on his trans- 
 lation work, aided by his scholarly converts. He, Dhun- 
 jeebhoy, and Hormasdjee, brought out a revision of the Messrs. 
 Fyvie's translation of the Goojaratee New Testament. " It 
 contains," he wrote, " such improvements as the progress of 
 Oriental translation, and the application to it, for the first 
 time so far as we are aware, of competent native Indian 
 Christian criticism, have enabled us to effect." As his 
 contribution to the public collection of the British and 
 Foreign Bible Society, Dr. Wilson sent a MS. copy of the 
 Four Gospels in Arabic, " evidently prepared for the use of 
 the Eastern Churches. This valuable document I procured 
 in rather remarkable circumstances. Some time ago I observed 
 it in the library of one of the principal fire temples of Bombay, 
 and on my offering ten pounds for it, the priests allowed me 
 to have it on condition of my permitting them to make and 
 keep a copy of it a proposal on their part in which I imme- 
 diately concurred." 
 
 To Miss Douglas, who had sent him the Life of Judson 
 and Stier's Eeden Jesu, he replied " I am greatly obliged to 
 you for the Life of Judson, which I have found most interest- 
 ing in the illustration of his high Christian character and 
 noble endeavours for the propagation of the truth. I rather 
 wonder at the rash admissions into the Christian Church by 
 the Baptist brethren at Burma. This greatly strikes the 
 attention of a Presbyterian missionary, who knows the ignor- 
 ance of the Eastern mind, and its proneness in certain circum- 
 stances to act from impetus. Though the apostles sometimes 
 baptized on sudden professions their disciples were tested by 
 providence in an unequivocal manner." 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 LITERARY ACTIVITY THE ROCK-CUT TEMPLES. 
 
 1848-1862. 
 
 A Missionary-Scholar's Wife The Rock-Cut Temples and Monasteries 
 Early attempts at an Archaeological Survey of India Dr. Wilson's two 
 Memoirs on the subject President of the Cave-Temple Commission Lord 
 Canning's Minute Necessity of a Corpus Inscriptionum Col. Meadows 
 Taylor and Sir Walter Elliot The Antiquary on Elephanta The Brahmanical 
 Caves A Visit to Karla Caves Correspondence with Lassen and Westergaard 
 Letter to Mr. Dennistoun of Dennistoun The first Railway Train The 
 Peninsular and Oriental Steamers The Beejapore Arabic Library MSS. and 
 a Tropical Climate Report on the Oriental Examinations of Officials Declines 
 to be Oriental Translator to Government "Only a Missionary" Writes 
 History of Infanticide New Edition of Marathee Dictionary Researches in- 
 to Caste Most Popular Book on Ancient India Letter to Lassen Letter 
 from Goldstiicker Correspondence with Lord Elphinstone. 
 
 
" But stay ! these walls these ivy-clad arcades 
 These mouldering plinths these sad and blackened shafts 
 These vague entablatures this crumbling frieze 
 These shattered cornices this wreck this ruin 
 These stones alas ! these grey stones are they all 
 All of the famed and the colossal left 
 By the corrosive hours to Fate and me ? 
 
 " ' Not all ' the echoes answer me ' not all ! 
 Prophetic sounds and loud, arise for ever 
 From us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise, 
 As melody from Memnon to the Sun. 
 We rule the hearts of mightiest men we rule 
 With a despotic sway all giant minds. 
 We are not impotent we pallid stones. 
 Not all our power is gone not all our fame 
 Not all the magic of our high renown 
 Not all the wonder that encircles us 
 Not all the mysteries that in us lie 
 Not all the memories that hang upon 
 And cling around about us as a garment, 
 Clothing us in a robe of more than glory.' " 
 
 EDGAR POE : The Colosseum. 
 
 " Historical truth is not to be found so easily in India as in other countries 
 of the world. It is here in a state of comparative purity only in the ancient 
 monuments of the country. These monuments, which are of an unequivocal 
 character, have best withstood the ravages of time, the great destroyer ; and 
 religious fraud, repelled by their venerable antiquity, or exhausted in the 
 attempt to entomb their magnitude, or to annihilate their multitude, or to 
 efface their permanent records, has failed to destroy them or to effect their 
 corruption. They have survived the departure of their authors and the 
 destruction of the religious systems to which they belonged ; and they tell 
 their own tale in spite of their approbation by sects and parties which had 
 nothing to do with their origin, and many of which have come into existence 
 subsequently to their execution and completion. They have proved too solid 
 for the sledge-hammer of the Mussulman entirely to mutilate them, and too 
 incombustible for the fires of the Lusitanian to consume or rend them in 
 pieces. They still exist, though in a decaying state, for comparison with the 
 ancient literary remains of India, confirming what little of historical truth is 
 to be found in these records, and illustrating their erroneous though sub- 
 limated speculations, and their wild and unbridled mythology, with all its 
 pei-versions and exaggerations. They are the credentials of the genius, taste, 
 wealth, and power of ancient India, showing the natural capacity of its 
 peoples. " 
 
 JOHN WILSON : The Religious Excavations of Western India. 
 
1849.] A TRUE MISSIONARY'S WIFE. 463 
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 DR. and Mrs. "Wilson had, on his return to India, just com- 
 pleted the reorganisation of the Mission in its college and 
 schools, and on its female side at the beginning of 1848, when 
 both threw themselves into the allied work of oriental research. 
 To a correspondent he wrote in May 1849 : "Mrs. Wilson 
 has enjoyed remarkably good health in India. She has now 
 made great progress in the Marathee language. She has a 
 wide field for usefulness here, as we have upwards of five 
 hundred girls in our native female schools. She is busy 
 translating a paper on the Puranas from the French of 
 Burnouf, which -appeared in the Oriental Christian Spectator" 
 This extract from one of Mrs. Wilson's letters, further illus- 
 trates the duties of a true missionary's wife : " BOMBAY,' 30th 
 August 1850. My labours in the way of teaching are increas- 
 ing, and I find I require to spend about four hours each day 
 with the girls, that is from twelve to four o'clock, besides pre- 
 viously preparing their work ; in addition to which we have 
 the morning Marathee service for reading and examination 
 of old and young, about ten, and at eleven my moonshee 
 comes for an hour to teach me Hindostanee. I find it easier 
 than Marathee, but I must not expect to get on rapidly, as I 
 have scarcely a moment for private study. I have a class 
 who are learning English, composed of some of our female 
 teachers and some of our day- scholars. I have also the girls 
 of a superior class of natives, who come to me for instruction 
 in sewing and English, and we read the Scriptures in Marathee, 
 and they learn the gospel catechism. They are knitting little 
 boots for their baby brothers, and are much pleased with 
 
464 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1849. 
 
 some pieces of canvas- work they have accomplished, of simple 
 patterns. Some of the girls in my school are now very good 
 sewers, and can knit stockings nicely." 
 
 To the same correspondent Dr. Wilson announced " I 
 have just drawn up, what I suppose will ere long be printed, 
 A Memoir on the Cave-Temples and Monasteries, and other 
 Buddhist, Brahmanical, and Jaina Remains of Western India. 
 This document I have prepared in connection with the 
 Asiatic Society and the Government." This introduces us 
 to what proved to be intellectually the most fruitful period 
 of his career, from 1848 to 1862. " During my professional 
 journeyings throughout this great country," he wrote in the 
 last published words from his pen, " I have often been 
 brought in contact with its more remarkable antiquarian 
 wonders, which, in a considerable number of instances, I have 
 been among the first to observe and describe, though some- 
 times with unsatisfied curiosity as well as with qualified in- 
 formation." This is a modest statement, not less of what 
 he was the first to do than of the service which he rendered 
 to Government and the public by collecting all the available 
 facts on the subject in 1848, and by showing the way to such 
 a scientific and complete survey as that which, ever since the 
 mutiny operations ceased, has been going on. 
 
 Such marvels as the fifty large groups of rock-cut temples, 
 monasteries, and cisterns, excavated in the "Western Ghauts 
 by Buddhists, Brahmans, and Jains, successively, during the 
 fifteen centuries from Asoka to the inscription of Elora in 
 A.D. 1234, had excited the wonder and the speculations of 
 later Hindoos, the superstitious Portuguese, and the early 
 English travellers. The people saw in them the work of 
 their mythical heroes, the Pandavas, while the Brahmans 
 pronounced the dhagob, or relic- receptacle of their Budd- 
 hist foes, to be the filthy linga, and the cenobite's rocky 
 chamber to be the abode of the outcast Dhed. The Portu- 
 
1849.] EARLY RESEARCHES INTO THE CAVE-TEMPLES. 465 
 
 guese historian De Couto magnified the hundred cells and 
 passages of the hill of Kanha in Salsette into thousands of 
 caverns, reaching as far as the mainland at Cambay, through 
 which a priest led an expedition for seven days without 
 reaching the end! Faber, once thought learned, romanced 
 over the trimurti of Elephanta as the cavern of Noah, his 
 three sons and allegorical consort, reasoning that five heads 
 are equal to three because two could be imagined. Mr. 
 Henry Salt, the Lichfield artist who accompanied Lord 
 Yalentia in his travels, and was sent as an envoy to the ruler 
 of Abyssinia, was the first to describe the Salsette excavations 
 fairly in 1806. But it was not till Erskine, the " philosophic " 
 son-in-law of Sir James Mackintosh, wrote his Account of the 
 Cave-Temple of Elephanta in 1813 that justice was done to 
 the subject, although Mebuhr had preceded him, and had 
 reproached the English for neglecting works far greater than 
 the Pyramids. The Danish traveller pronounced the investi- 
 gation of such antiquities an undertaking worthy of the 
 patronage of a prince or a nation. The journals of his tours 
 show how early, and how, almost year by year, Dr. Wilson 
 devoted his little leisure to the scholarly study not only of 
 the caves but of the inscriptions which give them a historical 
 as well as architectural value. Nor was he alone in this. 
 Commercial enterprise had early sent to Bengal the Ayrshire 
 youth, James Fergusson, who, after a training in the Edin- 
 burgh High School, and ten years' experience of enterprise 
 and travel among the people of India, published his Illustra- 
 tions of the Rock-Cut Temples in 1845, and has ever since been 
 the principal authority on this and allied subjects. 
 
 When in London, where his knowledge of the character 
 of the cave and other alphabets enabled him to decipher 
 certain papers in a concealed Indian hand, which were 
 essential to adjusting a decision passed by the Admiralty 
 Court at the Cape, and which had long lain uninterpreted, 
 
 2H 
 
466 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1849. 
 
 Dr. Wilson had pressed his old project of a Corpus Inscrip- 
 tionum in connection with a systematic study of the excava- 
 tions. Mr. Fergusson was not less zealous, and he was able 
 to be more persistent. The result seems to have been that 
 the Eoyal Asiatic Society in 1844 moved the Court of 
 Directors to order preliminary arrangements to be made for 
 conducting antiquarian researches in India, as the phraseology 
 went. In 1847 the Court finally approved of the detailed 
 suggestions " for examining, delineating, and recording some 
 of the chief antiquities " sent home by Lord Hardinge, the 
 Governor-General. In the rest of India very little was done 
 in those days of Sikh wars, beyond the publication of some 
 papers by Majors Kittoe and Cunningham, and the enriching 
 of the old India House in Leadenhall Street with some 
 antiquities and drawings. But in Western and Central India 
 Dr. Wilson was ready. The Bombay Government called the 
 local Asiatic Society to its aid. On the 15th April 1848 it 
 recommended that " authentic information as to the number 
 and situation of all the monuments and cave-temples of 
 antiquity in the territories should be obtained;" it sketched a 
 plan of operations and urged immediate action. What be- 
 came known as the Cave-Temple Commission for the next 
 ten years was accordingly appointed by Government, con- 
 sisting of Dr. Wilson, president; Dr. Stevenson; Mr. C. J. 
 Erskine, of the Civil Service ; Captain Lynch, of the Indian 
 Navy; Mr. Harkness, of the Elphinstone College; Venaik 
 Gungadhur Shastree ; and Dr. Carter, secretary of the Society. 
 Acting throughout with the authorities, and reporting also to 
 the Society, they engaged Mr. Fallon as artist; Lieutenant 
 Brett to copy inscriptions, and, at a later period, Captain 
 Briggs to take photographs ; and Vishnoo Shastree, the pundit 
 of scholars like Mr. Law and Mr. Wathen, the Supreme Court 
 translator, Mr. Murphy, and Dr. Wilson himself, to aid in the 
 translation of the inscriptions. This pioneering work was 
 
1849.] THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA CREATED. 467 
 
 arrested by the Mutiny, and soon after a new race of critics, 
 in ignorance of the past, anonymously attacked the Commis- 
 sion, or rather its native assistant, the Shastree. In the ten 
 years of its active existence its whole expenditure did not 
 much exceed 2350, represented by the paintings, measure- 
 ments, casts, clearing out of caves, transcripts, and translations. 
 For thirteen years the Commission, and Dr. Wilson above all 
 his colleagues, gave the work their gratuitous and zealous 
 labours; and not only they, but coadjutors like Sir Bartle 
 Frere, Sir Walter Elliot of Madras, Colonel Meadows Taylor, 
 Mr. Orlebar, and Dr. West, C.E. But to Dr. Wilson alone is 
 it due that the enlightened orders of Lord Hardinge and the 
 Directors bore fruit at all. In truth, from the first, in north- 
 eastern and southern, as well as in western India, a scholar 
 like the honorary president of the Asiatic Society, or an 
 architectural authority like Mr. Fergusson, should have been 
 set apart for the sole duty, with a staff of skilled assistants, 
 instead of a beggarly expenditure at the rate of 200 a year. 
 
 Hence it became necessary, the moment the state of the 
 country after 1857 allowed of action, to renew the enterprise, 
 taught by the experience of the past. When, towards the 
 end of 1861, engaged at Allahabad in completing his reorgan- 
 isation of the North- Western government, Lord Canning 
 resolved to appoint Colonel A. Cunningham Director of the 
 Archaeological Survey of India. From the young Duke of 
 Wellington's time, at the beginning of the century, the East 
 India Company had liberally carried out trigonometrical as 
 well as topographical and revenue surveys of the peninsula. 
 On the basis of this, now approaching completion, Lord Dal- 
 housie had created a Geological Survey in 1856. And Lord 
 Canning 1 completed the good work by thus rescuing for all 
 time the fast perishing memorials which form the only history 
 
 1 Minute by the Right Honourable the Governor-General in Council on the 
 Antiquities of Upper India, dated 22d January 1862. 
 
468 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1856. 
 
 of India before the time of our own battle of Hastings, out- 
 side of the vague hints of philology and of a literature that 
 defies historical criticism. The Archaeological Survey has since 
 been extended to Bombay, 1 where it is following up the in- 
 vestigations of Dr. Wilson and Mr. Fergusson on a uniform 
 scale, and with the best results. 
 
 From the voluminous correspondence of the Cave-Temple 
 Commission, all dictated or superintended by the missionary, 
 who had a keener motive to impel him than even that of the 
 scholar, we shall give only this official communication to 
 Mr. Hart, Secretary to the Government, dated 9th April 1856. 
 What Dr. Wilson with true foresight urged then, he had long 
 before pressed on the Bengal Asiatic Society's consideration, 
 and it is only now being achieved : 
 
 " 1. The Cave-Temple Commission have lately had their attention 
 directed to the extreme desirableness of the publication, under the 
 auspices of Government, of facsimiles or copies, with decipherments and 
 translations, of all the ancient cave-temple inscriptions, rock inscriptions, 
 pillar inscriptions, structural temple inscriptions, and copperplate 
 charter inscriptions, etc., which are to be found within the wide extent 
 of the British Empire in the East. The publication of such a Corpus 
 Inscriptionum appears to them to be an object of such importance in 
 an antiquarian and historical point of view for it would embrace the 
 most important documenta of Indian history that it well merits the 
 combined attention of Government, of our learned Societies, and of 
 individual Orientalists. The work they conceive to be practicable, 
 were it duly allotted to each presidency and administration in India. 
 The Cave-Temple Commission would be gratified if the special atten- 
 tion of the supreme and subordinate Governments of this country were 
 early directed to it, and to the devising of practical arrangements for 
 its execution in concurrence with the honourable the Court of Directors 
 in England. 
 
 1 It is to be regretted that the India Office does not more freely circulate 
 the valuable reports of General Cunningham and Mr. Burgess. The Secretary 
 of State has shown an enlightened liberality, worthy of the old Company, in 
 sanctioning the preparation, at the public expense, by Mr. Fergusson and Mr. 
 Burgess, of an exhaustive and illustrated volume, describing the whole religious 
 excavations of all India. 
 
1856.] THE CAVE-TEMPLE COMMISSION. 469 
 
 " 2. Much, has been done in India, especially during the last thirty 
 years, to prepare the way for such a work as that now mentioned, 
 especially by the various Asiatic Societies in India and Europe. The 
 more remarkable antiquities of the country have to a 'considerable 
 extent been discovered and explored. The key to the characters in 
 which their inscriptions are written has been found. Many of these 
 inscriptions have already been copied, deciphered, and translated, 
 though not with absolute accuracy, yet with a tolerable degree of 
 success. Extremely important results have been obtained from their 
 investigation for the arrangement of Indian chronology, and the 
 definite ascertainment of the great religious and political changes which 
 have occurred in this great country in past ages. 
 
 "3. In producing the results now referred to, each of the presi- 
 dencies of India has had its own share of credit ; and much may be 
 expected from any suitable and harmonious combination of their eiforts 
 which may be arranged and agreed upon. 
 
 " 4. It seems very desirable that, till a general plan of co-operation 
 is agreed upon between the presidencies, the efforts of all the parties 
 likely to be auxiliary in the case, should be zealously directed to the 
 expediting of those measures which may tend to bring about the final 
 accomplishment of the object to be derived. Let the copying of 
 inscriptions proceed, especially by photography, which has been practi- 
 cally shown by Captain Briggs to be peculiarly applicable to the larger 
 inscriptions of the Hindus. Let the copies of the inscriptions which 
 have been already made be collated with the originals, especially in all 
 dubious cases. Let the more laborious work of decipherment and 
 translation receive adequate attention; and let decipherments and 
 translations already made and that in some instances in very dis- 
 advantageous circumstances be duly revised and perfected. 
 
 " 5. It seems the more desirable that all this should be promptly 
 done, that the parties who have been more immediately concerned in 
 antiquarian discovery in India, and who may be supposed to be not 
 the least zealous and competent in the cause, are rapidly diminishing 
 in numbers, while their learned European advisers, such as Professors 
 H. H. Wilson and Colonel Sykes, and their friends on the Continent, 
 are advancing in years." 
 
 Dr. Wilson's Memoir on the Cave-Temples and Monasteries, 
 forming some seventy pages of Volume III. of the Journal 
 of the Bombay Asiatic Society, was circulated by the Govern- 
 ment to all the district and political officers in and around 
 
470 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1856. 
 
 the province, including great States like the Nizam's country. 
 These were directed to afford the Commission all the informa- 
 tion and assistance in their power in the prosecution of 
 researches. The result was the publication by Dr. Wilson of 
 a second Memoir in 1852, recording the new discoveries, for 
 which Government had offered pecuniary rewards also, and 
 embodying the results of the Commission's work on the larger 
 caves like Elephanta. The Memoir had set many observers 
 to work, with results of the most striking interest, such as 
 those reported by Colonel Meadows Taylor from the Nizam's 
 principality of Shorapoor, 1 and by Sir Walter Elliot from 
 Southern India. 
 
 Henceforth, year after year, no new Governor-General, 
 Governor, or Member of Council, landed at Bombay, and no 
 traveller from Europe or America passed through it, without 
 seeking the guidance of Dr. Wilson on a visit to one of the neigh- 
 bouring groups of excavations. In velvet skull-cap and with 
 long wand, the enthusiastic scholar, with the air of an old 
 knight, would lead his friends through the caves, pouring forth 
 his stores of knowledge with unflagging courtesy, and charming 
 all by the rare combination of goodness and grace, historical 
 and oriental lore, poetic quotation and scientific references, 
 genial remark and childlike humour, till visitors, like the 
 accomplished Lady Canning, declared they had never met 
 such a man. Nor would he allow his guests for he too 
 often provided the luncheon to go unprepared by study. 
 He had written a lecture on the subject for the Bombay 
 public, to whom, at the request of the Mechanics' Institute, 
 he delivered it in the Town Hall. By the year 1864, when 
 the present writer for the first time visited Bombay, the 
 manuscript was well worn, and he solicited permission to 
 
 1 See The Story of My Life, by the late Colonel Meadows Taylor, 1877, 
 vol. ii. ; and his Notices of Cromlechs, Cairns, and other Ancient Scytho- 
 Druidical Remains, in vol. iv. of the Journal of the Bombay Asiatic Society. 
 
1856.] A LEARNED AND GENIAL GUIDE. 471 
 
 publish it in the Calcutta Review. All were expected, and, 
 as a rule were glad, to master the contents of this popular 
 treatise, of which it was Dr. Wilson's last literary work to pre- 
 pare a somewhat enlarged edition for the use of the Prince of 
 Wales. We cannot give a more correct impression of one of 
 those memorable days than by recalling the details of a visit, 
 in Dr. Wilson's society, to the nearest and latest Brahmanical 
 caves of Elephanta, followed by an inspection, unfortunately 
 without his personal assistance, of the richer Buddhist caves 
 of Karla. 
 
 " Standing on the west of the Malabar Hill, in the garden of ' the 
 Cliff/ too rarely visited by the toiling missionary of Ambrolie till 
 circumstances made it his last permanent residence, the spectator, as he 
 looks eastward across the breadth of the harbour to the mainland, 
 twelve miles off, lets his eye rest on a low mass of basalt crouching 
 almost midway. He would pass it by as no more worthy of notice 
 than the other rocks which made up the Septanesia of the Greek 
 geographers, were he not told that this is Elephanta, once the head- 
 quarters of Shivaism in the West. To that island, when it was con- 
 nected with the mainland by a mole like that of old Tyre, thousands 
 of devotees crowded that they might worship in the lofty expanse and 
 amid the sculptured pillars of its rock-cut temples. Now the mole 
 has disappeared, the colossal elephants which gave the spot its name 
 are gone, and Messrs. Nicol and Co. are busy transporting jnuch of its 
 mass to the sedgy flats which the Elphinstone Land Company are 
 transforming into priceless sites for wharves, warehouses, and docks, 
 at the busiest part of busy Bombay. They courteously place one of 
 their steamers at our disposal, and, accompanied by a party of engineers 
 and sportsmen, we land below the rock-mansions which scholars from 
 Erskine to Wilson, and their proximity to Bombay, have made familiar 
 to every visitor. Too familiar, we may say; for until the present 
 English guardian of the shrines was appointed, there were only too 
 many sailors who, in their frolics, had chipped off colossal noses, and 
 carried home to wife or sweetheart the monstrous ears and ear-rings of 
 stone, the want of which now so sadly disfigures the bashful Parvatee 
 in her bridal attire. 
 
 " We stand before the great temple, which covers almost a square 
 of 133 feet, and leads on either side to two smaller sacella, that recede 
 from it so as to leave the sides of the main excavation open to inspec- 
 
472 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1856. 
 
 tion. At Karla the first impression of awe, caused by the solemn gloom, 
 soon changes into intense satisfaction with the perfection of the design 
 and the chasteness of the ornamentation. Here the gloom is not so great, 
 though the vistas are grander ; but the regularity of the pillars which 
 run in parallel lines and at right angles with each other, and the com- 
 parative coarseness of the whole workmanship, at once convince us that 
 we are inspecting work of a much later age than Asoka's, and under- 
 taken by imitators who sought to produce by magnitude of design 
 what they were incompetent to effect by artistic execution. Our dis- 
 appointment is increased when we proceed, under the guidance of the 
 great living scholar who is so familiar with every figure, to study the 
 gigantic bas reliefs which stare passively from the rocky walls around. 
 Fronting us is the great Trimoorti, or three-headed bust, representing, 
 from the waist to a height of eighteen feet, the later deities, Shiva, 
 Vishnoo, and Brahma, yet so carved as to make the whole a tribute to 
 the glory of Shiva alone. The Hindoos of later days, who look to 
 European teachers to read the riddle of such rocks, were wont to 
 declare that the figure of Buddha, of which this is a copy, was only 
 the Brahmanical artificer Vishwakarma holding the finger which he 
 had cut in his workshop. As we look at the meaningless face of 
 Brahma, and at the feline moustache and slobbering lips by which the 
 artist would make Shiva look fierce, we feel an emotion of disgust, very 
 different from that which is excited by the aspect of the Sphinx in the 
 Memphian desert, as it ' gazes right on with calm eternal eyes.' The 
 whole Trimoorti is decorated like a sovereign, with head and neck 
 ornaments, which were fine specimens of carving before some Vandal 
 mutilated them. 
 
 " A tableau on the right, on an equally colossal scale, pictures 
 Shiva in his own character, with his wife Parvatee, standing upright, 
 and surrounded not only by attendants and ascetics but by such deities 
 as the four-faced Brahma on his waggon of geese, Indra upon his ele- 
 phant, and Vishnoo on the lord of eagles, who are thus represented as 
 his subordinates. To the left Shiva and his wife appear in a half male 
 and half female form, with a similar entourage, and with his bull, the 
 wild forest gava, which in Vedic times was eaten. A fourth bas relief 
 shows Shiva with his bashful bride pushed forward by a ministering 
 attendant, while before them kneels a priest with a vessel containing 
 the bridal oil. In another part is a fifth, representing the two in the 
 enjoyment of connubial felicity in their kailas or heaven, upheld by 
 Ravan, the demon king of Ceylon. In a sixth group we have Shiva 
 as Bhairava, terrible in form and fierce in aspect, with a garland of 
 
1856.] THE EXCAVATIONS OF ELEPHANTA. 473 
 
 human skulls around his neck, and performing a human sacrifice. We 
 pause before this in horror and sadness, as we think of the age which 
 could revel in the beliefs that colossal figure embodies. In one hand 
 he holds a child upraised, a second brandishes a naked sword, a third 
 has a bell to give warning of the fatal act, a fourth holds a vessel to 
 receive the blood, while a fifth extends a screen ready to be dropped 
 over the scene when the deed is done. And this is still the most 
 popular of the Hindoo idols this typifies the essence of Hindooism, 
 and above it all are cut the mystic letters AUM or OM. We need not 
 go over the other groups in one the god and his wife are quarrelling, 
 in others he appears as an ascetic surrounded by ascetics, in another is 
 his elephant-headed, large-bellied son, Gunputi, and a procession of 
 women carrying infants. We do not wonder at the Portuguese fathers 
 who, when they entered this place, thought it to be an abode of devils 
 transformed into stone as a punishment for their horrible wickedness, 
 and, with iconoclastic folly, proceeded to deface the carvings. 
 
 " What an example of the gradual deterioration of Hindooism, as 
 of all merely human religious systems, are these Elephanta excavations. 
 The abominable, though still favourite personage, to whose deeds they 
 are consecrated, is a being unknown even so late as the days of Munoo. 
 Shiva is, in meaning, the productive one; but functions have been 
 ascribed to him by sensual worshippers which have gradually led him 
 to monopolise the whole pantheon. One of his names denotes that he 
 is lord of all beasts, and then he has a trident and a bull. Another 
 shows that he is the lord of prosperity ; and as to the peasant all pro- 
 sperity comes from the rivers which rise in ice-clad hills, he is the lord 
 of mountains, and his wife is Parvatee, or mountain-born, and Doorga, 
 or mountain-daughter. Dwelling in snows he must be an ascetic, and 
 must preside over storms, so that he has stolen the Vedic name of 
 Rudra. It follows that he is the lord of destruction and of great 
 power ; whence his name, Mahableshwar. At a very recent date his 
 vile devotees borrowed for him, from the devil-worshipping aborigines, 
 the symbol of the Linga. In a frenzy of adoration his worshippers 
 call him as may be heard every morning at sunrise from Gungootree 
 to Saugur all down the Ganges Mahadeva, the great god, the sun-god. 
 Dissatisfied with the eclectic arrangement of the Puranas, which 
 assigned to Brahma the function of the prayer-hearer, to Vishnoo that 
 of the preserver, and to Shiva that of the destroyer, the devotees of 
 the last claimed for him all three, and have embodied their belief in 
 the colossal Trimoorti of Elephanta. 
 
 " What was the age which grovelled before so filthy a Belial as 
 
474 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. C 1856 - 
 
 this Shiva, and tunnelled for him such splendid temples as those of 
 Elephanta, Salsette, and the Kailas of Elora ? Dr Wilson agrees with 
 Mr. Fergusson that it was that of the Chola Rajas, or the first half of the 
 ninth century after Christ. The Lingaits, who are pictured on the 
 rocks, did not, as a sect, appear in South India till that time, and the 
 Chola Rajas were their patrons, wealthy and powerful enough to 
 undertake such excavations. The Brahmanical rock-mansions are the 
 most appropriate places for the study of that marvellous production of 
 Southey's, the Curse of Kehama. The poet's imagination, feeding 
 upon much reading and considerable erudition, has reproduced in that 
 work the magnificent horrors of Hindooism with a reality which the 
 visitor to the Caves of Elephanta, alike with the spectator of the cruel 
 worship of Jugganath, can fully understand." 1 
 
 Very different are the excavations at Karla, on the crest 
 of the Western Ghauts, a few miles from Khandalla, near the 
 head of the Bhore Ghaut, where Dr. Wilson heard Sir John 
 Malcolm boast that he had made the first road, and saw not very 
 many years after the magnificent works by which the present 
 railway has ascended the heights on its way to Madras. 
 Standing there, looking down on rich Bombay and 
 round on the plains which stretch away to the Dekhan till 
 they dip into the Bay of Bengal, the traveller, as he recalls 
 the glories of Asoka's reign, feels that in these two thousand 
 years Brahmanism and Muhammadanism have together denied 
 to Southern Asia the splendour and the happiness which 
 Buddhism then vainly promised, and Christianity now renders 
 possible. From Khandalla a ride of ten miles takes the 
 visitor to the foot of the amygdaloidal trap cliff of Karla, 
 which the early Buddhists selected for their rock-mansions, 
 with a regard to the picturesque and the comfortable worthy 
 of their Cistercian imitators in this country. 
 
 " The ascent is easy, and the wretched Brahmanical guides, who are 
 on the look-out for visitors, soon bring the stranger face to face with 
 the most complete and architecturally most beautiful of the excavations 
 in India, which are surpassed in antiquity only by the caves of Elora. 
 
 1 The Friend of India, 22d June 1865. 
 
1856.] THE BUDDHIST CAVES OF KARLA. 475 
 
 In the far distance may be seen the smoke of the engines which are 
 toiling up the Bhore Ghaut, a work pronounced by the natives them- 
 selves to be superior in difficulty and ingenuity, as well as utility, to 
 the structures which they ascribe to the agency of the mythical Pan- 
 davas. The missionary has no longer any difficulty in convincing the 
 ignorant Hindoos of the human origin of the Buddhist caves, unless 
 indeed those of them who still consider railway engineers to be gods 
 come down in the likeness of men. 
 
 " The visitor sees before him in the face of the hard rock what seems 
 to be the approach to a gloomy cathedral, and when he enters he finds 
 a vaulted building with pillared aisles, resembling, as Mr. Fergusson 
 says, in arrangement and dimensions the choir of Norwich Cathedral. 
 This tunnelled choir is the finest specimen extant of a Buddhist chaitya 
 or temple. The vault is of horse-shoe shape, and there, in a wonderful 
 state of preservation, are the wooden rafters which in Asoka's days must 
 have lined the whole. In front of the temple is a wall-screen supporting 
 a gallery, which is supposed to have been devoted to musicians. Eunning 
 up from this on either side is a colonnade, the pillars having sculptured 
 capitals ; and at the end, where in a Christian church the altar would 
 be placed, is the usual sculptured mass of rock called Dhagob, or recep- 
 tacle of the relics of Buddha. Milton's ' dim, religious light ' is excelled 
 in effect by the awful gloom of this temple. The sculptures generally 
 represent the aboriginal tribes doing obeisance to Buddha. We pass 
 into the porch and find two recesses bounded by the wall-screen, and 
 then outside the famous lion pillar, a monolith of exquisite architectural 
 proportions, its capital supporting four figures of lions. This com- 
 memorative stambha seems to have been accompanied by another, the 
 remains of which can be seen. We pass along the face of the rock 
 for a slight distance to the mhara, or monastery, the second part of 
 these vast groups of excavations. There, in cells leading off from great 
 halls of two or three storeys, lived the Bikshus or cenobite mendicant 
 monks, and not far from them are the detached cells reserved for the 
 hermits. Besides the temple and the monastic cells we have the third 
 provision of a shala or hall, in which the chapter must have met, and 
 another reserved for the accommodation of pilgrims ; while the estab- 
 lishment is completed by annasatras, or hospices, from which food was 
 distributed to travellers. Not the least wonderful are the pondhis or 
 cisterns, ever fresh reservoirs of cool water, in some cases of great 
 depth. The water we found most refreshing. These vast structures 
 are all cut in the living rock, and must have occupied an amount of 
 time and labour not less than that required for the erection of the 
 
476 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1850. 
 
 pyramids. The finest cathedrals of Europe, from the Glasgow crypt 
 and York Minster to St. Peter's and St. Paul's without the walls of 
 Rome, do not excite such emotions as the Karla temple, lighted up only 
 from the great arch at the doorway, by rays which fall directly on the 
 dhagob, and with pillared aisles so arranged that the spectator imagines 
 great vistas behind them dying away in the solemn gloom. Yet 
 this glorious structure was dedicated to the worship of a man who 
 taught doctrines which fell little short of atheism and materialism. 
 
 " When were the splendid rock-mansions of Karla excavated ? Dr. 
 Wilson says before the close of the third century B.C., and Professor 
 Lassen agrees with him. Sakhya Muni, whose protest against the 
 Brahmanical priestcraft which followed the close of the simpler Vedic 
 age led to the foundation of Buddhism, died B.C. 543. In B.C. 263 
 Asoka despatched missionaries to propagate the faith in all the provinces 
 from Kandahar to Ceylon. Of the disciple sent to the Maratha 
 country it is said in the Mahawanso that he ordained thirteen thousand 
 priests, and that eighty-four thousand persons attained the sanctification 
 of the Marga or way. At this time the excavations were made, 
 beginning with the most southerly at Elora. Then followed the 
 Karla caves, which bear an inscription, thus translated by Dr. Wilson 
 1 By the victorious and most exalted sovereign this rock-mansion has 
 been established, the most excellent in Jambudwipa ' (the generic name 
 of India). The mention of a Yavan or Greek as having presented a 
 pillar in the interior of the Karla caves, leads to the suspicion that 
 Greeks had to do with their construction, just as Italians are believed 
 to have aided in the elaboration of that triumph of modern architecture, 
 the Taj Mahal. The earliest of the Buddhist rock-mansions were cut 
 in the middle of the third century before Christ. The latest imitations 
 of them are the Jain excavations, devoted to Parisnath, at Elora, which 
 were made A.D. 1234." 
 
 When forwarding a copy of his Memoir to Professor Las- 
 sen, through Professor H. H. Wilson, at Oxford, Dr. Wilson 
 wrote on the 3d December 1850 : 
 
 " You will be glad to see that since my return to India several 
 most important antiquities, long overlooked, have been brought to 
 light. I should like to know how far you think I have succeeded in 
 answering Professor H.-H. Wilson's objections to the Buddhist charac- 
 ter of the oldest of the rock-inscriptions of Girnar, and what you think 
 of my conjecture that the Devanam piya piyadadna of these inscriptions 
 
1851.] CORRESPONDENCE WITH LASSEN. 477 
 
 may be the Devananpiatisso of the Mahawanso. Any hints you may 
 be disposed to give me about the prosecution of our further researches 
 will be very acceptable. Along with the copy of my little Memoir, I 
 have addressed one to your care for the Society of German Orientalists. 
 I was much obliged to you for proposing me as a corresponding mem- 
 ber of that most promising institution ; and I beg you to thank the 
 Society in my behalf for the honour which they have conferred upon 
 me. The diploma of the Society to which, as having been sent to 
 me, reference is made by Professor Kodiger, in a letter addressed by 
 him to my friend Mr. Isenberg has not reached me; but I have 
 received some numbers of the Society's Journal, which I highly value, 
 and the continuation of which I shall be delighted to receive, making 
 such an acknowledgment of them as the literary resources of Bombay 
 may put in my power. 
 
 " I am glad to notice in the last number of your own Journal a 
 translation of Mr. Walter Elliot's paper on the language of the Gonds. 
 I take this tribe to be the Kandali or Gondale of Ptolemy. 1 The 
 Parvari of the same author are undoubtedly the Mahars of our Marathee 
 country, who constantly distinguish themselves by this appellation, 
 which may have some connection with the Eajpoot Pramdrs, who, from 
 the well-known legend of the Agnikulas, do not appear to have been of 
 the Aryan race. If the Bolingce or Biolinyce of Ptolemy are not mistakes 
 for Teiling or Tenlingi, they may be intended to represent the Bheels. 
 I am finding more and more remains of the Turanian language even 
 among the mountain and forest tribes north of the Krishna, though 
 they are more visible in particular vocables than grammatical forms. 
 Of the later Scythian immigrations into India, I see indications in the 
 SaJchdit (Scythian) Kathis, from whom the province of Kdthidwdr 
 (the peninsula of Goojarat) derives its name. Ptolemy gives to this 
 province the name of Indo-Scythia. I intend to revisit it next month, 
 when I hope to be able to explore more fully than I have yet done the 
 neighbourhood of Girnar, Walabhi, etc. Offer my kind regards to Mr. 
 Konig. I have got a few Sanscrit pamphlets to send to him by the 
 first opportunity." 
 
 " BONN, 22d April 1851. MY DEAR SIR. I have had the plea- 
 sure of receiving your kind letter of the 3d December last, and the 
 copy of your Memoir on the cave-temples and monasteries, and other 
 ancient remains of the Buddhist, Brahmanical, and Jaina religions of 
 
 1 Query: Are these the originals of the Chandals of the Brahmanical 
 books ?-J.W. 
 
478 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1851. 
 
 Western India, which you had the goodness to present me with. I 
 have read it with great profit, it being the first complete account of 
 these remains. I am glad to learn that several important monuments 
 of this kind, hitherto overlooked, have lately been discovered, and that 
 the Indian Government has taken the necessary steps for their preser- 
 vation and description before it would be too late. Your Memoir pos- 
 sesses an additional value for me because I have not been able to pro- 
 cure the historical researches of Thomas Bird, Esq., in which an 
 account is given of some of the cave-temples. I agree with you in 
 identifying the king Devanam piya piyadasina of the inscription at Girnar 
 and in other places with AsoJca. Besides the testimony of the Maha- 
 wanso, I adduce as a proof of their identity the repetition of that title by 
 his successor Dajaratha, with the difference that he usually adds his own 
 name to distinguish himself from his predecessor. Another instance of 
 a title being used instead of a proper name by the Buddhists is the name 
 Dhannanvardhana, given to Asoka's son Kunata II., 270. As Asoka's 
 authorship of the inscription found at Bhatra, can hardly be doubted, it 
 may be presumed that also the others are to be ascribed to him. The 
 chronological difficulty that Maya, who died 256 B.C., is mentioned in 
 an inscription dated 246, 1 have proposed to obviate by the supposition 
 that Asoka, shortly after his accession, had sent ambassadors to the 
 Greek kings, and therefore recorded their names in his inscriptions. 
 Ind. Ant, ii., 242. It is true that no allusions to any of the names of 
 Buddha occur in them, stupas and viharas are however spoken of in 
 the inscriptions of Dhauli, and the Bo tree appears with its sacred char- 
 acter in them. Ind. Ant. ii., 256. I may add that the prominent place 
 which dhann occupies in the mind of the author of the inscriptions, 
 speaks for his having been a Buddhist, and that Professor Wilson's 
 hypothesis, that the shadow of a name should have been made use of 
 in order to give authority to the promulgation, appears to me highly 
 improbable. 
 
 "For the communication of the Nos. 77 and 95-97 of the 
 Overland Summary of the Christian Spectator, I am particularly 
 grateful, having found in them the translation of a part of 
 my Indian Antiquities, and your interesting journal of your tour 
 in Sindh. I should be highly delighted to receive the continuation 
 of the first. I have, as you desired, presented your thanks to the 
 Society of German Orientalists, and forwarded the copy of your 
 Memoir to its secretary. I am sorry to learn from your letter that 
 your diploma had not yet arrived. I have forwarded it through 
 the same bookseller who sends the numbers of the Zeitschrift of that 
 
1851.] CORRESPONDENCE WITH LASSEN. 479 
 
 Society ; the last was the first of the fifth volume. You would oblige 
 me much by letting me know whether you have received the diploma 
 and all the numbers of the Journal formerly sent out, that I may in- 
 quire into the matter, and take qare that in future no irregularity of 
 that kind takes place. 
 
 " I have, in several passages of my work, i. pp. 20 and 101, stated my 
 opinion that names of the original tribes were applied to the mixed 
 castes from some prominent peculiarity of the former, and adduced the 
 Ghandali as an instance, because they are mentioned by Ptolemy 
 by the same name, Kandali. The Gonds seem to me to have no con- 
 nection with them. Ptolemy's Parvari are very likely the same as the 
 Parvari, or Mahars. I doubt whether the Bolinga may be the originals 
 of the Telinga, because Bhutirya is found as the name of a country, 
 though in a different situation. The originals of the Bheels are certainly 
 the Phyllotse of Ptolemy. I think you are right in seeing indications 
 of the Scythic immigration in Sakhait Khathi of the peninsula of Goo- 
 jarat. I recommend much for your perusal a Memoir of Vivien de 
 Saint Martin, published two years ago at Paris, in which it has been 
 proved that the Yuctahs are of Tibetan origin, and not different from 
 the white Huns, and that the Indian Jdts are their descendants. 
 
 " The second part of the second volume of my Indian Antiquities 
 is at present going through the press. I hope to have it finished 
 towards the end of the year. Mr. Konig has asked me to present his 
 respectful compliments to you. I am, my dear Sir, with great regard, 
 your truly devoted CHB. LASSEN." 
 
 The correspondence of Dr. Wilson and Professor Wester- 
 gaard at this time is so besprinkled with Zand words and 
 letters, used in discussions referring to the latter's great 
 edition of the Avasta text, as to be hopeless for quotation. 
 One of the volumes was dedicated to the Bombay missionary. 
 On the 21st of July 1857 Westergaard communicated to Dr. 
 Wilson his publication of his edition of the Pahlavi Bunde- 
 hesh, or original creation, " from a very old manuscript copy 
 that Eask brought home from India." Dr. Wilson had written 
 to Dr. Murray Mitchell 
 
 " I am pleased at being anticipated by you in a notice of the papers 
 of Drs. Spiegel and Eoth, with which I have been engaged for some 
 days. Mr. Westergaard wrote to me some time ago intimating his 
 
480 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1852. 
 
 opinion, that he had come to the conclusion that the principal person- 
 ages of the Zand-Avasta, including Zoroaster, whom he has inclined to 
 consider the planet Mercury, are entirely mythical. Dr. Roth's specu- 
 lations are entirely in harmony with this idea. I feel a peculiar 
 interest in them, because some of the analogies to which he refers had 
 struck my own attention, as you will see from the notes at pp. 295 and 
 400 of my work The Parsi Religion. I have long been of opinion, 
 and have taught, that the Yedic and ancient Persian worship are 
 nearly identical in their religious principles. Bopp, I think, was the 
 first to point out, from literal resemblance, the identity of Homo, and 
 Soma ; and his opinion was acquiesced in by Burnouf. Burnouf iden- 
 tifies Yimo with Yama ; but, as far as I know, I am the first person 
 who has quoted the passage from the ninth Hd of the Yana, which 
 passage forms the ground-work of Dr. Roth's paper, and identified 
 Vivanghas with Vivasvan. Burnouf may have made this identification 
 in some article which I have not seen, or do not remember. 
 
 " Mr. Westergaard while advocating the extreme antiquity of the 
 Zand language and mythus, and the genuineness of certain fragments 
 in the Zand-Avasta, holds that the compilation of the Zand-Avasta 
 probably took place in the days of Ardeshir Babegan, when the work, 
 as appears from its frequent defiance of grammar and sense, was much 
 corrupted and interpolated, and this to a great extent from being 
 collected from imperfect recitations." 
 
 To his Brother-in-law he writes 
 
 " BOMBAY, 15th March 1852. 
 
 " MY DEAR MR. DENNISTOUN. We have just returned from an 
 extended journey together in the British Dekhan and Khandesh, in the 
 course of which we have incidentally seen some of the greatest wonders 
 of the west of India, both natural and artificial. Amongst the latter are 
 the celebrated excavated temples and monasteries of Elora, Ajunta, and 
 other localities. We wished you had been with us to assist us in 
 forming our judgment of their architectural forms, and sculptured and 
 painted figures and ornaments, which, in the case of Ajunta, are as old 
 as the Christian era, and probably the workmanship of Bactrian artists 
 introduced into India by its Buddhist sovereigns when their dominions 
 touched on the Macedonian conquests to the north of India, They 
 throw a flood of light on the manners and customs of this great country 
 in ancient times, of which so little is known. Copies of some of the 
 paintings you may see in the Museum at the India House. 
 
 " On the course of our tour I perused the whole of the Dukes of 
 
1853.] STEAM NAVIGATION AND RAILWAYS. 481 
 
 Urbino, in the copy which you so kindly presented to Isabella and my- 
 self. I felt even greater interest in the work than when I dipped into 
 the copy received for the library of our Asiatic Society. I think that 
 it is needed for the completeness of Italian history ; and that, in 
 abundance of research, judiciousness of compilation and digest, vigour of 
 style, and copiousness of illustration, it is all that can be desiderated. 
 You have in every respect done the Dukes ample justice, without 
 making -them idols, when dealing with them as the heroes of your 
 history. The collateral information which you have associated with 
 them, though their position and actings are not always worthy of it, 
 is most interesting in itself, and must be highly valued by the anti- 
 quarian, the artist, the historian, and the litterateur. I like much your 
 pen-portraits of the poets, painters, and popes. With the accompany- 
 ing engravings they give us a better idea of their personnel than we 
 can get elsewhere. Though your work is too weighty and worthy for 
 light readers, it will find its way to all good public and private 
 libraries ; and it will be a standard authority on the subjects of which 
 it treats. Who wrote the notice of it in the Edinburgh ? The Revue 
 des Deux Mondes, with an article upon it, has just come to our Asiatic 
 Society's library. I should like to know how the work is received in 
 Italy. We get no Italian periodicals here, except the transactions of 
 some of the learned Societies, though we have the best library in 
 Asia." 
 
 To Mr. BUCHAN of Kelloe. 
 
 " BOMBAY, 12fc September 1853. During the past year the railway 
 system has been introduced into India. It is certainly calculated to 
 promote the interests of civilisation, but its desecration of the Sabbath 
 is a sad drawback. We are anxious about the improvement of the 
 steam navigation to Bombay, as various disasters have occurred in con- 
 sequence of bad arrangements, and this monsoon a whole mail was lost 
 on board a pilgrim ship, which went down with the loss of 186 souls. 
 We have had a public meeting on the subject called by the Sheriff, 
 and from the humane aspect of the subject I felt constrained to yield 
 to the request of our merchants that I should take a part in the pro- 
 ceedings. We petition the Lords of the Treasury and the Directors of 
 the East India Company." 
 
 Apart from the humane aspect of the question Dr. Wilson 
 was in his right place as a leader in such a meeting, and 
 no similar assembly for discussing questions involving the 
 
 2 I 
 
482 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1853. 
 
 moral and material good of the people of India or the pro- 
 sperity of Bombay was held without him. It was in 1773 
 that a Mr. Holford had navigated the first English ship suc- 
 cessfully from its harbour up the Ked Sea to Suez. Niebuhr 
 then wrote, " the passage has been found so short and con- 
 venient that the regency of Bombay now send their couriers 
 by the way of Suez to England." Not till 1830 did Lord 
 William Bentinck succeed in despatching the small Govern- 
 ment steamer, the " Hugh Lindsay/' from Bombay to Suez, 
 after the failure of rewards to quicken the Cape voyage 
 and open up the Euphrates route. But even that spent a 
 month during March and April on a voyage which is now 
 done regularly in twelve days, and will soon be accomplished 
 in nine or ten. In 1843 the Peninsular and Oriental Com- 
 pany ran its first steamer from Suez to Calcutta. The de- 
 velopment of railway communication in India was more 
 rapid, thanks to Lord Dalhousie who had been paramount 
 at the Board of Trade during the mania of 1848. What 
 Lord Ellenborough had pronounced "moonshine" in 1843, 
 when Sir M. Stephenson in eastern, Mr. Chapman in western, 
 and Mr. Andrew in north-western India projected the railways 
 which now pay from five to nine per cent, and are revolution- 
 ising native society and commerce, became an accomplished 
 fact on the 16th April 1853. Then the first section com- 
 pleted in Asia was opened under a royal salute and the 
 strains of the National Anthem, and the first train ran from 
 Bombay island on to the mainland to Tanna, a distance of 
 twenty-one miles. The twenty-one have now become nearly 
 eight thousand. 
 
 On the lapse of the Satara territory the Beejapore library of 
 Arabic works came into the possession of the Bombay Govern- 
 ment, which asked Dr. Wilson to report on their value. In ac- 
 cordance with his suggestion the library was sent to the India 
 Office. A catalogue raisonnee of it has since been made. At 
 
1855.] REPORTS ON OFFICIAL EXAMINATION COMMITTEE. 483 
 
 a later period, when the University of Bombay received 
 Dr. Hang's collection of MSS., Government consulted him on 
 the question of the comparative injury to manuscripts by 
 the climate of Western India. The reply is of permanent 
 value : 
 
 " The dangers to which the manuscripts are exposed in a tropical 
 climate I have found to be the following : 1. Exposure to extreme 
 heat and dry winds which curl up and otherwise injure the paper or 
 skins on which they are written, and which render their ink pale and 
 indistinct. 2. Exposure to damp, which injures the texture of their 
 material, and which also makes their ink pale and indistinct. 3. Ex- 
 posure to the white ant and fringe-tailed insect, which deposit in them 
 their eggs, which, when hatched prove ravenous worms. 4. Exposure 
 to dust containing minute particles of lime, which corrodes ink, and 
 paper, and parchment. 5. Exposure to the ravages of rats, mice, and 
 shrews, so abundant in warm countries. 
 
 " The first danger here specified is more likely to be encountered in 
 the interior of India than on the coast. The second is more likely to 
 be encountered on the coast than in the interior. The third is common 
 more or less to all the provinces of India ; but on the whole, particularly 
 in the matter of white ants, is more common in the interior than in 
 Bombay. From the abundance of calcareous nodules in the Kunkur 
 of the Dekhan, the mischief from lime is more likely to occur there 
 than in Bombay, where there is comparatively little lime in the soil. 
 The plague of vermin is universal in India. But on the whole I 
 believe a fair conservation of manuscripts is practicable both in Bombay 
 and the Dekhan. Kare and valuable manuscripts should be kept 
 (wrapt up in calico) in boxes of camphor-wood within iron safes. 
 Common and less valuable manuscripts may be kept in book-cases 
 (with glass doors), on the shelves of which a little camphor is deposited. 
 They should not be lodged with printed books, of which comparatively 
 little care is taken. JOHN WILSON, D.D." 
 
 Soon after his return from Great Britain the Bombay 
 Government expressed its anxiety to secure the services of 
 Dr. Wilson as President of the Committee for the examina- 
 tion of civilians and officers in the native languages, vernacu- 
 lar and classical. The request recognised the missionary as 
 the first scholar in Western India, and as better fitted than 
 
484 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1856. 
 
 any of the members of the services, civil or military, for the 
 responsible duty of controlling examinations by which, long 
 before those of the Civil Service Commissioners in this country, 
 promotion and patronage in India had been wisely regulated. 
 " Such an influential position might have been of use to him 
 in various ways," Mrs. Wilson wrote to a friend in 1849, " and 
 the services required would not have been for more than ten 
 or twelve days in a year. However, he has declined, as he 
 wishes to be quite free to give all his time and strength to 
 missionary operations." In 1855 the proposal was thus 
 received in a different, and to him unobjectionable because 
 temporary form. The Secretary to Government thus addressed 
 
 him: 
 
 "BOMBAY CASTLE, 21s November 1855. 
 
 " With the view of enabling Government to judge whether any, 
 and if so, what changes may be desirable in the constitution of the 
 Civil and Military Examination Committee, the remuneration of its 
 members and secretary, and the mode in which its business is transacted, 
 both in and out of its Examination Sessions, I am desired to convey the 
 request of the Eight Honourable the Governor in Council that you 
 will favour Government by examining into and reporting upon the 
 efficiency and fairness of the present system, and stating your opinion 
 as to any changes which you may consider called for. The members 
 of the Examination Committee have been requested to meet you to 
 give any information which you may require." 
 
 "31st December 1855. Government will, I am desired to- state, 
 gladly avail themselves of your offer to occasionally attend the meet- 
 ings of the Examination Committee, but they will feel still more 
 gratified if you will do them the favour of acting as President of the 
 Committee during its next session." 
 
 Dr. Wilson, who was associated with Major G. Pope, and 
 Mr. Harkness, Principal of the Government College, gave 
 himself to the work of inquiry, before report, with charac- 
 teristic thoroughness. The constitution of the similar Examin- 
 ing Boards in Madras and Calcutta the latter created by 
 Lord Wellesley, and consisting of Dr. Sprenger, the first Arabic 
 
 
1856.] DECLINES TO BE GOVERNMENT TRANSLATOR. 485 
 
 scholar and biographer of Muhammad ; Dr. K. M. Bannerjea, 
 Dr. Duff's first convert ; and Colonel N. Lees was carefully 
 studied in the light of his experience of the Bombay languages, 
 people, and officials. The result was a report, submitted on 
 the 15th August 1856, which has since regulated the pro- 
 fessional examinations of Western India in the Oriental 
 languages and literatures. The document, which called forth 
 an expression of the thanks of Government, contains not 
 only much information regarding such examinations, but a 
 scheme for checking an arbitrary judgment on the part of 
 examiners, which we commend to the Civil Service Com- 
 missioners, as sorely needed in the India Civil Service com- 
 petitions at least. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Government of 1849 having failed to 
 induce Dr. Wilson to act as official and permanent president 
 of this Examination Committee, the Government of 1854 
 thus tried, most honourably, to attract to the public service 
 what would have been the leisure time of most other men. 
 The great Carey had long held a similar office, first as Pro- 
 fessor in Lord Wellesley's College of Fort- William, and then 
 as translator and examiner, while the same translatorship is 
 to this hour worthily filled by a Baptist minister, the son of 
 one of his colleagues. Connected with no society, early thrown 
 upon their own resources for the spread of Christianity in 
 Bengal, Carey, Marshman, Ward, and Mr. J. C. Marshman, 
 C.S.I., contributed some 60,000 of their own earnings 
 during half a century for missionary purposes, maintain- 
 ing at one time so many as twenty-six agents besides them- 
 selves. In the case of the Scottish Churches the circum- 
 stances are very different, but the temptations held out to 
 the ablest missionaries by the various departments of Govern- 
 ment are not less specious and attractive. The Private 
 Secretary thus addressed Dr. Wilson, whose reply may be 
 imagined from his letter to Dr. Tweedie : 
 
486 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1856. 
 
 "PARELL, March 11, 1854. 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR. I am desired by the Governor to acquaint you of his 
 intention, should it be acceptable to you, of appointing you Oriental trans- 
 lator to Government. The appointment has been created on the occasion 
 of doing away with the Deputy Secretaryship in the Persian Department." 
 
 To Dr. TWEEDIE. 
 
 " 1 4th April 1854. We have lately had favourable accounts from 
 Abyssinia. Our native converts consider the agency there as primarily 
 their mission, contributing to its support to their utmost ability, though 
 it is principally, from their lack of adequate means, dependent on 
 other resources. Their duty of contributing to the spread of the 
 Gospel is amply recognised by them, though most of them are in some 
 capacity or other themselves missionary agents. We are anxious to 
 have an industrial establishment instituted for the converts and cate- 
 chumens in Bombay, as a counteractive of the combinations and 
 excommunications of caste. A regular source of legitimate missionary 
 revenue in the care of all our institutions, we see in the encourage- 
 ment of the natives in general to contribute, partially at least, to the 
 education of their children. In this way we have, from the com- 
 mencement of our Institution here, got a small sum annually from this 
 source, which we have applied discretionally for its benefit from time 
 to time, especially in providing prizes and school equipments. But 
 something, I am persuaded, of a more systematic nature may easily be 
 accomplished, and that without injury to the distinctly evangelistic 
 feature of our operations. Self-expansion is a desideratum in every 
 Christian institution. 
 
 " In connection with what I have now stated to you, I ought 
 perhaps to mention that our new Governor, Lord Elphinstone, within 
 the last few weeks made the offer to me of the superintendence of the 
 work of Government Oriental Translation, which would occupy only a 
 definite portion of my time, without interfering substantially with my 
 missionary engagements, and at the same time secure a remuneration 
 by which I could support a couple of additional missionaries, or enable 
 me to contribute directly to the missionary cause the equivalent of the 
 average annual income of our Auxiliary Society, which receives from 
 us much care, and makes a considerable demand on our time for corre- 
 spondence with Christian friends in various parts of the country. 
 Without consulting any friend, I at once declined the proposal, with 
 grateful acknowledgment of the kindnesses in which I know it origi- 
 nated. I did this because I believe that it is not the duty of any 
 
1856.] " ONLY A MISSIONARY." 487 
 
 minister of the Gospel to assume any secular engagement, however 
 productive to the cause of Christ in a pecuniary point of view, while 
 the Christian Church is willing to give him fair support in devoting 
 himself wholly to the ministry of the Word and prayer, and to efforts 
 subordinate and auxiliary to this ministry; and because I am of 
 opinion that all our exertions in stirring up our brethren to contribute 
 to the missionary cause, even when we could, by a partial secularisation 
 of ourselves, maintain or extend the operations already in existence, are 
 themselves of a spiritual character the calling upon Christian men to 
 discharge a Christian duty. On my mentioning this to Mr. Molesworth 
 the author of our admirable Marathee Dictionary, one of the most 
 devoted Christians in India, and whose views of Church order gene- 
 rally agree with those of the brethren at Plymouth he at once said, 
 'You have done quite right; no amount of pecuniary compensation 
 can be put in the scale with the entirety of your missionary service.' 
 I think we would be unanimous in our mission in a cause of this kind. 
 For the extension of the missionary enterprise both at home and 
 abroad we must trust to the promises, and providence, and Spirit of 
 God. Though respected brethren in all the Churches may tell us that 
 they ' see a limit ' to their benevolent gifts or the spread of the blessed 
 Gospel, we must, like Nelson, turn our blind eye to this signal of 
 intermission, and act as if it were never made. The more our souls 
 sympathise with the risen aud exalted Saviour, who now .travails in 
 ceaseless intercession for the accomplishment of the number of His 
 elect and the establishment of His kingdom, the more readily shall we 
 write Holiness to the Lord on all our possessions and acquirements. 
 You will see from our report that last year we raised Us. 7542 for our 
 Bombay Mission. When the contributions for Poona and Satara are 
 added, we perceive that we have had here a missionary income of 
 .1200, exclusive of 400 raised for the purposes of the Free Church 
 congregation to which we minister during the vacancy. Even this 
 liberality may be much increased. It is the principal source of the 
 support of our educational establishments. The permission which you 
 give us, in your last most acceptable letter, of proceeding with the ordi- 
 nation of Mr. Narayan, will be acted upon as soon as possible. What 
 our hopes are in connection with his ministry you well know." 
 
 When alluding to the offer of this .appointment in a letter 
 to Miss Douglas, Dr. Wilson wrote, " I declined acceptance, 
 as I wish to be, what I have been since the beginning, only a 
 missionary'' Next to his ministrations to the spiritual needs 
 
488 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1856. 
 
 of the people of India his philanthropic interest in the efforts 
 of the Government to save their bodies came hardly second. 
 From the discovery of the practice of the murder of their 
 female children by the proud and poor Eajkoomars of Benares 
 by Jonathan Duncan in 1789, and the same Governor's 
 attempts to put down the crime in Kathiawar, to which the 
 Greek and Latin writers on India had drawn his attention as 
 prevalent then at Barygaza or Broach, Dr. Wilson had joyously 
 chronicled the facts down to the successful efforts of his early 
 friend Colonel Walker. These had been more recently 
 followed by the measures wisely devised by Sir J. P. 
 Willoughby, Colonels Lang and Le Grand Jacob, and Mr. 
 Malet and other officers, whose humane administration Dr. 
 Wilson was in the habit of illustrating in lectures to the 
 natives and in the press as "gratifying records of British 
 benevolence." Thus he created a healthy native opinion on 
 the crime, and stimulated Government to renewed vigilance, 
 while he did justice to some of the most solid triumphs in the 
 history of philanthropy in the East. On the 27th April 1857 
 he thus addressed Sir J. P. Willoughby. The result was, as 
 he wrote to Dr. Tweedie, that Lord Elphinstone's Government 
 submitted to impartial Christian review " the whole proceed- 
 ings from first to last in connection with the great philan- 
 thropic, political, and judicial efforts for the suppression of 
 the awful crime of infant murder." The Court of Directors 
 warmly encouraged the undertaking, at a time when the 
 question of what proved to be the last renewal of their 
 Charter that of 1853 was about to come before Parliament, 
 and works like Sir John Kaye's history of its administration 
 were being prepared in its defence. It was well that the 
 Company enjoyed, on this side at least, the defence of one 
 whose advocacy was all the more effectual that it was purely 
 disinterested and non-political. 
 
 " It has occurred to me that after the happy issue of your wise, 
 
1856 -1 HIS HISTORY OF INFANTICIDE. 489 
 
 kind, and strenuous efforts, mentioned by Major Lang, the time has 
 now come for the publication of a succinct historical memoir of all the 
 endeavours, with their various results, made by the Bombay Govern- 
 ment for the suppression of the fearful crime. That work I am most 
 willing to undertake as a gratifying record of most important blessings, 
 the fruit of British rule, and as a token of the humble gratitude felt by 
 many to the Government and its members and officials for the warm 
 interest which they have ever evinced in the cause of philanthropy, 
 provided it appear acceptable to them, and they will assist in securing 
 its circulation in those quarters, both in India and home, where its 
 influence may be most likely to be useful. I mention this to you for 
 the consideration of the Right Honourable the Governor in Council, 
 should you see fit in any form to lay the matter before the Board. I 
 have no selfish end to procure in the proposal which I make. In early 
 life I enjoyed the friendship of Colonel Walker when I lived under the 
 roof of the Rev. Dr. Cormack, whom he chose as the historian of his 
 efforts in India. I am well acquainted with the province and people of 
 Kathiawar, with their past history, and with all that has been done for 
 their amelioration. And I am only desirous of bringing into notice 
 those bloodless conquests of love and peace, which are too apt to be 
 overlooked, and which our nation should know, particularly at a time 
 when the Government of India must pass under public review." 
 
 The History of the Suppression of Infanticide in Western 
 India under the Government of Bombay, including notices of 
 ike Provinces and Tribes in which the Practice has prevailed, 
 was published early in 1855, and obtained a wide circulation. 
 When, in 1870, the outbreak of the crime in Northern India 
 led Sir William Muir to prepare, and the Government of 
 India to pass, Act VIII. of that year,, and the census of 1871 
 supplied new facts, Dr. Wilson was invited by the Bombay 
 Government to review the state of the districts to which the 
 preventive legislation was to be applied. A few months 
 before his death lie accordingly wrote a preface to Mr. H. E. 
 Cooke's report. 1 In Kathiawar, it was proved, the crime had 
 ceased as a custom of the Jadejas, the proud descendants of 
 
 1 No. 147 of the New Series of Selections from the Records of the Bombay 
 Government. 
 
490 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1857. 
 
 the Yadavas of the Mahabharat epic. But the number of 
 girls unbetrothed and unmarried was increasing, because no 
 Eajpoot tribe in India will take a wife from its own proper 
 or paternal clan, and the Jadejas were unpopular because of 
 occasional intermarriage with Muhammadans. To the advance 
 of an education and a civilisation which recognise the place 
 of unmarried females in well-being and well-doing in the 
 general community, Dr. Wilson looked for a permanent 
 remedy while suggesting local ameliorations. But the only 
 immediate check on the crime must be based on a general 
 registration of births and deaths, such as the coming decen- 
 nial census of 1881 should make a preliminary attempt 
 to render possible amid so vast and varied and suspicious a 
 population. Sir H. L. Anderson, when secretary to the 
 Bombay Government, expressed to Dr. Wilson the congratu- 
 lation of the Governor in Council on "the very able and 
 successful" manner in which he. had turned to account his 
 access to the records connected with infanticide. 
 
 In 1848 Dr. Wilson had been consulted by the Govern- 
 ment as to the publication of a revised edition of the 
 Marathee and English dictionary compiled by Mr. Molesworth 
 and George and Thomas Candy twenty years before. In 
 Marathee as in Bengalee and to a less degree in the other 
 vernaculars of India, the influence of a detailed knowledge 
 of the people, English administration and education, and 
 the progress of scholarship in the classical tongues from 
 which the popular dialects are fed, had developed the voca- 
 bularies, and somewhat revealed or modified the grammatical 
 expression of these vernaculars. Dr. Wilson replied that 
 Mr. Molesworth's "unequalled attainments in the Marathee 
 language, his experience in lexicography, and his acquaintance 
 already with some thousands of unrecorded words," pointed 
 him out as best qualified for the undertaking. In truth Dr. 
 Wilson had, in his tours and his intercourse with the peasantry 
 
1857.] NOTES ON THE MARATHEE LANGUAGE. 491 
 
 as well as the learned Brahmans of Maharashtra, himself 
 made extensive collections of words new to printed literature, 
 which he had freely communicated to Mr. Molesworth. The 
 result was the appearance in 1857 of the massive quarto 
 which forms the second edition of a work pronounced to stand 
 in the very first rank of dictionaries. Dr. Wilson was the 
 more anxious to see Marathee thus satisfactorily placed among 
 the few languages of men of which a satisfactory lexicon has 
 been made, that the wants of Government and the public in 
 connection with Goojaratee might be supplied. This was 
 done by the Parsee convert Shapoorjee Eduljee eleven years 
 afterwards, in an octavo volume of some nine hundred pages. 
 But it should not be forgotten that in Marathee, as in forty 
 of the languages of our Indian subjects and Chinese neigh- 
 bours, Carey had first provided a dictionary in 1810, as well 
 as a grammar and translation of the Scriptures. Besides his 
 indirect contribution to the Marathee Dictionary of nearly a 
 thousand quarto pages, Dr. Wilson prefaced it with what even 
 the Germans would pronounce a model monograph, under the 
 title of "Notes on the Constituent Elements, the Diffusion 
 and the Application of the Marathee Language." A wealth 
 of learning and information is scattered over the text and 
 notes, while the summary with illustrative extracts of the four 
 periods of Marathee literature is delightfully readable. He 
 passes in review the early poetry, associating the popular gods 
 of Western India with a modified pantheism, which preceded 
 the rise of Sivajee ; the brilliant era of Tukaram to the rise of 
 the Peshwas ; the strains of the priestly Moropant and the 
 beginnings of prose chronicles under the Peshwas ; and finally 
 the British period, which began in 1818. As the Serampore 
 missionaries created a Bengalee language and literature in the 
 literary sense, so religion and philanthropy were the moving 
 powers in generating and extending what may be denominated 
 the reformed authorship of Maharashtra, from' Mountstuart 
 
492 LIFE OF JOHN WILSOX. [1858. 
 
 Elphinstone to his nephew Lord Elphinstone, and the present 
 day. " Its most valuable monument " Dr. Wilson declared to 
 be " the translation of the whole of the Bible, by several hands, 
 into the language of the people." The Notes thus conclude 
 " The reformed Marathee literature, and the introduction of 
 typography and lithography into the West of India, have 
 brought about a reaction in the native mind. There has been 
 a reproduction of the olden literature. This result will not 
 ultimately prove injurious to the cause of truth. It has 
 furnished the means of comparison and judgment ; and it will 
 only enhance the victory when, by a higher influence than 
 that of man, it is eventually secured." 1 
 
 For some time Dr. Wilson had contemplated a new work 
 on Muhammadanism, to take the place of his early Refutation; 
 but he seems to have been soon drawn entirely to an attempt 
 to grapple with the only enemy he had not yet directly 
 attacked in the press. At every turn, as a missionary, a 
 scholar, and a man, in closer social intercourse with the 
 natives than any other foreigner, he was met by Caste. He 
 had early set himself to the mastery of its origin and the 
 secret of its power, and he had in his multifarious reading of 
 the Hindoo literature noted the passages on the subject, from 
 the Rig -Veda to the latest Poor an. He contemplated the 
 early publication of an elaborate work on the subject, and 
 in 1857 he was able to put to press the first volume. But 
 his missionary work was too exacting, and his own ideal of 
 an exhaustive treatment of the question on which Hindooism 
 hangs in the last resort, was too high to permit him to yield 
 to the solicitations of his friends not to delay. The prospect 
 of the taking of the first census of the people of India, finally 
 accomplished only in 1871-2, was a further reason, to his 
 
 1 Dr. Wilson was the first to observe that the verses of the tailor Namdeva, 
 the oldest popular poet of the Marathas, and contemporary with Kabeer, occur 
 in that strange medley, the Granth of the Sikhs. See Dr. Trumpp's transla- 
 tion, also page 444 of this volume. 
 
1858.] INDIA THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 493 
 
 mind, for toiling at a work, for the perfecting of which he 
 maintained a large correspondence with learned Brahmans for 
 many years, from the venerable Eada Kishn, Runjeet Singh's 
 pundit at Lahore, to the Namboories of Travancore. The 
 result was that in publication he was anticipated by other 
 scholars, notably by Mr. John Muir, D.C.L., in the invaluable 
 Sanskrit Texts, and death left his work a splendid fragment. 
 The first volume, virtually prepared and printed at this 
 period, is a careful review of the origin and develop- 
 ment of Caste as seen in Sanscrit, Buddhist, and Greek 
 literature. The second volume, which begins a description 
 of the castes as they are, does not proceed further than the 
 most important of them all, the Brahmanical. The criticism 
 of the book by so competent a writer as Mr. Rhys Davids 
 may be accepted " The thoroughness of the work he has 
 done gives rise to the regret that he should have been unable 
 to complete the inquiry." 1 
 
 What contemporary as well as subsequent criticism, 
 however, has recognised as the ablest of all the publica- 
 tions that Dr. Wilson threw off as mere bye-works almost 
 every year, is his India Three Thousand Years Ago, or 
 the social state of the Aryas on the banks of the Indus in 
 the times of the Vedas, which appeared in 1858. Mr. Max 
 Miiller's Chips were then unknown, and his History of 
 Ancient Sanskrit Literature was only promised in the 
 preface to his edition of the Rig -Veda. To the English 
 reading public, both in India and elsewhere, this popular 
 treatise of some ninety pages was 'the first revelation 
 of what has long since become common-place. It was 
 written with a grace as well as a power which so charmed 
 all that the most competent critic, in the Friend of India 
 of that day, thus took the author to task " We wish some 
 of the thousand friends of Dr. Wilson would compel him to 
 
 1 The Academy, 6th July 1878. 
 
494 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1861. 
 
 do the public and himself a little justice. With a pen of 
 unequalled clearness and learning, of which few are com- 
 petent to measure the extent, he persists in wasting his 
 strength on erudite little essays. . . . The world is craving 
 for a painting with the details all filled in and bright with 
 life and colour. It is Dr. Wilson's duty to supply the want, 
 and he has no more right to leave the work to inferior artists 
 than Titian to sell studies as finished productions." But Dr. 
 Wilson was so much the Christian philanthropist that even 
 his learning is saturated with his love for man in the highest 
 sense, as expressed sometimes after a curious fashion. This 
 is a note to this very treatise " The MS. copy of the Rig- 
 Veda, in my possession for many years, and which I origin- 
 ally acquired for J. S. Law, Esq., of the Bombay Civil Service, 
 is a Christian trophy surrendered by a Brahman convert to 
 Christianity, baptized at Bankote by the Eev. James Mitchell." 
 Dr. Wilson would never have written his best book but for 
 the public good. He prepared the nucleus of it as one of a 
 course of lectures to the Bombay Mechanics' Institute, pro- 
 jected under "the considerate and vigorous government" of 
 Lord Elphinstone. Other public lectures which belong to 
 this period, but have not yet seen the light in a complete 
 form, are those on the " Progress of Oriental Kesearch in con- 
 nection with Eeligious Inquiry," and on " The Six Schools of 
 Indian Philosophy," delivered at the request of the Bombay 
 Dialectic Association. 
 
 To Professor CH. LASSEN, Bonn. 
 
 " BOMBAY, II th September 1861. 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR. I have the pleasure of forwarding to you a 
 series of photographs by my friend Mr. W. Johnson, illustrative of the 
 Caves of Karla, with illustrative text from my own hand. They form 
 the best specimens of the photographic art as applied in India ; and as 
 correctly representing our most interesting Buddhist remains ; they 
 could not be better bestowed than on the distinguished author of the 
 Indische Alterthumskunde. I hope that they will reach you in safety 
 
1862.] LETTER TO PROFESSOR LASSEN. 495 
 
 and be accepted by you as a token of my respect and esteem. The text 
 accompanying the photographs is merely an extract from a popular 
 lecture which I lately delivered to our local Mechanics' Institution. 
 You will see from its eighth page that I attribute the original construc- 
 tion of the Caves of Karla to the Emperor Asoka. I found on the 
 oldest of all their inscriptions, that above the elephants to the left of the 
 porch, the greater portion of which you will see in one of the photo- 
 graphs. The form of the letters in this inscription is like that of the 
 Girnar tablets ; and the plan of the excavations befits the great 
 Emperor. They are in a locality such as he would choose the mouth 
 of the easiest pass through the Sahya Mountains to the Konkan. 
 
 " We are not making much real progress in the West of India in a 
 sure decipherment of the cave inscriptions, though some of them we 
 read at the first glance of the eye. Mr. Brett's copies, the foundation 
 of the transliteration and translations of my friend the late Dr. 
 Stevenson, have been found to be not so trustworthy as could be 
 desired. A learned Brahman, Vishnoo Shastree, employed for some 
 considerable time principally in converting the Magadhee of the inscrip- 
 tions into the corresponding Sanscrit (as is quite necessary 
 for the verification of any translations) has just died with his work 
 incomplete and unedited, and but little appreciated by those who, on the 
 one hand, have a shorter method of satisfying themselves with results, 
 and, on the other, little sympathy with the errors into which every 
 pundit is prone to fall. The work, it is obvious, must be left to private 
 enterprise. 
 
 " I have at present a work on Caste in the press. I need not tell 
 you how much I have been indebted in preparing it to your previous 
 researches in Indian history. In connection with it I have been lately 
 going over the Vedic works to which I have access. Last year I visited 
 Kajpootana. The most curious fact I noticed there was that the temple 
 of Brahma, at the Pokhur lake (mentioned by Colonel Tod), is not under 
 the care of the Hindoo priesthood but of voluntary devotees. 
 
 " I suppose, from your plan, that your great work on India will 
 soon come to its close. All will be thankful if you are spared to finish 
 it. I am, my dear Sir, very truly and respectfully yours, 
 
 "Jo^N WILSON." 
 From Professor GOLDSTUCKER. 
 
 "LONDON, September 3, 1862. 
 
 " DEAR SIR. The extreme kindness with which you exerted your- 
 self on behalf of the literary wishes I some time ago expressed to our 
 mutual and excellent friend Mr. John Muir, while laying me under 
 
496 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1862. 
 
 the deepest obligation to you, gives me the advantage of addressing 
 these words to you not as a total stranger, for there is no link which 
 connects human minds better than that of gratitude. Allow me there- 
 fore, in the first instance, to thank you most sincerely for your great 
 obligingness in not only procuring me the book which Colonel Lang was 
 good enough to bring home for me, but also enabling me to entertain 
 hopes for getting a copy of the ' Mahabhashya' and ' Tutata.' The 
 price asked for the former deters me at present from availing myself 
 of the offer, but I should feel very happy to possess ' Tutata.' It 
 may be desirable to ascertain whether the work, described by your 
 pundit, is really that of ' Tutdta,' and not the ' Varttikas' of Kumarila, 
 whom some late commentators I believe wrongly identify with the 
 celebrated Mimansist ; but as I do not wish to add to the inconvenience 
 you so kindly have already incurred by asking you to verify this 
 literary point, I shall gladly defer to your own judgment, and request 
 your pundit to order the book for me if he considers it worth 150 
 rupees. In this case I should feel greatly obliged to you if you 
 informed me whether you allow me to pay the amount to a Bombay 
 firm in London or to a bookseller who is connected with Bombay. 
 
 " As I do not know whether Mr. Muir was kind enough, in a letter 
 to you, to allude to the pursuits in which I am engaged, you allow me 
 perhaps briefly to mention them ; for I should feel truly happy if, by 
 coinciding with yours, they enabled me to become useful to you. 
 
 " About twenty years ago I conceived the plan of collecting mate- 
 rials for a comprehensive history of Hindu philosophy. I began with 
 the Piirva Mimansa ; but as it compelled me to enter into the end- 
 less domain of Vaidik researches, which at that time had scarcely 
 been taken up by any one except Colebrooke, my progress was slow ; 
 and it is only now that I shall feel competent to lay some of my 
 results before the public. As I intend to give first the principal 
 works of each system so far as they may not yet be known I shall 
 commence with the latest but the clearest Mimansa work, Madhava's 
 ' Jaiminiya-nyaya-mala-vistara ' (60 sheets of which are already struck 
 off) ; the next will be Jaimini's ' Sutras,' and then the ' Commentary ' of 
 Sabara, and the * Varttikas' of Kumarila ; and if possible older works 
 amongst which I count that of Tutdta, to judge from quotations ; 
 which, however, are not safe enough to be entirely credible. 
 
 " Besides this branch of Sanskrit literature, it was especially the 
 grammatical literature which occupied me most, partly because I felt 
 convinced that it embodies the greatest scientific achievement of ancient 
 India, and partly because it yields the only safe means for judging of 
 

 1862.] LETTER FROM PROFESSOR GOLDSTUCKER. 49*7 
 
 questions of ancient Hindu chronology. Its importance in this respect 
 I endeavoured to show in one of my last publications (the introduction 
 to the ' Manava Kalpa Sutra ') ; and I may add that having been 
 induced by a sharp attack of Professor Weber to re-examine the results 
 I arrived at then, I shall have soon occasion of adducing further proof 
 for their correctness, and of giving new results. Having thus become 
 familiar with the ' Mahabhashya ' and its commentaries, and having 
 made very extensive indices of this portion of Sanscrit literature, it 
 would have been my greatest desire to prepare a critical edition of 
 the ' Mahabhashya/ for which my materials have been gradually 
 collecting during twenty-two years ; but the material difficulties which 
 oppose themselves to such a plan are so great, that my intention, I 
 fear, will have to remain amongst the pia desideria of my mind. 
 
 " Between these two directions my Dictionary, as you are probably 
 aware, steers slowly along. It was originally intended (and actually 
 commenced) as a third edition of Wilson's work ; but necessity was 
 stronger than myself, and in view of the reckless and unconscientious 
 proceedings of the German Sanscrit Dictionary of Boehtlingk and 
 Roth, which, in my opinion, falsifies the very sources of Sanscrit 
 studies, no choice is left to me but to go on as I do -now. I should 
 say, however, that I have now the possibility of bringing out three to 
 four parts yearly, and that I hope thus to complete the wprk, if I am 
 spared, in about eight years. 
 
 " I have encroached on your patience too much to venture in this 
 letter on any questions of detail. I should feel delighted, however, if 
 our correspondence gave me the possibility of entering into matters on 
 which your life in India, and your intercourse with the pundits, 
 enables you to entertain more unbiassed views than we may have in 
 Europe. I am alluding, amongst others, to the interpretation of the 
 Vedas. You know, no doubt, the sad havoc which is made in 
 Germany of the greatest Hindu scholars and divines, and the supreme 
 conceit with which a newfangled method of reading Vedic hymns has 
 been started into life. It supersedes everything, and places the whole 
 religious development of India into the air. As I am told by learned 
 natives that there exists an ancient Tamul version of the Vedas, it 
 would be a matter of great importance to ascertain whether such is the 
 case, and if so, to compare Sayana's commentary with such a version. 
 This is one of the many instances where it is necessary to be in India in 
 order to obtain the materials required, and where we poor Europeans 
 are left helpless. 
 
 " Muir's fourth volume of the Original Sanskrit Texts has progressed 
 
 2 K 
 
498 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1854. 
 
 as far as p. 240. This work is one of the most useful and of the most 
 'conscientious which have been published of late. The less it is 
 pretending the greater its influence will be. Natives of rank whom I 
 know here have admitted to me that their orthodoxy has received 
 a very salutary shock by it. Its effect must necessarily be much 
 greater than the Dialogues on Hindu Philosophy by Professor Banerjea, 
 which, though very cleverly written, do not do justice to Hindu 
 philosophy. 
 
 " As I mentioned before, my preface to the M. K. S., which is 
 also separately printed under the title ' Panini,' etc., I ought to have 
 apologised to you for the pleasure I did myself to send you a copy of 
 each, with the request of accepting them as a mark of my sincere 
 regards, and of my gratitude for your great kindness. Being convinced 
 of your indulgence, I could only have wished that this feeble attempt 
 of pointing out the importance of ' Panini ' had been worthier of 
 being offered to you than it is. Believe me, dear Sir, very faithfully 
 yours, TH. GOLDSTUCKER." 
 
 Alas ! this most ripe scholar was cut off all too soon for 
 the cause of Orientalism, but not before he had enriched 
 CTiambers's Cyclopaedia with the ablest articles on the philo- 
 sophies of India to be found in English literature, and had 
 trained several of the Competition- Wallas who are forming 
 a new school of learning in the East. 
 
 All through his administration Lord Elphinstone's corre- 
 spondence with Dr. Wilson was frequent on social, statistical, 
 and oriental, as well as political subjects. We have only his 
 Lordship's replies. The Government of India had disallowed 
 the appointment of Professor Green as editor of those selec- 
 tions from the Bombay records for which Dr. Wilson had long 
 craved ; arguing that the duty of editing was discharged by 
 the secretaries of the other provincial Governments. Lord 
 Elphinstone wrote, when communicating this to Dr. Wilson : 
 
 "DAPOORIE, 9th August 1854. ... I know that there is a great 
 deal to be said on the other side that, for instance, these Governments 
 have no military, naval, or political departments (or at least very little 
 in these departments, the Government of India relieving them of these 
 
1854.] LORD ELPHINSTONE'S CORRESPONDENCE. 499 
 
 matters), and that they have Boards of Kevenue which relieve the 
 Government of all the revenue details, which are here gone into in the 
 first instance in the Secretary's office, and which take up nearly the 
 whole time of one of our four secretaries. Still it is not easy to convince 
 people at a distance, who are used to a different system, that this is the 
 case, and I can see that it must appear preposterous, that with four 
 secretaries we should require some one to help us to perform a duty 
 which is discharged by the single secretary in Bengal, and in the North- 
 west Provinces. I regret this very much myself, for I was anxious to 
 collect and digest a great deal of statistical information, which I think 
 would be of great value but which at present I see no means of 
 arranging. 
 
 " I hope we shall be able to give the Syrian Archbishop and 
 his attendants a free passage to Suez by the steamer which leaves on 
 the 30th, and I will request Sir H. Leeke to desire that he shall be 
 treated with proper respect. I shall also be most happy to contribute 
 to his means of reaching Damascus from Egypt, and I enclose a draft 
 for 200 rupees for this purpose. I am sorry thet General Cullen 
 should have treated this poor Archbishop with any want of courtesy. 
 I am sure it must have been unintentional or at least that he may 
 have been led into a very short style of correspondence from his expe- 
 rience of the rival Metran's character. 
 
 " I am extremely glad to find that you approve of our having 
 acknowledged the good spirit shown by the natives of Bombay on the 
 late day of prayer and humiliation. I thought that it would, have 
 been both ungrateful and impolitic to let such manifestations pass with- 
 out notice. Your translation of the Jaina prayer is particularly inter- 
 esting. I thought the Jains, like some other sects of Buddhists, denied 
 the providence but not the existence of God, whom they supposed to be 
 in a state of quiescent beatitude, into which ultimatelythey hoped to 
 be absorbed. Though not deeply versed in their religious tenets, I 
 must say that I was very much interested in your account of their 
 Jati's visit to you, and of his prayer. I am also much obliged to you 
 for the number of the Oriental Christian Spectator, and have read with 
 much interest your account of the origin and progress of Brahmanism 
 and Caste. I was present the other day at the examination of some of 
 the senior classes at your mission school here. Mr. Mitchell seems to 
 have a very good way with his pupils, and, as far as one can judge 
 from such a cursory visit, he has succeeded in opening their under- 
 standings, and consequently in weakening the bonds of Caste. It was 
 a very gratifying visit. I cannot end this letter without asking you to 
 
500 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1854. 
 
 read a pamphlet which the Bishop of Bombay was good enough to 
 place in my hands. It is the Charge of the Bishop of Victoria, and 
 gives a most interesting account of the Chinese War in its religious 
 aspect. I think, perhaps, your son might transfer some of it to the 
 columns of the Bombay Times with great advantage, and I am sure 
 that many of his readers would appreciate it. The philological parts 
 will no doubt interest you greatly. I confess I think from reading it 
 that the Pope was right in adopting Teen Choo, though, now that the 
 Chinese themselves have returned to the original Shang te, I agree 
 with the Bishop that they have taken the question out of our hands, 
 and that our missionaries can only use the name which they them- 
 selves have applied to God. Believe me, in haste, my dear Dr. Wilson, 
 yours most truly, ELPHINSTONE." 
 
 " Wednesday. I hope you may be disengaged on Friday, as I want 
 you to meet Major Cunningham of the Bengal Engineers (Allan Cun- 
 ningham's son), who is interested as you are in Indian Archaeology, and 
 who has written a book, which I have not read, about Buddhist Topes, 
 etc., and another about Tibet, which I have only been able to look 
 into. I met him some years ago in the wilds between that country 
 and Simla. You will also meet Colonel Jacob." 
 
 " Monday, 2d April. Would you and Mrs. Wilson excuse a short 
 invitation and dine here to-morrow, to meet Colonel Rawlinson, who 
 is just arrived from Baghdad ? " 
 
 " Thursday, Qth March. I beg to return your valuable book upon 
 Palmyra and Baalbek, with many thanks. The Due de Vallombrosa 
 recognised the general accuracy of the delineations, but he told me 
 that the temples have become much more ruinous than they were 
 when these drawings were taken. The nine great pillars, for instance, 
 in the principal temple are reduced to six. 
 
 " I don't know if you or Mrs. Wilson care about music. If so, 
 perhaps you might like to come here to-night ; the Choral Society meet 
 here, and I hope we shall have some good music." 
 
CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 1857-1864. 
 THE MUTINY AND ITS GOOD FRUIT. 
 
 The year 1857 a fruitful period The alleged causes of the Mutiny Western 
 India quiet in spite of them The Bombay rabble Lord Elphinstone assisted 
 by Dr. Wilson and Mr. Forjett Deciphering the Treasonable Letters of the 
 Natives The Massacre of Missionaries at Sialkot Lord Elphinstone's corre- 
 spondence with Dr. Wilson Loyalty of Bombay city Dr. Wilson's Humilia- 
 tion and Thanksgiving Lectures The Government of India constitutionally 
 Christian United Presbyterian Mission to Rajpootana Mr. Shoolbred's 
 narrative of Tour with Dr. and Mrs. Wilson Timidity of the authorities 
 Mrs. Wilson's letters Dr. Wilson's interview with the late Gaikwar With 
 the Maharaja Tukht Singh of Joudhpore With Holkar The Education 
 Despatch of 1854 The result of co-operation between the Missionaries and 
 Government Dr. Wilson's criticism of the new policy The three Universities 
 founded in the height of the Mutiny Dr. Wilson's influence on the Bombay 
 University Regulations Appointed Vice-Chancellor Eulogy of Native Bene- 
 factors at laying Foundation-stone of University Hall Correspondence with 
 Governor on the death and character of Mountstuart Elphinstone. 
 
" Large, England, is the debt 
 
 Thou owest to heathendom ; 
 To India most of all, where Providence, 
 Giving thee thy dominion there in trust, 
 
 Upholds its baseless strength." 
 
 " Eegard the expanded Orient, from the shores 
 
 Of scorch'd Arabia and the Persian Sea, 
 To where the inhospitable ocean roars 
 
 Against the rocks of frozen Tartary ; 
 Look next at those Australian isles which lie 
 Thick as the stars that stud the wintry sky ; 
 
 ' ' There let thy mind contemplative survey 
 
 That spacious region where in elder time 
 Earth's unremember'd conquerors held the sway ; 
 
 And science, trusting in her skill sublime, 
 With lore abstruse the sculptur'd walls o'erspread, 
 Its import now forgotten with the dead. 
 
 " From Nile and Congo's undiscover'd springs 
 
 To the four seas which gird the unhappy land, 
 Behold it left a prey to barbarous Kings, 
 
 The Eobber or the Trader's ruthless hand ; 
 Sinning and suffering, everywhere unblest, 
 Behold her wretched sons, oppressing and opprest ! 
 
 " To England is the Eastern empire given, 
 
 And hers the sceptre of the circling main ; 
 Shall she not then diffuse the word of Heaven 
 
 Through all the regions of her trusted reign 
 Wage against evil things the hallo w'd strife, 
 And sow with liberal hand the seeds of life ! 
 
 ' By strenuous efforts in a rightful cause 
 
 Gloriously hath she surpass' d her ancient fame, 
 And won in arms the astonish' d World's applause. 
 
 Yet may she win in peace a nobler name, 
 And Nations which now lie in error blind, 
 Hail her the Friend and Teacher of Mankind ! " 
 
 SOUTHEY : Carmen Nuptiale for the Princess Charlotte. 
 
1857.] A SAD YET FRUITFUL YEAR. 503 
 
 
 CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 WHETHER it hereafter proves true that the history of the 
 British Empire of India began only with the Mutiny cam- 
 paigns of 1857-1858, to which the century's conquests and 
 administrative experiments of the East India Company were 
 but a prelude, the annus tristis was also the annus mirabilis 
 remarkable for the birth of missionary extension and 
 educational reform from the very womb of massacre and 
 revolt. From 185*7 Christian missions and philanthropy in 
 India received an impetus which they feel to this hour. 
 Dr. Wilson was the first to guide that to the establishment of 
 the United Presbyterian Church amid the eighteen princi- 
 palities of Rajpootana. In the smoke of the Mutiny and its 
 punishment the three Universities were legislatively called 
 into existence, and the seeds of systems of primary education 
 were sown. The answer of the Christian rulers of India to 
 the brief but bitter madness of its pampered soldiery and 
 pensioned princes was more light. There may still be 
 doubt how far the administrative changes, politically and 
 financially, of the Government of the Empress are an improve- 
 ment on the system under which the Company won and built 
 up the empire it bequeathed to the crown. There can be none 
 as to the vast, even infinite, benefit of the new regime on the 
 side of education and of the complete toleration of all religions, 
 not excluding Christianity as the legislation of the Company 
 did in spite of Lord William Bentinck and Lord Dalhousie. 
 
 The panic wave of military and political unrest, which 
 swept over Northern India from the Hooghly to the Upper 
 
504 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1857. 
 
 Indus, found and left the great Western Province peaceable 
 and loyal. In none of the eloquent misrepresentations which 
 he called " history," has the late Sir John Kaye been more un- 
 fortunate than in his account of Bombay. According to the 
 obsolete school who see in that very progress, which is the sole 
 justification of our Eastern Empire at all, an excuse for revolt, 
 the causes of mutiny abounded more in the land of the Marathas 
 than in any other. Annexation, lapse, resumption of holdings, 
 confiscation of rent-free tenures, and the proselytismof Christian 
 missionaries with the consent and educational co-operation of 
 the Government the five causes of the Mutiny according to 
 some short-sighted conservatives had been altogether more 
 luxuriant in the West of India than in Oudh or the Delhi 
 territory, or anywhere else. Yet it would be easy to prove 
 that it was these very causes the extinction, legally and 
 equitably, of centres of intrigue ; the care for the peasantry 
 abandoned to irresponsible talookdars; the intelligence and 
 benevolence of reformers like Dr. Wilson and the authorities 
 whom he stirred up, which kept the panic to the north of 
 the Vindhyas, or to two or three isolated spots where there 
 was not even the ordinary garrison to keep the peace. 
 
 But the temper of the Bombay army, and the intelligence 
 of the Bombay people in and out of the capital, were severely 
 tested. So far as the mutiny .assumed a Hindoo aspect it 
 was Bombay in its origin. The infamous Nana Dhoondopunt, 
 whom Sir John Malcolm has been blamed for treating so 
 generously, gave himself out as the political representative of 
 his adoptive father, the last of the Peshwas, and as the head 
 of Hindooism. As he had sent his quondam menial 
 Azimoollah to be lionised in London, and to see the weak- 
 ness of England in the early stages of the Crimean War, so 
 the Satara agent, Eungo Bapoojee, had been active in the 
 old India House. It was to Maharashtra that the ringleaders 
 of the Bengal sepoys looked for the rousing of the whole west 
 
1857.] MUTINY INFLUENCES IN BOMBAY. 505 
 
 and south of India. In reply to a missive from the 75th 
 Bengal Native Infantry a sepoy wrote from Bengal in an 
 intercepted letter " We are your children ; do with us as it 
 may seem best to you ; in your salvation is our safety. We 
 are all of one mind ; on your intimation we shall come run- 
 ning." Poona and Satara had memories of Sivajee and his 
 generals, of Maratha ambition and Hindoo glories, not second 
 to Delhi in Muhammadan eyes. But- Poona and Satara were 
 names to conjure with only in the far-off Ganges valley. Of 
 Western India itself the statement of Dr. Wilson at the time 
 is true " Incipient mutiny in the Bombay army at Kolhapore, 
 Ahmedabad, Kurachee, and some other stations, was early 
 discovered and readily crushed." At two places only did it 
 become overt, Kolhapore and Nurgoond. Of the fifteen hun- 
 dred English massacred by the sepoys and rabble in 1857-58, 
 of whom 240 were military officers, 4 were chaplains, and" 10 
 were missionaries and their wives, only one fell in Western 
 India the civilian Mr. Manson. Yet by the three approaches of 
 Eajpootana, of the Yindhyas, and of Nagpore and Hyderabad, 
 the mutineers of the north vainly tried to reach Maharashtra 
 under Tathya Topya and Bala Eao. Instead of their succeed- 
 ing it was from Bombay that the first help was sent to Lord 
 Canning in the despatch of the troops of the Persian expedi- 
 tion ; and from Bombay that Sir Hugh Eose, at a later period, 
 restored peace right up through central India to the Ganges. 
 
 While the Mutiny was purely military in its origin, and 
 owed its opportunity to the reduction of the British troops 
 from thirty-seven to twenty-two regiments for the Crimean 
 and Persian wars, in spite of the unanswered protest of Lord 
 Dalhousie, the sepoys found the vilest confederates and agents 
 in the swashbuckler rabble of the great cities and canton- 
 ments. Bombay was such a city. To this day the fanatical 
 passions of the Parsee and the Muhammadan sometimes blaze 
 up into a conflict, while the Hindoos there are the boldest in all 
 
506 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1857. 
 
 India. Around the three communities whom English law 
 and institutions, born of the Christian faith, have made at once 
 independent and wealthy, there has gradually gathered the 
 scum of Asia and Africa, sailors and traders, adventurers and 
 pilgrims, criminals and loafers, slave-dealers and eunuch or 
 boy and girl kidnappers, such as the polygamous and sexual 
 cults of the East require as their ininistrants. Two men knew 
 these well the missionary who had spent his life among 
 them, as he had seen the population doubling to above half a 
 million; and Mr. Forjett, the commissioner of police, who 
 had justly held the balance of law between proselytisers and 
 votaries of all creeds. A government like that of the Turk 
 would have made of Bombay at this time what Damascus 
 became in the Syrian massacres soon after. But Lord 
 Elphinstone was not only a firm and wise ruler, favouring 
 none, and fair to all of whatever faith: He was a daring 
 statesman, who had the first virtue of a true ruler, that of 
 knowing his agents on the one hand and his duty to his 
 country on the other. He sent away his European troops 
 to Lord Canning. And, whether against the still unknown 
 temper of the sepoys or the mixed multitude of the capital, 
 he trusted the irresponsible missionary and the responsible 
 police commissioner, while he made all proper military 
 arrangements. Mr. Forjett has lately told his part of the 
 tale in those exciting days, and with becoming modesty as 
 well as accuracy. The unconscious testimony he bears to the 
 missionary's influence for good is invaluable, as coming from 
 such a source. 1 Dr. Wilson's share was this. 
 
 The Mutiny in Bengal was not many days old when the 
 Government of India determined that the new cheap postal 
 and telegraph arrangements should not become the instru- 
 ments of intrigue. Accordingly, all the authorities received 
 instructions to intercept native or vernacular letters, and to 
 
 1 Our Real Danger in India. By C. Forjett. 1877. 
 
1857.] DECIPHERS SEPOYS' TREASONABLE LETTERS. 507 
 
 forward them for examination and translation by confidential 
 and skilled persons named. When found treasonable the 
 letters were submitted to the secretaries to Government. In 
 Bombay letters so intercepted were sent to Dr. Wilson. Just 
 as our beleagured countrymen and countrywomen in cities like 
 Lucknow, and in sequestered hiding-places, had recourse to 
 French and to the use of the Greek letters in their desperate 
 attempts to communicate with their friends, so the sepoy ring- 
 leaders resorted to all sorts of dialects and characters to blind 
 the post-office. No man then in all India was so equal to their 
 resources as the scholar, who for more than twenty years had 
 been translating alphabets and inscriptions for historical and 
 philanthropic ends. In the last edition of his lecture on the 
 " Eeligious Excavations " he makes this slight reference to a 
 confidential service, of a value which no reward and no honour 
 could adequately recognise. Alluding to James Prinsep's 
 deciphering of the rock inscriptions he writes : 
 
 " The key to the character was found by his tracing backwards 
 from the current Devanagaree various forms of older letters, of which 
 the Nagaree is the maturer type, adapted to more rapid writing than 
 the original. Our own assurance respecting it was derived from a com- 
 parison of copperplate inscriptions in the hands of Vishnoo Shdstree, in 
 which we noticed the accordance in number and position of certain 
 letters and words connected with initial salutations of the gods, and 
 the royal signatures on other legible grants, which betokened an agree- 
 ment in value in the respective characters, as was found to be the case 
 when they were critically examined and compared. By following out 
 this principle, we were able to make out some of the most difficult 
 letters which came into the hands of our vigilant officials during the 
 late Mutiny. We now see very clearly that the great trouble taken 
 with the adjustment of the cave character would have been unnecessary 
 if we had noticed sufficiently early its correspondence with the Phoenician 
 and Greek alphabets, from a combination of which it is manifestly 
 derived, with most ingenious adaptations to the orthoepical expression 
 of the Sanscrit and other languages, most creditable to the ingenuity of 
 the Indians, or those by whom they were adapted to these languages." 
 
 Thus the whole miserable tragedy of the Mutiny on its 
 
508 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1857. 
 
 western side passed before Dr. Wilson, who, moreover, kept 
 up a close correspondence with the Governor. That was of 
 too confidential a character for Dr. Wilson to have kept even 
 copies of it, but Lord Elphinstone's letters to him reveal an 
 alliance in the interests of order, of civilisation, and of their 
 country's good, of the highest honour to both. 
 
 Dr. WILSON to his Sister. 
 
 " 30th July 1857. This mail, like some which have preceded it, 
 conveys very heavy tidings to Britain. The mutiny and revolt of the 
 Bengal sepoys still continues, and their murderous courses are only be- 
 ginning to be checked. Many of our countrymen men, women, and 
 children have been treacherously butchered by them. Five or six mis- 
 sionaries are among the number slain. Among these, I regret to say, is 
 the Rev. Thomas Hunter, of the Church of Scotland's Mission at Sialkot 
 in the Punjab (the brother of Mr. Hunter of Nagpore), who was destroyed, 
 along with his wife and infant child, on the 9th of this month. They 
 were in Bombay for a few months before they went to their station. 
 We were acquainted with them, and liked them much. We have not 
 heard of the fate of two converts who were with them. Their station 
 was a new one, and very distant; and it is to be regretted that they 
 went to it before they were more fully acquainted with the country 
 and its languages. The whole of the native army of the Bombay 
 Presidency (as well as that of Madras) has hitherto remained staunch 
 to the British interests. All, thank God, is very quiet in the city 
 of Bombay. So much is this the case, that at a large meeting of 
 Natives and Europeans held lately in our Town-Hall, and presided 
 over by the Governor, I offered to walk through any of the streets or 
 lanes in the blackest night without a weapon of defence. How long 
 this security may continue is dependent on the will of a gracious 
 Providence. A plot for the murder of the Europeans is suspected to 
 have been formed at Poona, but it has been mercifully detected. 
 
 " I enclose copies of some hymns we have used at a prayer-meeting 
 held in Ambrolie in connection with the crisis, and attended by great 
 multitudes. Be sure you let my dear mother know that we are both 
 quite well and safe at present. I hope you all pray for us and for the 
 cause of Christ in India." 
 
 To Miss DOUGLAS. 
 
 " 6th May 1858. In the pacification of India a good deal remains 
 to be done, though victory, except in incidental foolish attacks, has in 
 
1857.] LOED ELPHINSTONE OX THE MUTINY. 509 
 
 the mercy of God always followed the movements of our troops. The 
 Bombay armies, both iu Eajpootana and Central India, have done all 
 that was needful in these important provinces, and much circumscribed 
 the field of action. Sir Colin. Campbell is very careful of the lives of 
 his men, and his plan is evidently that of a gradual advance. I don't 
 think he will be allowed to rest during the hot and rainy months. It 
 is a great mercy that we have been kept free from alarm in Bombay, 
 and that all the plots in this Presidency have been discovered before 
 they could be carried into effect. The plots of the Satara and Kolha- 
 pore nobles are of three or four years' standing, and have had no con- 
 nection with the Mutiny, except in so far as one set of evil men has 
 encouraged another set of evil men. 
 
 " You will be glad to hear that the spirit of our native Church 
 continues to be most exemplary. The young men and others who 
 joined it last year are a great accession to it, and all is love and 
 harmony within its enclosure." 
 
 LOED ELPHINSTONE TO DE. WILSON. 
 
 " Tuesday, 8th , 1857. 
 
 " MY DEAR Dr. WILSON. It was very good of you to remember 
 our conversation about the wild tribes in the North Konkan, and I am 
 much indebted to you for your little volume on the Evangelization of 
 India, in which you give an account of these tribes. I have always 
 taken a great interest in those poor outcasts of humanity, the aborigi- 
 nal tribes who are scattered throughout the peninsula of India. I 
 have received with great regret very discouraging reports on the subject 
 of the attempts which have been made in this Presidency to raise them 
 a little in the scale of humanity. I fear that very little has been 
 effected in this way, and that we cannot hope for any rapid progress. 
 The best thing that I have heard was from Mr. Mitchell at Poona, that 
 the Mhar and Mhang schools at that place were making great progress, 
 and that a native had taken a great share in the work of establishing 
 and supporting them. 
 
 " Your account of the feelings of the Mussulman population is very 
 satisfactory. I have never given in to the idea of insurrection and 
 conspiracy which seems to haunt many people. As long as the native 
 army are faithful there is no fear of a popular rising ; and although 
 unfortunately we have had one or two cases of mutiny in the Bombay 
 Army, I do not see any signs of general defection. We may now very 
 shortly expect to receive. European reinforcements, and I hope that the 
 troops we asked the Government of the Cape to send us are now close 
 
510 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1858. 
 
 at hand. With God's blessing I believe that we shall be spared the 
 trials and calamities through which our neighbours have passed, and 
 I am sure that we have great reason to be thankful. I beg to enclose 
 a draft for my subscription to the native female school, and remain, my 
 dear Dr. Wilson, very sincerely yours, ELPHINSTONE." 
 
 " I beg to be kindly remembered to Mrs. Wilson. I shall not fail 
 to send the Notes on the Maratha language to my uncle. He still 
 takes as keen an interest in all that is passing in this country as ever, 
 but I am afraid that he is not much more able to appreciate a critical 
 paper on the Maratha than I am myself ! " 
 
 "April 29, 1859. 
 
 "MY DEAR DR. WILSON. I send you Sir Robert Hamilton's memo, 
 upon Tantia Topey. It appears that his father was a follower of Bajee 
 Rao's, and that Tantia was a playfellow of the Nana's. Dangan, who 
 has been on General Mansfield's staff in Oudh, says that they always 
 pronounce Tantia Topey's name as Sir R. Hamilton spells it, Topye, 
 and that they speak of Nana Sahib as Nana Rao. 
 
 " I have just received a telegram from Bombay with news from 
 England up to the 4th. It seems that on that day Lord Derby 
 announced in the House of Lords, and Mr. Disraeli in the Commons, 
 that as soon as certain money bills, and bills connected with India, 
 were passed, it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to 
 dissolve Parliament. The foreign news does not look pacific, and I 
 believe that soon India will be the quietest place in the world, though 
 we may still have little episodes like the Nuggur Parkur disturbance 
 and Adil Mahomed's party in the Hoshungabad district. Believe me, 
 sincerely yours, ELPHINSTONE." 
 
 How accurately Dr. Wilson had gauged the temper of the 
 various communities of Bombay was soon seen in the united 
 and loyal movement which they made on the 15th December 
 1858, in a public meeting summoned to consider the pro- 
 priety of erecting an Economic and Natural History Museum, 
 with pleasure gardens, " to be styled, in our Sovereign's 
 honour, the Victoria Museum and Gardens," presided over 
 by a Hindoo friend of Dr. Wilson, Mr. Jugganath Sunkersett. 
 The united Hindoos, Parsees, and Muhammadans determined 
 to show that they appreciated the blessings of a just Govern- 
 ment, under which the city had risen in wealth and import- 
 
1858.] LOYALTY OF BOMBAY COMMUNITIES. 511 
 
 ance. The crowd raised fifty thousand rupees on the spot. 
 But far more important was this language in the mouth of its 
 chairman : " No Empire has been more consecrated by 
 time, none more perfectly consolidated, none more great in 
 intellect, more overwhelming in power, more infinite in 
 resources ; and yet it is not on its awful might that it is 
 founded, nor on the force of its naval and military greatness, 
 but supremely in the devotion of its people." Not a few at 
 the Mohurrum festival of 1857 had distrusted the Muham- 
 madans alone, and the police commissioner summoned a 
 meeting of the leaders, at which we meet for the first time 
 in this history with the name of one who had become second 
 only to Dr. Wilson in his identification with the interests of 
 the natives of Bombay. Dr. George Birdwood, now C.S.I., 
 and his father General Birdwood, had early come under Dr. 
 Wilson's influence ; and at this, as in all other movements 
 for the good of the natives, that young member of the Medical 
 Service, and Professor in the Grant Medical College, was 
 prominent. Even the Wahabee Kazee, or high priest of 
 the Bombay Muhammadans, offered his services to keep the 
 peace, while the chief native officer of police was a Wahabee. 
 When the clever detection of the plot of the sepoys of the 
 Bombay garrison at Sonapore, to rise and proclaim the 
 sovereignty of the Nana as Peshwa of the Dekhan, took 
 place, and the mutineers were blown from guns, all fear of 
 even a local riot was passed. In Lord Elphinstone's opinion, 
 Bombay city saved Poona and Hyderabad, and even Madras. 
 So did Nagpore, and it must not be forgotten how well 
 Madras did its duty to the empire by its European troops 
 under Neill, although the family system and evil arrange- 
 ments as to its native officers had long demoralised its sepoy 
 army as a fighting and disciplined force. While in Bengal 
 there was only one white soldier to twenty-five sepoys in 
 May 1857, the proportion in Madras was one to seventeen, 
 
512 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1858. 
 
 and in Bombay one to ten, and in the last many sepoys were 
 Jews and Christians. 
 
 " Shall there be evil in a city and the Lord hath not done 
 it ? " were the words of Amos from which Dr. Wilson lectured 
 to the whole Christian community of Bombay, in a sermon 
 afterwards circulated all over the country under the title of The 
 Indian Military Revolt viewed in its Religious Aspects. The 
 calm, impartial, native-loving evangelist looked beyond the 
 passions the crimes and the follies of the time, and depre- 
 cated " that indiscriminate party and personal inculpation 
 to which many are too prone to resort in these sad days of 
 trouble and rebuke." These were the warnings he uttered, 
 against an under-estimate of the Christian and an over- 
 estimate of the Gentile character so common among Euro- 
 peans in India and at home ; against Caste, the great evil ; 
 against " hedging up any bodies of our servants or sub- 
 jects in India from general enlightenment and Christian 
 instruction ; " against " shortcomings in the supervision, 
 discipline, and employment of (fur native army and native 
 officials ; " against a defective Christian example on our own 
 part ; against failure " in enterprises of Christian beneficence, 
 and in works calculated to promote the advancement of Euro- 
 pean civilisation ; " against forgetfulness of our dependence in 
 a heathen land on the subduing and restraining grace of God ; 
 and against the danger of remaining without a personal 
 interest in the salvation of Christ. Still better was his 
 sermon on the General Thanksgiving-day on the prophet 
 Ezekiel's message " Ye shall know that I am the Lord, 
 when I have wrought with you for my name's sake." The 
 events of two years had developed, the Empire had been 
 proclaimed, and the preacher found these eight causes for 
 gratitude the close of such a war ; its restricted limits ; the 
 marvellous supply of a military and civil agency for the sup- 
 pression of anarchy ; the safety of Western India ; the stead- 
 

 1859.] THE MUTINY AND THE CONSCIENCE OF ENGLAND. 513 
 
 fastness of the native Church, even to martyrdom; the 
 administrative reforms ; the lessons to the natives themselves ; 
 and the increased zeal in Great Britain for their good. Dr. 
 Wilson, like all observers on the spot who knew the facts, 
 made this admission-^" Our highest civil authorities were 
 asleep when the catastrophe happened." Lord Canning's 
 own confession of his fatal mistakes, especially that of not 
 disarming the Dinapore sepoys and so precipitating the 
 horrors of Cawnpore and delays of Lucknow, is sufficient. 
 But the incapacity of his paralysed advisers bore the one 
 good fruit on his part of an apparently calm clemency, even 
 in the face of the five stern Acts ; and Dr. Wilson noted with 
 satisfaction, in a letter to Mr. C. Eraser Tytler, C.S., that the 
 first Sabbath after the proclamation of the Empire " both 
 Lord and Lady Canning sent a contribution to the missions 
 at Allahabad," where the first Viceroy of the Crown then was. 
 A little later he wrote, " So they have at last got hold of Tatya 
 ' Topi ' Tokya, I think it will prove to be, for I know some 
 of his family, as I opine, at Toka on the Godavery." 
 
 The events of 1857 awoke the conscience of the English 
 in India and at home. Governors like John Lawrence, and 
 the Punjab school whom he had reared, became puritans 
 almost of a Cromwellian stamp, in such public minutes as 
 that from his pen which reviewed the relation of our Govern- 
 ment to Christianity. The present Lord Kinnaird had headed 
 an association to bring about the public and emphatic 
 recognition of the duty of the Government of India to vindi- 
 cate its character as a Christian administration. When asked 
 to join in this movement Dr. Wilson's broader knowledge 
 and truer comprehension of the position led him to return 
 this answer : While approving of the object he pronounced 
 the movement inexpedient, because it was better to act on 
 the indisputable fact that the British Government in all its 
 dependencies is Christian, than to make a mere avowal 
 
 2L 
 
514 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [I860. 
 
 founded on the apprehension that the Indian authorities 
 questioned this. Writing on the 19th May 1860, he said : 
 
 " 1. What we ought to do is to assail every act done contrary to our 
 constitutional standing when it occurs. We are stronger, I conceive, 
 in our defiance of all parties violating our constitution than we should 
 be after the most forcible declaration of duty, which might give rise to 
 the surmise that we had doubts of the tenableness of our own position till 
 its principle be reasserted. 
 
 " 2. Notwithstanding all the sins and shortcomings of the British 
 Government in India, it has not yet ventured to question in any 
 categorical form, 'the right, privilege, and duty of every Christian 
 to support and promote the Christian religion, or directly called upon 
 any Christian subject of the British Crown to relinquish his Christian 
 rights and privileges/ I do not see the propriety of our insinuating 
 that it has in any general form denied the existence of the rights and 
 privileges here referred to, however inconsistently it may have acted 
 on particular occasions with the existence of these rights and privileges. 
 
 " 3. The Government of India has done, and dare do nothing to 
 prevent its Christian servants giving their private funds to religious 
 societies. An attempt to do something like this by the Directors of the 
 East India Company proved abortive. In the face of Lord Ellenborough 
 we find all the religious Societies in India getting their usual open 
 support from Government officials, even of the highest standing as for 
 example Lord Elphinstone, who was the official Patron of the Bombay 
 Bible Society, and in his own name a contributor to all the Episco- 
 palian, Presbyterian, Congregational and Lutheran Missions in our 
 neighbourhood. No officials, as far as I know, have been challenged for 
 acting in their private capacity in our evangelistic committees for visit- 
 ing and examining our mission schools, or of late years for speaking on 
 religious subjects, or distributing bibles, books, or tracts. An unneces- 
 sary limit seems to have been hinted at in connection with the attendance 
 of officials at native baptisms, but better seek to remove this limit on 
 its individual demerits by discussions in Parliament and other appli- 
 ances, than to assail it by a Declaration embracing principles which are 
 yet unchallenged. Even as matters stand it is just as likely that the 
 Government will take no more notice of the attendance at native 
 baptisms as that any real Christian official will neglect to attend them 
 (when Christian expediency requires him to countenance them) because 
 of the partial restriction of Government. 
 
 " 4. A Bill is at present before the Legislative Council, the object of 
 which is to free the officials of Government from taking any part as 
 
I860.] LORD CANNING AND TOLERATION. 515 
 
 such in the management of Hindoo and Muhammadan endowments. 
 It may be better to watch this bill than to seek subscriptions to a 
 document embracing with various other matters the principle on 
 which it is founded." 
 
 Lord Canning had called on Mr. E. N. Gust, then a high civil 
 officer in the Punjab, for an explanation of his presence at the 
 baptism of a sepoy, and had effectually stopped the work of 
 inquiry in the loyal regiment of Muzbee or low-caste Sikhs. 
 But these proved to be the last flickerings of a spirit of 
 antagonism to liberty which was more ignorant or timid than 
 it was malicious. The battle for full toleration and equity, 
 begun when Dr. Wilson landed in Lord William Bentinck's 
 time, was near its close, and such an association as that pro- 
 posed would only have postponed that close by unnecessarily 
 rousing antagonisms. 
 
 Besides the Vernacular Education Society, the special 
 efforts of the Bible, Tract, and great Missionary Societies, 
 and the establishment of an American mission in Oudh, as 
 the results of the Mutiny, the most important and permanently 
 fruitful enterprise was that of the United Presbyterian Church 
 of Scotland. Dr. Wilson had by himself, or by the agents 
 he stimulated, seen the whole field of western and central 
 India, from Bombay to Kathiawar and Sindh, and from Satara 
 to Nagpore, mapped out by the church, while to Mesopotamia, 
 Arabia, Abyssinia, and eastern Africa, the divine message had 
 sounded out. He had in desire long before taken possession 
 of Rajpootana, and now he sent his brother Kirk in Scotland 
 thither. This was for him the outcome of the Mutiny, the 
 atonement alike for the dark ignorance that prompted and 
 the swift vengeance that overtook its leaders. 
 
 At the close of 1858 the Eev. Dr. Somerville, foreign 
 secretary of the United Presbyterian Church which repre- 
 sents the earlier seceders from the Established Kirk, as the Free 
 Church consists of the later along with Mr. Cooper, his old 
 
516 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [I860. 
 
 colleague in the Konkan, who had become minister of Fala, 
 turned to Dr. Wilson for advice and help in the projected 
 mission to Rajpootana. The case was just that of the Irish 
 Presbyterian Church in Kathiawar over again. Once more 
 Dr. Wilson expressed his " peculiar pleasure," and his grati- 
 tude to God that this work was to be done at last. With 
 Eajpootana as a mission field only three others could be 
 compared, he wrote on the 3d March 1859 the Muhammadan 
 state of the Nizam, and the Maratha principalities of Sindia and 
 Holkar, which shut in Eajpootana to the south. But to their 
 claims of area, population, spiritual destitution and influence 
 on others, Rajpootana added the advantage of a central field 
 more directly under British rule at that time, while it was in 
 the line of Presbyterian missions in the west and north-west of 
 India " among whom the most friendly relations and co-opera- 
 tions, if not absolute union, at no distant day will doubtless 
 exist." The English fear of the hot winds he met in his own 
 pleasant way, by declaring, from his experience, that they are 
 not particularly unhealthy or restrictive of missionary labour : 
 
 " The late Archdeacon of Bombay, Mr. Jeffreys, whom Mr. Cooper 
 must well remember, used to say to the ladies complaining of the Indian 
 climate, ' Heat you must have. But you may be either stewed or grilled 
 as you like. If you wish to be stewed just remain in Bombay, if you 
 wish to be grilled go to Goojarat or the Dekhan.' Mr. (now Bishop) 
 French, of Agra, when in my house the other day (he is on his way to 
 Europe), incidentally said to me, ' I have sometimes thought of going 
 to Ajiner from Agra to pass the hot winds.' The convalescent station 
 of Mount Aboo is accessible to the invalids of Eajpootana seeking to 
 avoid them. General Low, whom you mention with much satisfaction, 
 is a party from whom you get every valuable information respecting 
 Rajpootana. Independently of his opinion, I had come to the con- 
 clusion that two of your first missionaries should be settled at Beawur, 
 both from the influence of that place on the whole of Rajpootana, as 
 the general seat of the political agency, and from the opportunity which 
 it will give the mission of acting on an interesting aboriginal tribe, the 
 Mers (Mairs), of whom you will find full information in a work of 
 Colonel Dixon." 
 
I860.] THE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN MISSION. 517 
 
 Then follow, in this and the subsequent correspondence, 
 exhaustive details, topographical, political, historical, and 
 ethnological, regarding the Eajpoots and their country. The 
 twenty years' work of the mission which he established at 
 Beawur, side by side with administrative progress and the 
 annual extension of railways and roads, have since incor- 
 porated the wild States and warlike princes of the deserts, 
 hills, and small cities of Eajastan, in one now civilised terri- 
 tory. Dr. Wilson's letters remain a proof of his uncon- 
 querable zeal, rare self-denial, and statesmanlike breadth of 
 view, which, in language most creditable to it, the Church 
 he assisted again and again strove to acknowledge. 
 
 The Eev. Messrs. Williamson Shoolbred, M.A., and Steel, 
 able students of the University of Edinburgh in their day, were 
 the two missionaries sent forth as pioneers. Dr. Wilson had 
 urged their arrival at Bombay in October, that, going with 
 them, he might introduce them to the Maharaja of Jodhpore, 
 the first king in point of importance in Eajpootana, whose 
 acquaintance he had made in Goojarat in 1840, and who had 
 often referred to the intercourse since ; as well as to Sir George 
 Lawrence, the Governor-General's agent, who had there suc- 
 ceeded his lamented brother Sir Henry. We leave Mr. 
 Shoolbred to describe his intercourse with Dr. and Mrs. Wil- 
 son in the tour which they made together by sea to Surat, 
 and thence for thirty marches to Beawur, during which, at 
 Erinpoora, Mr. Steel died, as Mr. Ker had done under similar 
 circumstances in Kathiawar : 
 
 "From the end of October 1859, till the middle of March 1860, 
 we were thrown constantly together. As Dr. Wilson moved among the 
 elite of the European society of Bombay^ or was honoured in the bril- 
 liant receptions of native princes, or mingled among the crowds in the 
 native bazaars, or gathered the village peasantry around him that he 
 might tell them of a Saviour ; in the house and by the way, in bright 
 drawing-rooms and dingy dak bungalows, in health and in sickness, 
 I had abundant opportunities of observing and admiring the true 
 
518 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [I860. 
 
 Christian gentleman and devoted missionary of the Cross. In those days, 
 before railways were known or dreamt of in Rajpootana, we made the 
 long journey from Surat to Beawur on horseback or bullock-cart. This 
 in itself involves an amount of hardness and roughness which often 
 severely tries the patience and ruffles the temper even of the most 
 amiable of men. But these trials were greatly intensified during that 
 sad journey by the illness and death of my colleague, Mr. Steel, 
 which protracted the journey, and shed the deepest gloom over the 
 most of its hours. In these trying circumstances, however, the true 
 nobility of his character only shone more clearly out. Never do I 
 remember his temper to have been ruffled or his patience to have given 
 way. His own and his dear wife's deep sympathy with the sufferer, 
 and the affectionate kindness with which they watched over and 
 nursed him, could scarcely have been surpassed by his own parents' 
 loving care. All that their great kindness and cheering presence was 
 to me in that hard beginning of my missionary career I would vainly 
 strive to express. What struck me most in Dr. Wilson's character was, 
 perhaps, the rare blending of deep scholarliness with the utmost buoy- 
 ancy, almost boyishness, of heart. On the literature, philology, and 
 ethnology of India, he was a perfect mine of learning, and delighted to 
 pour out his treasures in the most lavish way into the ear of a sympa- 
 thising listener. But such was the fresh buoyancy of his nature that a 
 string of pleasantries and puns would succeed a deep disquisition on 
 some obscure philological point, just as the lights and shadows chase 
 each other across the summer hills. I remember his winding up an 
 interesting account of the geology of Elephanta by placing in my 
 hand what, but for its lightness, I would have deemed a specimen of 
 conglomerate rock ; and then, after enjoying my puzzled look, laugh- 
 ingly informing me that it was a piece of Scotch plumcake as it 
 appeared after the long voyage to India. Conversations on graver 
 matters at the breakfast-table were now and again relieved by showers 
 of linguistic puns. Punning on the Marathee names for butter, honey, 
 and sugar, he would smilingly ask, ' Isn't it a strange thing that people 
 in India eat muck and mud on their bread, and sweeten their tea with 
 misery ? ' And then, when it came to the desert, and attention was 
 called to the large pamalo (a species of shaddock) forming the centre 
 dish, he would propound the conundrum, ' Why is the pamalo like 
 William the Third of England ? ' To which came the obvious answer, 
 ' Because it is the Prince of Orange.' Thus, too, on the journey, many 
 a trying and anxious moment was relieved by little pleasantries that 
 flowed spontaneously from the depths of a simple and loving heart, 
 
I860.] SECOND TOUR IN RAJPOOTANA. 519 
 
 which, long contact with the world and knowledge of men had failed to 
 rob of its fresh boyishness. 
 
 " His devotion to archaeological studies was very great, and he 
 never missed an opportunity of prosecuting them. I remember his 
 relating how, when eager to visit the interior of a famous Hindoo 
 temple, he had been almost foiled by the Brahman in charge having 
 insisted on his taking off his boots ; and how he had surmounted the 
 difficulty by getting the Brahman to carry him through the temple on 
 his back for a consideration, and how, as he lingered longer than his 
 sacred ' beast of burden ' bargained for, and the bearer complained of his 
 increasing weight, he easily coaxed him into setting him down, boots 
 and all, on the holy pavement, and was allowed unmolested to pursue 
 his archaeological inquiries to a close. 
 
 " On our journey up country when we arrived at the ancient town 
 of Sidhpore, one of the Hindoos' sacred places of pilgrimage, his eager- 
 ness to visit the shrines was irrepressible. He would scarcely wait till 
 our early dinner was over, and while the sun was still high and hot he 
 hurried me off with him to the town. With characteristic self-forget- 
 fulness he would have exposed himself and me, unprotected, to the 
 fierce sunshine, had not Mrs. Wilson, with her ever watchful care, fur- 
 nished us with umbrellas, and insisted on our using them. The eager 
 archaeologist climbed the one hundred and twenty steps leading to the 
 shrines with an alacrity that put to shame his younger companion, and 
 sent my pulse up to fever point. Through the long afternoon and 
 evening he dragged me from shrine to shrine, examining, inquiring, 
 and as often informing those whom he questioned, and finished up by 
 gathering round us a great crowd in the bazaar, and for a full half-hour 
 preaching to these dark idolaters Christ the Saviour, with a power and 
 fervour which his previous labours seemed to have left wholly unex- 
 hausted. 
 
 " And this leads me to speak of the admirable balance in Dr. 
 Wilson's character, which ever kept him from sinking the missionary 
 in the man of science, or, in his omnivorous eagerness in the pursuit of 
 knowledge, from forgetting the still higher and nobler work of the 
 Christian missionary the enlightening and saving of heathen souls. 
 I had been delighted, while in Bombay, to see him with his students 
 in the Institution, pouring out to them the treasures of his almost ex- 
 haustless knowledge, and seeking earnestly to lead them to the foot of 
 the Cross. Chiefly had I been touched by seeing how he moved 
 among the members of his Native Church, and was looked up to by 
 them as a dear and loving father, to whom they could come with all 
 
520 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [I860. 
 
 their griefs and troubles, ever sure of warm sympathy, consolation, and 
 aid. No less was I delighted on the journey by his constant devoted 
 labours as an evangelist. Whether in the Raja's palace or beside the 
 village well, to prince and peasant alike, he eagerly seized every oppor- 
 tunity of speaking a word for 'Christ. And I was ever and again con- 
 strained to admire the ease with which he adapted his addresses to the 
 character of his audience, and the readiness with which he won their 
 attention and in many cases enlisted their sympathies in favour of his 
 message. And here I would note another contrast in his character, no 
 less striking than that to which I have already called attention. 
 As a writer or speaker of English Dr. Wilson was apt to be somewhat 
 stiff and stilted. His style was heavy and his periods Johnsonian. For 
 this reason he was less effective as an English preacher than his richly 
 varied knowledge and great ability ought to have made him. Judging 
 of his power to persuade solely from his English style, it is not to be 
 wondered at that Dr. Norman Macleod gave expression to the opinion, 
 that even a century of such preaching would fail to make converts. 
 But had the genial Doctor understood the Indian vernacular, and heard 
 Dr. Wilson preach in that, he would have found reason not only to 
 modify but reverse his judgment. As a vernacular preacher he was 
 simple, direct, and effective. Even with my imperfect knowledge of 
 the language in those days, I felt this, and could note the effect which 
 he produced in winning the attention, and not rarely even the sympa- 
 thies of his audiences. During the whole journey, so long as he could 
 make himself understood in Hindostanee, he continued to preach in the 
 towns and villages through which we passed ; and it was only when, 
 after penetrating into Marwar, he found the people with their uncouth 
 dialects unable to understand him, that he was reluctantly obliged to 
 desist. His journal of the tour will show how eagerly he then devoted 
 himself to the study of the dialectic varieties of the Marwaree, so as to 
 form the key to its mastery. But his evangelistic efforts were not con- 
 fined to these more public ministrations. He no less eagerly seized 
 every opportunity while conversing with individual natives of turning 
 the conversation on Christ and His Gospel. With our small guard of 
 Sikh cavalry, and specially with their bright and intelligent Naik, 
 during many a long and weary march he kept up the most lively and 
 interesting conversations on religion as he walked his little hill pony 
 beside their tall and imposing chargers. It was his delight to draw 
 them out about their sacred Granth and its tenets, and to show the 
 more excellent way and sure salvation which Christ offers to all who 
 come to him by faith. 
 
I860.] UNITED PKESBYTERIAN MISSION ESTABLISHED. 521 
 
 " In his whole character and conduct indeed, he seemed to me the 
 beau idtfal of a Christian missionary uniting in one the scholar, the 
 gentleman, and the evangelist, and consecrating all his scholarship, his 
 great acquirements, his knowledge of men and of the world, to the 
 cherished and absorbing work of commending his Lord and Master to 
 the hearts and consciences of men. Like the great Apostle of the 
 Gentiles he was willing to become all things to all men, if by any 
 means he might win some. 
 
 " I have already spoken of the great kindness and comfort minis- 
 tered by Dr. and Mrs. Wilson to my lamented colleague so long as he 
 lived, and to myself. In like manner I could speak at great length of 
 his most valuable services in introducing me to my future field of 
 labour at Beawur ; and in breaking up and smoothing my path by his 
 most judicious and valuable advice and counsel. But feeling that I 
 have already unduly extended my notice, I must forbear. I would 
 only add that the true breadth of the great man's nature came out 
 while initiating an English service at Beawur. Finding that the greater 
 number of English residents at the station were Episcopalians, he at 
 once arranged that their wishes should be met by the commanding 
 officer's reading the Church of England Service, while the missionaries' 
 should comprise a brief Presbyterian service, with preaching at its 
 close. He himself began this mixed service, which has been found 
 to work admirably for many years. I shall ever cherish the memory 
 of Dr. Wilson as one of the greatest and best of men and missionaries. 
 I regard his loss with all the greater regret that such a combination of 
 high qualities as he presented is singularly rare, and that with him, I 
 fear, has passed away the last of a noble type of Christian missionary." 
 
 The opening of a Christian Mission among the caste-bound 
 and native tribes of Eajpootana seemed to some in India a 
 delicate experiment just after the Mutiny, and, indeed, as its 
 fruit. But Sir George Edmonstone, then Lieutenant-Governor 
 of the North- Western Provinces of which Ajmer was a part, 
 did not, demi-officially through Sir George Couper, his 
 secretary and now his successor, do more than write thus of 
 the missionaries, after recommending Nusseerabad instead of 
 Beawur as their head-quarters : " These gentlemen cannot be 
 interfered with, and all that can be done is to beg them to be 
 undemonstrative in their operations ; to refrain from declaring 
 
522 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1860. 
 
 that they are there with the purpose of converting any 
 particular tribe; and generally, to exercise their functions 
 unobtrusively and with discretion." This called forth from 
 Dr. Wilson an expression of " due appreciation of the kind 
 consideration in which the communication originated," his 
 reasons for preferring Beawur, and a reply to the doubtless 
 unconscious and certainly well-meant attempt of the officials 
 to smuggle the mission into the province. These hints, he 
 wrote, would meet 4 with the respectful attention of Mr. Shool- 
 bred and those who might join him, but " their evangelistic 
 commission is to all classes of the people, whom it is their 
 admitted duty to conciliate and not unreasonably to offend, 
 even while they stand on the basis of that religious toleration 
 and civil protection which are extended to all classes of 
 religionists in this country both in profession and in prose- 
 lytism." Dr. Wilson had fought for this freedom, and had 
 purchased it with the great price of thirty years' toil, and the 
 Mutiny had confirmed the expediency as well as justice of the 
 claim. Colonel Eden was officiating for Sir George Lawrence 
 at the time, March 1860, or no such correspondence would 
 have taken place probably. It has proved to be the last of 
 the kind even in Native States. But cities like Hyderabad, 
 Indore, and Gwalior are still without missionaries, although 
 the Eev. Narayan Sheshadri has a prosperous mission at 
 Jalna, in the Nizam's country, and L>. Valentine has, like Dr. 
 Boughton at the court of the Emperor Shah Jehan, used the 
 physician's art for still nobler ends in the court of Jeypore. 
 
 How baseless were even the lurking relics of apprehen- 
 sion in the Lieutenant-Governor's letter was soon proved by 
 the princes of Eajpootana and Indore themselves, in the 
 avidity with which they sought Dr. Wilson's presence and 
 the honour with which they received the great missionary 
 and his wife. We supplement the gaps in his journal of this 
 tour by the letters of Mrs. Wilson, who was foremost in all 
 
I860.] AGAIN BEFORE THE GAIKWAR OF BARODA. 523 
 
 the toil of a journey of 1500 miles by bullock cart, half of it in 
 the hot season, and in all the tender solicitude of watching by 
 the dying bed of Mr. Steel. At Baroda the Gaikwar, Khunde 
 Eao, whose brother and successor was recently banished by 
 Lord Northbrook, was most complimentary to Dr. Wilson at 
 a private audience, especially on the many books the mission- 
 ary had written, which his Highness pronounced as " works oi 
 great difficulty." Dr. Wilson made vain attempts to induce 
 the Gaikwar to found a secondary school in his capital, and a 
 system of primary schools throughout the State. 
 
 Mrs. WILSON to her Sisters, tlie Misses DENNISTOUN. 
 
 "... All the leaders and gentlemen at Baroda kindly called for 
 us, and we spent a pleasant evening with the Resident, Major Wallace, 
 whom we had formerly known in Bombay. My husband had an interest- 
 ing interview with the Gaikwar, and presented him with a copy of the 
 Bible, after directing his attention to some of the important truths con- 
 tained in it. He also advised him to establish schools, and to encourage 
 education among his subjects. He replied, that they had no desire for 
 learning. I fear he does not set them a good example, as his chief 
 pleasure is in looking at wrestling and wild beasts fighting. To his last 
 wrestler he lately gave a lakh of rupees (<l 0,000) ! The translator to 
 his Highness was formerly a pupil of our Institution in Bombay, and 
 another old pupil is instructing his brother in English, and also teach- 
 ing an English school under the auspices of the chaplain. These two 
 young men were delighted to see us, and were very useful to us. The 
 latter took us out in one of the Gaikwar's carriages to see his country 
 palace. It is a small bungalow in the midst of a large garden. The 
 house is full of very handsome carved furniture, the walls are covered 
 with mirrors and splendid lamps, and there is a most extraordinary 
 collection of nick-nacks from Paris, such as musical boxes and clocks, 
 with singing birds and dancing figures, and many other curious things." 
 
 DR. WILSON'S JOURNAL. 
 
 " 9th February 1860. My chief missionary labours under this date 
 have been of a conversational character, and principally directed to 
 visitors from the camp at this place of the Jodhpore Legion, the horse- 
 men of which, who are mostly Sikhs from the Punjab, understand 
 Hindostanee pretty well, though few of them are able to read it. Some 
 
524 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [I860. 
 
 moonshees and others I have supplied with tracts and copies of the 
 New Testament. The colporteurs have visited several of the neigh- 
 bouring villages ; but having no books in the language of the province 
 the Marwaree they have not been very successful in the disposal of 
 their stores. On Sabbath the 22d January, after preaching in Hindo- 
 stanee and Marathee to our servants and others, I baptized in the open 
 air a Brahman, from the Himalaya mountains, near Kangra, named 
 Chinturam. This young man, of twenty-three years of age, has accom- 
 panied us from Bombay, where, for a year and a half residing in the 
 General Assembly's Institution, he had enjoyed the public services of 
 our Mission. He was educated through the Hindostanee, both in 
 Government and Mission schools (those of the Church of England and 
 American Presbyterians in the North -Western Provinces), and has 
 considerable intelligence. On the cruel murder by the mutineers of 
 the Kev. Mr. Hunter and Mrs. Hunter, at Sialkot, where they had 
 been founding a mission in connection with the Established Church of 
 Scotland, he attached himself, from motives of benevolence, to a con- 
 vert who had accompanied them thither, and assisted in reconducting 
 him to Bombay, where he (Chinturam) was very anxious to make my per- 
 sonal acquaintance, on account of the impression which the perusal of my 
 Exposure of Hindooism in Hindee had made on his mind in his first 
 religious inquiries. He left Bombay with us, desiring to make a pro- 
 fession of Christianity in his native country ; but quickened by the 
 divine word which he had often heard from my lips on this journey, he 
 found that he could no longer delay publicly espousing the cause of the 
 Lord. I have a high opinion of his Christian character. 
 
 " JODHPORE, 1 5th February. This Marwar is the darkest province 
 of India in which I have ever been ; and greatly is it to be regretted 
 that it has never hitherto been visited by any missionary of the Cross. 
 I saw much of a fearful and obscure character at Palee, its commercial 
 capital, and here, at its political capital, I find matters in a most extra- 
 ordinary position both religiously and socially. The Maharaja Tukht 
 Singh (whom we saw at Ahmednuggur in 1840) is giving me a most kind 
 reception, and has appointed a grand durbar on my account this even- 
 ing, at the close of which Mrs. Wilson and I start again for Palee, which 
 through relays of bullocks, furnished us by the Raja, we hope to reach 
 to-morrow forenoon, though the distance over sandy roads is forty-two 
 miles. Captain Nixon, the Political Agent, is absent investigating a case 
 of Traga (S. Tyaga), in which a Charana has killed his mother, to bring 
 her blood in a local quarrel upon an opposing party ; but we are most 
 kindly treated by Mrs. Nixon, with whom we are staying. Yesterday 
 
I860.] THE LEARNED BKAHMANS OF RAJPOOTANA. 525 
 
 I spent many hours with the learned men of the durbar. The chief 
 Brahman is positively like another Sayana Acharya, interpreting the 
 Vedas by the ancient helps to their understanding. The chief Charan 
 has mastered the Mahabharata and all the local chronicles of the Raj- 
 poots, on which Colonel Tod drew so copiously and credulously. Both 
 these worthies think that Hindooism (as ' prophesied') is nearly at its 
 end. The blood of all the princes they held to be corrupted by unholy 
 matrimonial alliances, and a departure from the established .institutes of 
 their faith. Their achara they consider worse than that of Soodras (low 
 castes). They are in possession of rich literary treasures, grammatical 
 and expository, of which Europeans have yet heard nothing. They were 
 very much interested in the sketch I gave them of the European in- 
 vestigation of the Vedas, and allowed that it explains much which they 
 had observed, while it leaves many difficulties (principally founded on 
 the erroneous idea of the ' eternity ' of the Vedas) unsolved. A report 
 of all that passed between us on Hindooism and Christianity would fill 
 a number of the Oriental Christian Spectator. I see that the Maharaja 
 has a very difficult part to play in the midst of the various powers by 
 which he is surrounded. ' Non-interference ' has hitherto been the 
 cruel and unjust maxim of the British Government with the Rajpoot 
 States. It is perfectly incompatible with our guarantee to preserve the 
 internal peace of the provinces. Its corollary is ' Safe Tyranny.' " 
 
 Mrs. WILSON to her Sisters. 
 
 " AMBROLIE, BOMBAY, llth April 1860. You will be thankful to 
 hear that, through the goodness of God, we have reached our home in 
 safety after a most fatiguing journey. We left our kind friends at Beawur 
 on the evening of the 9th March for Nusseerabad, where we stayed for two 
 days, and on the 12th left by bullock train, via Indore, Malligaum, etc. 
 The advantage of this train is that you can get changes of bullocks 
 every six or eight miles, which enables you to get over the ground 
 more rapidly than by daily stages of ten or twenty miles with the same 
 bullocks as we used to travel. Our desire was to get home as soon as 
 possible, though the fatigue should be greater, but I should not like to 
 do it again in similar circumstances, as it was too trying for my dear 
 husband. We could not get a spring cart, and were obliged to travel 
 in a common village cart, with a roof of bamboos, and covered with 
 carpets, in which we had to lie by day and night, as the roof was too 
 low for us to sit up. 
 
 " Between Neemuch and Mhow there are no traveller's bungalows, 
 nor any place of shelter, so for some days we just halted for some 
 
526 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [I860. 
 
 hours in the middle of the day under some trees, for a little rest and 
 refreshment, quite in gypsy style. When we got to Mhow we hoped 
 to get a more comfortable cart ; and we got one much larger and higher 
 in the roof, but it was made of iron, and was very rough, and the noise 
 it made was something fearful. Sleep in it was impossible, and Dr. 
 Wilson got quite knocked up and had a good deal of fever during the 
 last ten days of the journey. I wonder how I stood it so well, for I 
 could sleep neither by day nor by night, and the heat was great, in the 
 day time from 95 to 104, with a high scorching wind, blowing up 
 the dust in tornadoes, and making us as black as sweeps. We travelled 
 in this way about 700 miles, and the Lord in His great mercy brought 
 us here, in peace and safety, on the evening of the 5th. The last 
 forty miles of our journey was by the railway, and when we got into it 
 the change was most agreeable and soothing to the brain, and to our 
 bones, which had been sorely shaken for three weeks. 
 
 " We got to Neemuch on 1 6th March, and spent two days with 
 friends ; on Sabbath my husband conducted worship in the library. 
 There is neither a church nor a chaplain there, though the European 
 troops amount to fully 1500. It is very sad to see so many large 
 stations without any means of grace. Our next halting-place was 
 Indore, where we spent two days, chiefly with Sir Eichmond and Lady 
 Shakespeare. They are very kind, good people. On the afternoon of 
 Friday there was a grand durbar held, when Holkar had the right of 
 adoption granted to him, and he was presented with some handsome 
 presents by the Government for his fidelity during the Mutiny. (He 
 was true to the British, though his loyalty was rather doubtful at the 
 time.) Dr. Wilson had some conversation with him, but of course that 
 was not the time nor the place for any religious discussion. When we 
 were preparing to leave next day Holkar sent a very urgent request 
 that my husband should meet him in the afternoon at his country 
 palace, as he was most anxious to see him again, and he offered to send 
 us on to Mhow in the evening in his carriage with changes of horses. 
 Dr. Wilson was delighted to have an opportunity of presenting him 
 with a copy of the Bible and other books, and of conversing with him 
 on the Christian religion. I had intended to sit in the carriage in the 
 garden of the palace during the interview, but Holkar very politely 
 sent for me, and begged of me to sit down beside himself and all the 
 learned Brahmans, whom he had assembled to have a discussion with 
 the learned Doctor from Bombay. 
 
 "Holkar is a pleasant looking man about thirty, he was quite 
 plainly dressed, but wore some handsome jewels. He sat in a chair at 
 the end of a long table. At one side sat his prime minister, then Dr. 
 
I860.] BEFORE THE MAHARAJA HOLKAR. 527 
 
 Wilson and myself, and some of his courtiers. On his other side sat 
 a row of learned Pundits and Brahmans, who had been called together 
 for the occasion. At Holkar's request Dr. Wilson and they entered 
 into a discussion on the sacred books of the Hindus and other kindred 
 subjects. They got quite frightened when my husband repeated some 
 Sanscrit quotations, and when they saw how well prepared he was to 
 argue with them, and to point out the absurdities of their system. 
 Holkar and some others who were present seemed to enjoy their dis- 
 comfiture. We proceeded to Mhow in his carriage (fourteen miles), 
 where we arrived late at night, and were kindly received by Mr. and Mrs. 
 Paton. They were quite strangers to us ; he is the chaplain to the 
 72d Highlanders, he is of the Established Church, and had lately 
 married a lady from Edinburgh. We spent two days with them very 
 pleasantly. He seems to be a good man, and well suited for the work 
 to which he has been called. At six o'clock on Sabbath morning Dr. 
 Wilson preached to about 800 soldiers and officers. 1 
 
 " Our next Sabbath was spent at Malligaum, where my dear 
 husband was very poorly, but he was able to take the Marathee service 
 in a schoolroom at the request of the missionaries of the Church 
 Mission, two of whom are stationed there. We reached home on the 
 following Thursday evening, when we received such a warm welcome 
 from the dear converts and others as quite affected us. Their faces 
 beamed with delight on seeing us restored to them after so many trials ; 
 and we felt truly thankful to be reunited to them. We feel the soft 
 sea breeze very pleasant, and my dear husband is gradually recovering. 
 He is very busy preparing his reports to go by this mail for the General 
 Assembly. 
 
 " Our good friends Dr. and Mrs. Miller leave this evening by the 
 home mail. We shall miss them very much. He has been appointed 
 as elder to the Assembly, and I hope whilst he is at home he may be 
 of use to our mission. There was a large meeting here last evening, a 
 farewell party to the Millers there were at it about thirty Europeans 
 and a number of converts. After tea an address from the native 
 cliurch to them was read by Mr. Dhunjeebhoy, expressing their gratitude 
 for Dr. Miller's medical aid extended to them, and for many other acts 
 of kindness and sympathy, and they presented him with a very hand- 
 some Bible, and Mrs. Miller with Cowper's works." 
 
 Dr. WILSON to Dr. EDDOWES. 
 
 " . . . . We were often as much covered with dust on the road as 
 
 1 He had preached to the same 72d Highlanders at Cape Town in 1823. 
 
528 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [I860. 
 
 the sweeps with soot in chimneys in my young days. Yet we had some 
 pleasant interludes by the way, as at Chittor, Neemuch, Jawara, Indore, 
 etc. The Nawab of Jawara, and Holkar, and their people, I found very 
 inquisitive on the subject of religion, as I had found some other 
 Rajas. Nothing would satisfy Holkar but a long and formal discussion 
 between his Brahmans and myself. He acted as chairman, and that 
 in an impartial spirit. At the close he said to Mrs. Wilson, who 
 was accommodated near the arena, ' I shall never forget this day ; 
 I have got much new light to-day.' He was evidently much dis- 
 appointed by the appearance made by the Brahmans. They put several 
 questions to me, which the Maharaja declared to be inept ; and he 
 himself took their place, boldly asking, l Why do you kill animals ? ' 
 My answer was in substance as follows : ' Maharaja, that is a question 
 for yourself as well as for me. You kill all sorts of clean animals for 
 food, except cows. For the same reason that you kill fowls, goats, 
 sheep, etc., I kill cows, getting suitable food from them not forbidden 
 by God. I admire the Sanscrit language. The best word for man in 
 it is manushya, which means l lie that has a mind! The word for cattle 
 is pashu (Latin, pecu\ ' that which may be tied.' Man is an intellectual 
 and moral being, created for the service of God ; cattle are created for 
 the service of man. The Vedas show that the ancient Hindus ate 
 them, and you may eat them too. Death is not to them what it is to 
 us. Even the pain which they suffer at death by violence may be very 
 slight. Dr. Livingstone, when he was overpowered by a lion, from a 
 sort of electrical excitement which he experienced suffered no pain.' 
 ' Yes,' said the Maharaja, ' the question is my own, and you have given 
 a good answer to it. I am always troubled by my friends opposite.' 
 I attribute all the scrupulosity about the use of animal food to the 
 doctrine of the Hindus about birth after birth. I think it would have 
 done the heart of some of our more timid Politicals good to have seen 
 all these go off in good temper on both sides." 
 
 Not the least service done by Dr. Wilson to the United 
 Presbyterian Mission was that of making over to it the con- 
 vert Chinturam. Soon after lie received in Bombay, and sped 
 on their way, the first detachment of colleagues for Mr. Shool- 
 bred Dr. Kobson, and Mr. Martin. 
 
 But the new or extended agencies of the Churches of Great 
 Britain, the United States, and Germany fell short in far-reach- 
 ing consequences of the catholic system of public instruction 
 
1857.] EDUCATION MADE CATHOLIC BY MISSIONARIES. 529 
 
 which was legislatively established in 1857. That system 
 was directly the work of the missionary party. It was, and 
 is still, the result not of a compromise but of co-operation 
 between the Government or secular State and all non-govern- 
 ment or proselytising bodies, Heathen and Christian, who 
 choose to give a sound education to the people in addition to 
 any religious instruction of which the State, as the ruler of 
 millions of men of differing creeds, cults, and customs, can 
 officially take no cognisance at this stage. The State, how- 
 ever, does not ignore natural or even revealed religion. But, 
 calling Universities into existence, and placing them under 
 an executive largely separate from itself, the Government at 
 once puts the higher education in its proper place of self- 
 developing independence, and it provides bodies competent 
 to examine students of all the great religions, as they appear 
 in the literature, the philosophy, the history, the laws, and 
 in fact the sacred books of each. Questions long discussed 
 in the Christian Parliament of the mother country, and not 
 concluded even yet for Ireland, were in 185*7, under far 
 more conflicting circumstances, settled for ever on the true 
 basis of complete toleration, and fearless confidence in the 
 ultimate triumph of truth. And the men who brought that 
 about were John Marshman, heir of the Serampore men; 
 Alexander Duff ; and John Wilson. 
 
 Everywhere in India the East India Company first refused 
 to teach or to tolerate teachers, and when compelled by 
 Parliament under the influence of Charles Grant, Wilberforce, 
 and Zachary Macaulay, taught Hindooism and Muham- 
 madanism only, while intolerant to all dissent from either. 
 By 1835 Dr. Duff, Macaulay, and the Anglicists under Lord 
 William Bentinck, gradually changed that in Eastern and 
 Dr. Wilson in Western India. But till 1854 these and other 
 educational reformers were discouraged by Government, as 
 such, because they were also Christian proselytisers. The 
 
 2 M 
 
530 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON [1857. 
 
 Government and the independent systems of public instruc- 
 tion went on side by side. All the public money was given 
 to the former which was neutral only in profession and 
 Hindoo-Muhammadan in practice, the latter being main- 
 tained by the Churches of the West so far as it was Christian, 
 and by a few educated native gentlemen so far as it was 
 aggressively Hindoo. When in 1853 the Company applied 
 to Parliament for what proved to be its last charter, the 
 evidence given by most of the experts, and especially by Dr. 
 Duff and Mr. Marshman, showed the folly of the rivalry on 
 every side of principle, of even secular efficiency, of economy. 
 Lord Northbrook, accordingly, when private secretary to the 
 present Lord Halifax who was then President of the old 
 Board of Control, drafted a despatch from all the evidence, 
 and also from the notes of Dr. Duff; and the Court of Directors 
 sent that out to Lord Dalhousie, with instructions to carry it 
 into effect. That Governor-General, who had been helping 
 Mr. Thomason with his thousands of primary circle schools 
 in Upper India, and was maintaining the Bethune girls' school 
 out of his own pocket, was delighted with this despatch of 
 July 1854. At the foundation it placed vernacular schools 
 for the millions, and then a secondary and partly English 
 school in every district or county. Then it recognised exist- 
 ing colleges, State and independent, Hindoo, Muhammadan, 
 and Christian, Parsee and East Indian ; offering grants in aid 
 to all on the test of secular efficiency, while maintaining its 
 own until endowed, or independent but aided effort -as in 
 England, could relieve it of the burden of direct teaching. 
 The whole arch was bound together by the three Universities of 
 Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras, chiefly examining bodies like 
 that of London, but fitted to have Chairs of their own in 
 tune, as some now have. The Senate of each consisted of 
 worthy representatives of all educational agencies, of whatever 
 creed. The Syndicate or executive body appointed by the 
 
1857.] THE EDUCATION DESPATCH OF 1854. 531 
 
 Arts, Law, Medical, and Engineering Faculties of the Senate, 
 regulated the whole education of the country by fixing stand- 
 ards and text-books, and selecting the examiners for degrees. 
 Theoretically the scheme was perfect. 
 
 Practically the new policy has worked well, just because 
 men of the wisdom, experience, and tact as well as principle 
 of Wilson and Duff, were able to preside at the launching 
 of what they had designed. In a letter to their committee 
 in Edinburgh, written by Dr. Wilson and signed also by Mr. 
 Nesbit not long before his death, they reviewed the provisions 
 of the despatch. Unhappily the succession, as Governor, of 
 Sir George Clerk, who, with all his merits retained the Com- 
 pany's political prejudices against Christian missions, and 
 the action of Directors and Inspectors of Public Instruction, 
 obstructed the fair working of the new system of grants in 
 aid until the appointment of Sir Alexander Grant as head of 
 the department. But that opposition was temporary, and it 
 did not affect the more independent University and colleges. 
 
 " BOMBAY, 16th May 1855. Your important letter on the Despatch 
 to the Government of India on the subject of Education was duly 
 received, and copies of it have been forwarded by Dr. Wilson to the 
 Dekhan and Nagpore. We rejoice to learn from it that our Committee 
 at home are disposed to concur in our co-operation with Government 
 in carrying its provisions into effect in so far as they may be found to 
 apply to our missionary establishments. The issue of that Despatch, 
 we conceive, constitutes a new and promising epoch in connection with 
 the intellectual and moral enlightenment of this great country. It 
 fully recognises important principles for which we have long and 
 strenuously contended in this Presidency. It forms a discriminative 
 and judicious estimate of the comparative claims of the vernacular and 
 learned languages of India and of English as media of instruction. It 
 makes a very cordial acknowledgment of the benefits derived by India 
 from the missionary enterprise. It makes the Bible accessible for 
 purposes of consultation to inquisitive youth within the walls of the 
 Government seminaries. It permits the communication to them at 
 extra hours of Christian instruction, voluntarily imparted and volun- 
 
532 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1857. 
 
 tarily received. It promises certain grants in aid of secular instruction, 
 for certain definite objects, to all private scholastic institutions per- 
 mitting Government inspection and exacting a fee, however small, from 
 the pupils. It proposes the foundation of Universities at the Presi- 
 dencies, for granting honours and degrees to India youth of requisite 
 attainments. It sanctions the affiliation with these Universities of all 
 seminaries rightly conducted and furnishing the requisite amount of 
 education. It has our full approbation as far as it goes, and we shall 
 rejoice to find its provisions speedily carried into effect in the spirit in 
 which it has been framed. 
 
 " In referring to the moral relations of that Despatch, we must 
 mention, what the members of our Committee cannot have failed to 
 notice, that it offers the same assistance in the communication of sound 
 secular instruction to seminaries founded and conducted on heathen 
 principles that it does to those which are founded and conducted on 
 Christian principles. In doing so, it does not seem to us to recognise 
 any principle of religious latitudinarianism. It simply offers to all a 
 common blessing, without adopting any action with reference to 
 higher blessings on the one hand, or to what may prove an injury and a 
 curse on the other. It leaves its own expression of respect to Christian 
 institutions to remain unmodified by what it proposes to do with refer- 
 ence to those of another character. Sound secular instruction, imparted 
 without any ignoring or depreciating of Christianity, can in no degree 
 favour heathenism or error of any kind. To a certain extent it will be 
 a counteraction of that error. The grants-in-aid will, we hope, be so 
 administered, according to the Despatch, as to go to the encouragement 
 and support only of sound secular knowledge. We do not see that 
 such an appropriation of them will increase the resources of heathenism. 
 To a certain extent it will direct the native resources to what is good, 
 as they will be needed for that effort which is required to secure the 
 progress in secular knowledge which the Government inspection 
 demands. While we make these remarks, we do not in any degree 
 compromise our own views of the supreme importance of the 1 combinaT 
 tion of right religious education and training with secular instruction. 
 
 " But it is with the probable effects of the Despatch on our 
 missionary undertakings that we have most to do, though we have con- 
 sidered this reference to its general moral bearings essential to our 
 judgment of its acceptability to the Christian community. It will open 
 a wide field to the operation of our Bible and Tract Societies and 
 missionary presses. It will call for an increase of missionary agency, 
 with a view to the hallowing of the secular instruction which it 
 
1857.] THE EDUCATION DESPATCH OF 1854. 533 
 
 directly encourages. It will do more than this. It will aid the 
 missionary institutions in that department of their labours which em- 
 braces secular knowledge. But missionaries and their supporters must 
 vow before God and man not to dilute or diminish their religious instruc- 
 tion in their seminaries on this account. While, as hitherto, they 
 communicate a sound secular instruction, they must never fail to act 
 on the principle of combining this instruction with that of an infinitely 
 higher character. 
 
 " To Government inspection, conducted as we trust it will be in a 
 courteous, liberal, and impartial spirit, we cannot object ; while of 
 course we repudiate all right on the part of Government to interfere 
 with the management of our seminaries. Government is entitled to 
 see to the faithful appropriation of its own educational grants. 
 
 " To the exaction of a fee from such of our pupils as may be willing 
 and able to pay it, as a condition of our receiving Government help, we 
 do not object. In fact, in a modified form, we have all along acted on 
 this principle to a certain extent in our higher seminary in Bombay. 
 It is our rule to exact an admission fee of one rupee from the pupils 
 for the reasons mentioned at p. 484 of Dr. Wilson's Evangelization of 
 India. The advanced pupils generally aid us in instructing the lower 
 classes, partly in compensation for the instruction which they them- 
 selves receive in our College Department. We are willing to extend 
 our demands in that Institution and in all our schools, without excluding 
 from their benefits any who may be unable or unwilling to make a 
 money payment. The evangelistic feature of our educational establish- 
 ment must be preserved. To the poor, who are not the least hopeful 
 in a missionary point of view, the Gospel must be taught in all our 
 schools without money and without price. We are willing to adopt 
 the principle of payment, as far as it may be practicable, as a rule, 
 but we must have full liberty to make exceptions whenever they may 
 be proper and expedient. We should never be excused by our own 
 consciences, or by our Christian brethren at home and abroad, were 
 we to act otherwise. We hope that Government will give us full 
 latitude in this matter. At all events, we must follow in regard to it 
 our own solemn convictions. The Government, we believe, will place 
 the charitable support which our schools receive in the place, in some 
 instances, of the fees which are elsewhere exacted. It is perhaps not a 
 matter of much consequence that all our vernacular schools, which are 
 almost wholly devoted to the communication of scriptural knowledge, 
 should in present circumstances be connected with the Government 
 scheme." 
 
534 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1857. 
 
 It was on the 18th July 1857, in the darkest hour of the 
 mutiny, that the University of Bombay received its charter. 
 "We applaud the inhabitants of Leyden, said Dr. "Wilson 
 afterwards, when speaking as its Vice-Chancellor, who con- 
 certed measures for founding a University even during the 
 terrible siege of their town by the Spaniards in 1573, when 
 6000 of their number perished by famine and pestilence, and 
 who devoted to that University the remission of taxes offered 
 them as a reward for their patriotism. Shall we, he asked, 
 withhold the meed of praise from the Government of India ? 
 Fortunately it was to Lord Elphinstone, who, with Dr Wil- 
 son's advice, had proved himself an educational reformer in 
 Madras, that the duty fell of organising the new academic 
 body. 
 
 LORD ELPHINSTONE TO DR. WILSON. 
 
 " MAHABLESHWAR, 2Ist April 1855. 
 
 " MY DEAR DR. WILSON I wanted to ask you if you would 
 
 consent to be one of the Senate of our new University? You are 
 aware that it is not to be a place of education, but rather a body which 
 is to examine the students of other places of education, and to confer 
 degrees. In fact it is to be, I imagine, the touchstone by which the 
 teaching of the different affiliated Institutions, and in some measure 
 of all the educational Institutions in the Presidency is to be tested. I 
 am most anxious that it should have the perfect confidence of all those 
 who are interested in native education, and that the Senate should 
 fairly represent all who are engaged or interested in this great work. 
 With this object in view I trust that you will not refuse to be nomi- 
 nated to it. The office is purely honorary, and need not be in any 
 degree burdensome." 
 
 19th September 1855. 
 
 " I assure you that I was very much gratified to hear from you 
 that the views I have adopted on University matters are so much in 
 accordance with your own. I fear that I have laid too little stress on 
 the study of Sanscrit. When I first came to India, eighteen years ago, 
 there was a great controversy going on between the supporters of the 
 old system of teaching Sanscrit and Arabic in the Government col- 
 leges, and those who thought that these studies were useless, or even 
 worse than useless ; and that European literature and science, taught 
 

 1857.] CORRESPONDENCE ON THE BOMBAY UNIVERSITY. '535 
 
 through the medium of the English language, should take their place. 
 I sided with the latter, though even then I thought that they went too 
 far in insisting upon the English as the sole medium of instruction ; 
 but * though I always felt that the cultivation of the living languages 
 of India was most important, I am afraid that I altogether overlooked 
 the importance, even with reference to the critical study and improve- 
 ment of these languages, of the Sanscrit. I have just glanced over the 
 articles in the Oriental Christian Spectator, which you have been good 
 enough to send me, and I feel that in my ignorance I have not hitherto 
 given due weight to the -considerations which induce you to recommend 
 its study. I must not allow you to give me credit which I do not 
 deserve. When we were asked to give our opinions upon these ques- 
 tions I was much at a loss, not having been at a University myself, and 
 not having had any opportunity of considering them." 
 
 Long and detailed were the discussions of the new Senate 
 in working out regulations for the University. The share 
 which Dr. Wilson had in these, and the success with which 
 he secured due recognition of the Christian Philosophy and 
 Literature, side by side with the non-Christian, and solely on 
 the ground of confidence in truth and academic fitness, is seen 
 in the following extracts from letters to Dr. Duff, who passed 
 through Bombay on his return to Scotland at the close of 1863. 
 Dr. Wilson wrote with the experience not only of one of the 
 founders of the University, but as a member of Syndicate, 
 Dean of the Faculty of Arts, and an examiner in Sanscrit, 
 Persian, Hebrew, Marathee, Goojaratee, and Hindostanee : 
 
 " Had it not been for most strenuous and almost self-destroying 
 efforts and exertions which I made from day to day during the first 
 discussion of the bye-laws, there would have been no recognition in 
 them, as subjects of study, of Moral Philosophy, of Jewish History, 
 and of the Evidences of Christianity in the case of undergraduates 
 electing them ; and had we not had a good backing in the addition to 
 the Senate in 1864 of Messrs. Aitken, Dhunjeebhoy, and Stothert, I 
 verily believe that good which has been since effected in other matters 
 might not have been realised. Our combined yet independent action 
 in the frequent meetings of the Senate and in the Faculty to which we 
 belong, is of a most salutary character, while, as calls are made upon 
 us, we can engage in the University examinations without an inter- 
 ruption of our mission work." 
 
536 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1865. 
 
 " I send you the list of books (independent of those mentioned in 
 our bye-laws), which we have lately chosen in our University, for a 
 cycle of five years in advance of 1870. You will see from it that 
 even in our University studies there is a good foundation for Christian 
 tuition in the case of ardent, judicious, and otherwise competent mis- 
 sionaries. This remark has special reference to the English books 
 prescribed, in connection with which the truths of Christianity may be 
 easily and systematically taught. [A Lecture which I delivered some 
 three years ago on the Foundational Facts of Milton's Paradise Lost, 
 was attended by about 700 students.] In our Sanscrit course, till the 
 B.A. is passed, we have prescribed the Tarkasangraha, the fundamental 
 treatise of the Nyaya (the Theistic Philosophy holding, however, the 
 eternity of atoms formed, fashioned, and directed by a Creator). The 
 same Philosophy reappears in three of the five years in the M.A. 
 course. From the Vedanta, which we have admitted for two years, we 
 have eliminated the Brahma Sutras, with the Commentary of that for- 
 midable sophist Shankaracharya. The whole Sanscrit course I have 
 all along most profitably contrasted with Christianity. Our Hebrew 
 studies, not yet announced for the cycle, are from the Bible, which can 
 maintain its place spite the Arabic Koran. For our systematic Biblical 
 reading and lecturing we can maintain a due place, by insisting on the 
 conditions of our missionary Institutions. It is a fact that the eagerness 
 for graduation is a temptation to many young men to confine their 
 attention to the studies prescribed by the Universities ; but what would 
 be the consequence if, instead of opposing that temptation, we were to 
 withdraw from the arena? What would soon be the character of the 
 Universities themselves ? What would soon be the state of the 
 
 educated mind of India, which rules the native world ? What ? 
 
 I may go on for hours suggesting most lamentable consequences." 
 
 From the first meeting of the Senate to the last which he 
 was able to attend, Dr. Wilson guided the course of the 
 University of Bombay with affectionate solicitude and cul- 
 tured catholicity of spirit. When the Government appointed 
 the zealous Christian missionary and uncompromising pro- 
 selytiser, Yice-Chancellor, it at once proclaimed practically 
 the final abandonment of the last relics of the distrust of 
 truth, and won the applause of educated men of all creeds 
 and races in India. The Governor-General had offered the 
 similar honorary but very influential office, of virtual director 
 
1868.] NATIVE BENEFACTORS OF THE UNIVERSITY. 537 
 
 of the whole education of millions, to the good and the 
 scholarly Bishop Cotton, who too modestly declined it. Had 
 Dr. Duff remained longer in India he would have been 
 nominated by Lord Lawrence. As Vice- Chancellor of Bom- 
 bay, when, in the resplendent robes of his office, he took the 
 chief part in the ceremonial of laying the foundation-stone of 
 the University building designed by Sir Gilbert Scott, he thus 
 chronicled the endowments presented by his native and non- 
 Christian friends endowments to be increased by himself in 
 the foundation of the John Wilson Chair of Comparative 
 Philology. 
 
 " The personal benevolence which we are required to acknowledge 
 preceded that of the Government. Mr. Cowasjee Jehanghier Ready- 
 money furnished the University in 1863 with one lakh of rupees (.10,000), 
 now very considerably increased by accumulated interest, towards the 
 erection of a University Hall. In 1864 Mr. Premchund Eoychund 
 presented us with two lakhs of rupees for the erection of a Library, and 
 in the same year with another two lakhs of rupees for the erection of a 
 Tower, to contain a large clock and a set of joy bells. Independently 
 of the buildings, several most valuable endowments have been conferred 
 on the University, as Rs. 20,000 in four per cent Government securities, 
 by the Hon. Munguldass Nathoobhoy, for establishing a travelling fellow- 
 ship ; Rs. 5000 (500), by the family of the late Mr. Manockjee Limjee, 
 for a gold medal to be given for the best English Essay on a prescribed 
 subject ; Rs. 10,000 by Mr. Bungwandass Purshotumdass, for a Sanscrit 
 scholarship ; Rs. 5000 by Mr. Homejee Cursetjee Dady Shet, for an 
 annual gold medal for the best English Poem on a given subject offered 
 in competition ; an endowment of six Sanscrit scholarships (three of 
 Rs. 25 each, and three of Rs. 20 each per mensem), amounting altogether 
 to Rs. 30,000, by Mr. Yinayekrao Jugonnathjee Sunkersett, in memory 
 of his late father, the Hon. Jugonnath Sunkersett, one of the greatest 
 supporters of education in the Bombay Presidency ; Rs. 4500 by His 
 Highness the Jam of Nowanuggur, for an English scholarship to be 
 held by a native of Kathiawar ; Rs. 5000 in four per cent notes, by 
 Mr. Cowasjee Jehanghier Readymoney, for founding a Latin Scholar- 
 ship ; and Rs. 5000 from the members of the Civil Service and other 
 gentlemen, for an annual gold medal, as a prize in law, for the com- 
 memoration of the accomplishments and worth of the Hon. Alexander 
 
538 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [I860. 
 
 Kinloch Forbes, Judge of the High Court, and Vice-Chancellor of this 
 University. In all these great and generous gifts, the liberality of 
 Bombay, according to its wont, has been most distinguished and ex- 
 emplary. 
 
 " Our University, thus auspiciously begun, will, it is confidently 
 believed, continue to flourish. Under its direction and superintendence 
 the inquisitive and ingenious Indian youth may effectively study the 
 rich and varied languages, literature, history, and laws of England, of 
 Italy, of Greece, of Judea, of Arabia, and of India ; have his mind 
 disciplined and exercised by the sciences of mathematical demonstra- 
 tion and investigation, and of the dialectic art ; expatiate in the near 
 and remote, minute and grand regions of physical science ; contemplate 
 what are still more wonderful, the faculties, functions, intuitions, and 
 phenomena of the human mind ; dwell on the moral relationship of 
 man to his Maker and to his fellow-creatures ; consider the economy 
 of social and national Government in all its connections ; prepare him- 
 self for the practice of the healing art, for the administration of justice, 
 or for the application of engineering in all its departments, to the 
 necessities, convenience, and gratification of the human family ; and 
 train himself for the discharge of the general duties of life in the most 
 varied circumstances. Its influence on the intellectual and moral 
 state of its alumni on their ultimate position in this world, and on 
 their prospects with regard to that which is to come, may surely be 
 expected to be beneficial in no common degree. It is not merely with 
 its alumni, however, that it will have to do. It will affect through 
 them the whole community of Western India, if not of distant provinces 
 and countries. It will, with the blessing of God, which we implore in 
 its behalf, be for ages an eminent instrumentality in the enlightenment, 
 civilisation, and regeneration of THE EAST." 
 
 It was in May 1860 that Bombay lost the services of its 
 Governor, Lord Elphinstone, who had guided the province 
 through perilous times with rare firmness, wisdom, and self- 
 sacrifice. He died soon after, leaving a name worthy to be 
 placed beside that of his greater uncle's, and perpetuated by 
 more than one institution and building in the capital where 
 he ruled so well. Writing to Mr. C. Eraser Tytler, C.S., of 
 the death of "our much loved and honoured friend," Dr. 
 Wilson alludes to this correspondence, which has a touching 
 interest for every scholar and Bombay man: 
 
I860.] DEATH OF MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE. 539 
 
 DR. WILSON TO LORD ELPHINSTONE ON THE HON. MOUNTSTUART 
 ELPHINSTONE'S DEATH. 
 
 "DEESA, Qth December 1860. 
 
 " MY DEAR LORD ELPHINSTONE. I have been very sorry to see in 
 the papers which have reached me at this station this morning the 
 intimation of the death of your uncle, the distinguished and venerated 
 Mountstuart Elphinstone. I hope I am not guilty of unseemly in- 
 trusion when I say that I most sincerely sympathise with your Lord- 
 ship in this bereavement, which you must keenly and deeply feel, as 
 that by which the most endeared human sympathy and invaluable 
 encouragement and support, extended to you from your earliest years, 
 are withdrawn from you, even when, by absence in this remote land, 
 on account of our national exigencies, you have been denied the mourn- 
 ful satisfaction of their last expression to yourself. I do feel much for 
 you in the view of the rupture which has been made in the case of the 
 tenderest of ties, and of the greatness of the loss which you have 
 sustained ; and I fervently pray that the God of all grace may minister 
 to you that resignation and consolation which are needful. They are 
 to be found only in the source from which, I am sure, it will be your 
 privilege to seek them in the recognition of the allwise and righteous 
 sovereignty of God ; in the thankful admission of the greatness of the 
 divine favour extended to yourself, as well as to the public, for such 
 a lengthened period as that for which Mr. Elphinstone was spared after 
 his retirement from active life in India ; in the treasure of hallowed 
 reminiscences which must ever remain with you as the most precious 
 legacy of the departed ; in that free access which we all have to the 
 peace and comfort vouchsafed to us by our merciful and faithful High- 
 Priest ; and in that salutary improvement which,' by His word and 
 Spirit, we may make of all our trials and afflictions. 
 
 " I see from the papers that Mr. Elphinstone's death was of a 
 sudden character, as is often the case with those of his advanced years. 
 The calmness and peace, and peculiar occupations of the life which he 
 has so long led in his retirement, however, have been favourable to his 
 contemplation of those great and abiding interests which are paramount 
 under our relationship to our Creator, Preserver, and Redeemer. I have 
 often been struck with the high moral tone of his State papers and 
 publications, and with the respect which he cherished and expressed 
 for the great principles and ordinances of our holy faith, as contrasted 
 with those by which the religious systems of India are characterised. 
 The subdued moderation of his desires for earthly fame and honour 
 
540 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [I860. 
 
 which, notwithstanding, will be the position of his memory in connexion 
 with the history of India till latest ages teaches a lesson which it 
 will be profitable to all to learn. 
 
 " Though solely owing to his own declinature never at the helm 
 of supreme power in India, it will, I doubt not, be found that in the 
 comprehension of the mind and feeling of India ; in the adaptation 
 to the circumstances of this country of public measures ; in prompt 
 but calm energy even in troublous times ; in soundness of judgment ; in 
 suavity, grace, and dignity of intercommunion with Natives and Euro- 
 pean functionaries ; and in the impartiality, disinterestedness, benefi- 
 cence, and wisdom of administration, he was actually the greatest of 
 our Indian statesmen. Comparison of him with the great names of 
 Sir Thomas Munro, Sir John Malcolm, and Lord Metcalfe, is the most 
 legitimate ; and in making this comparison, it will be seen that in the 
 excellences now alluded to he excelled them all. Though not to the 
 degree of a Olive, a Hastings, a Wellesley, or a Cornwallis, a founder of 
 our Indian Empire, he was eminently a confirmer and conservator of 
 that empire, whose high principle and meritorious example will be 
 respected and imitated the more that they are known. In point of 
 fact, he had most to do with the movements which led to the acquisition 
 of the Maratha country ; and the work of its settlement, so satisfactory 
 and permanent (to the weal of its people and the peace of all India), 
 was peculiarly his own. His diplomatic and governmental services, 
 with which he may be said to have begun and ended his public career, 
 were great successes. As a traveller he was enterprising, discreet, 
 exact, and truthful. As a historian he will be long valued for his 
 observation, research, judiciousness, and faithfulness. On reading his 
 History of India one constantly feels that he knew both the country and 
 the people of whom he writes. His own biography, appear when it 
 may, will be an invaluable boon to our nation and the civilised world. 
 
 " I am perhaps going wrong when I make these remarks to your 
 Lordship ; but I know that one of the first effects of your grief will be 
 that of leading you to looking to the excellence which is removed from 
 this earthly sphere, where, however, it is destined to be ever remembered. 
 
 " We have been much retarded in our journey to Rajpootana by 
 the severe illness of both the young missionaries, particularly at 
 Kaira and this station. The doctor, however, has told us that we may 
 now move on in a couple of days. We expect to get to the station of 
 Beawur, where we shall rest fora little, in the course of a fortnight. I 
 propose to visit from it Nusseerabad, Ajmer, and Jodhpore before 
 setting out on my return to Bombay. The whole of the country 
 
I860.] MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE'S PAPERS. 541 
 
 through which we are passing is quiet and well affected to the British 
 Government. 
 
 " Mrs. Wilson joins me in the expression of the deepest sympathy, 
 and I am, my dear Lord Elphinstone, with great regard, yours very 
 respectfully, JOHN WILSON." 
 
 " BOMBAY, 1 3th January 1860. I feel very grateful to you for the 
 sympathy you express upon the loss I have sustained in my uncle's 
 death. Of all the men I have ever known I loved and respected him 
 the most. Upon all occasions of difficulty I looked to him for counsel 
 and encouragement. I was in frequent correspondence with him to 
 the last, and I feel that his place can never be supplied. On the other 
 hand, although his death was very sudden I cannot say that I was 
 surprised at it. When I came out to India my hopes of seeing him 
 again in this world were very slight ; he was then seventy-four, and 
 his health was always delicate, yet as years passed away, and as he 
 continued to write to me with his usual vigour and interest in this 
 country, I could not but hope that I should be permitted to see him 
 again ; and as the time of my probable return approached this hope 
 grew stronger. It was with feelings of sorrow and disappointment, 
 therefore, rather than of surprise, that I received the account of his 
 death. There is, indeed, much for which I can never be sufficiently 
 thankful. In the first place, that it pleased God to allow my dear 
 uncle to retain the possession of his intellect unimpaired to the last. 
 Of all things the saddest is to see a great mind in decay, and this trial 
 I have been spared in his case. Then I have every reason to believe 
 that his death, though at the last sudden, did not find him unprepared. 
 He made some slight alterations in his will within a month of his 
 death, and a letter was found with it addressed to me, in which he begs 
 that his papers may not hastily, or without due reservation, be made 
 over to any one for publication. All his papers were found in the 
 most admirable order, and I have requested that they may be kept 
 exactly as he left them until I return. He has remembered most of 
 his relations and all his servants in his will, and more than one of his 
 bequests show his delicacy and thoughtfulness towards others. He was 
 indeed one of those who delighted in doing good by stealth. 
 
 " I had written thus far when I was interrupted, and I have but 
 little time to finish this letter. Mr. Walter Elliot, who went home by 
 the last steamer, begged me to remember him to you, and to say how 
 much he regretted your absence. I am happy to say that he is in 
 excellent health ; few people go home after thirty -nine years' service 
 looking so hale and hearty. 
 
542 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [I860. 
 
 11 1 have no doubt that your journey will he one of great interest 
 to you. I was very much pleased with Ajmer. There is an old Jain 
 or Buddhist temple turned into a mosque, which is very curious ; the 
 outside is quite Mahometan, and the carving is very fine in its way, 
 but the interior is evidently of a different style, and the lotus and 
 lozenge, and bell and chain ornaments all belong to the Jains or 
 Buddhists. 
 
 " I have been reading a review of two works, with which I dare say 
 you are well acquainted, but which were both new to me Christianity 
 and Mankind, by Mr. Bunsen, and the History of the First Three Cen- 
 turies of the Clirislian Church, by M. de Pressense, a French Protestant, 
 and, I think, a minister. They must both be very remarkable works, and 
 the review of them by M. Milsand in the Revue des Deux Mondes is well 
 worth reading. But I must bring this letter to a close. I beg you 
 once more to accept my most sincere thanks for your kind sympathy, 
 and I must also ask you to convey them to Mrs. Wilson, with my very 
 kind remembrance. I hope that you will both derive much benefit 
 and pleasure from your tour, and that you will be able to return to 
 Bombay before the weather becomes hot. Believe me, my dear Dr. 
 Wilson, yours most sincerely, ELPHINSTONE." 
 
 Very beautiful were the relations, of which these glimpses 
 have been given, between the Governor and the Missionary. 
 Good reason had Lord Elphinstone to remark to Dr. H. Miller 
 that to no man was he so indebted personally, for public and 
 private services, as to Dr. Wilson, on whom he could not pre- 
 vail to accept so much as the value of a shoe-latchet. When, 
 in public meeting, moving the adoption of the farewell address 
 which the province selected him to present to the retiring 
 Governor, Dr. Wilson especially referred to his Excellency's 
 " constant recognition of the great principles of religious tole- 
 ration and humanity," especially in the suppression of hook- 
 swinging, and in securing to all, out-caste as well as Brahman, 
 access to the public wells and cisterns. 
 
CHAPTEE XVII. 
 
 1862-1865. 
 
 THE KRISHNA ORGIES DR. WILSON AMONG THE EDUCATED 
 NATIVES. 
 
 Brahmanism opposed to Rational Humanity The Stages of its Corruption 
 Krishna Worship The Four Krishna Reformers Young Bombay Vallabh 
 the Royal Teacher of Deified Adultery Trade of Bombay taxed for the 
 Maharajas A Courageous Editor The Trial Mr. Chisholm Anstey Dr. 
 Wilson's evidence Sir Joseph Arnould's Judgment Public Opinion Testi- 
 monial to Kursundas Mooljee Advice to Hindoos to Travel Sir Jamsetjee 
 Jeejeebhoy's Benevolent Institution Influence of Dr. Wilson in Hindoo and 
 Parsee Families Rai Bahadoor Tirmal Rao "Uncle" Wilson A Hindoo 
 Lady learning to read at Sixty Intercourse with Native Princes Raja 
 Dinkur Rao Prince of Johanna The Converts' Address to Dr. Wilson on 
 the Thirtieth Anniversary of his Landing Reviews his Missionary Policy 
 Building of the Native Church and Manse The services and drowning of 
 Stephen Hislop. 
 
" In hac disceptatione hujuscemodi ratiocinatio summam quaestionis 
 absolvit. Proponunt Grseci : Si dii tales colendi stint, profecto etiam tales 
 homines honorandi. Assumunt Romani : Sed nullo modo tales homines 
 honorandi sunt. Concludunt Christiani : Nullo modo igitur dii tales colendi 
 sunt." S. AUE. AUGUSTINI : De Civitate Dei. 
 
 " Primarily he attacks a flagrant social enormity and scandal. For genera- 
 tions the hereditary high priests of his sect had, as he believed, committed 
 whoredom with the daughters of his people. Like the sons of Eli they had 
 done this openly at the gates of the temple like the sons of Eli they had done 
 this under the pretended sanction and in the abused name of religion. This 
 is the thing he denounces. It would be a waste of words to point out that in 
 denouncing it vehemently, bitterly, indignantly, he was within the strict 
 limits of his duty as a public writer. The interests of society require that 
 wickedness such as this should be sternly exposed and unrelentingly hunted 
 down. If to write vehemently, bitterly, indignantly, on such a subject as 
 this be libellous, than were the Prophets of old libellers ; then were the early 
 Fathers of the Church libellers ; then have all earnest men in all time been 
 libellers, who have published to the world, in the fit language of generous in- 
 dignation, their scorn of hypocrisy and their hatred of vice 
 
 " It seems impossible that this matter should have been discussed thus 
 openly before a population so intelligent as that of the natives of "Western 
 India without producing its results. It has probably taught some to think ; 
 it must have led many to inquire. It is not a question of theology that has 
 been before us ! it is a question of morality. The principle for which the 
 defendant and his witnesses have been contending is simply this that what 
 is morally wrong cannot be theologically right ; that when practices which 
 sap the very foundations of morality, which involve a violation of the eternal 
 and immutable laws of Right, are established in the name and under the 
 sanction of Religion, they ought, for the common welfare of society, and in 
 the interests of humanity itself, to be publicly denounced and exposed. They 
 have denounced they have exposed them. At a risk and to a cost which we 
 cannot adequately measure, these men have done determined battle against a 
 foul and powerful delusion. They have dared to look Custom and Error boldly 
 in the face, and proclaim before the world of their votaries that their Evil is 
 not Good, that their Lie is not the Truth. In thus doing they have done 
 bravely and well. It may be allowable to express a hope that what they have 
 done will not have been in vain ; that the seed they have sown will bear its 
 fruit ; that their courage and consistency will be rewarded by a steady increase 
 in the number of those whom their words and their examples have quickened 
 into thought and animated to resistance, whose homes they have helped to 
 cleanse from loathsome lewdness and whose souls they have set free from 
 a debasing bondage." 
 
 SIR JOSEPH ARNOULD : Judgment in the Maharaj Libel Case. 
 
1862.] BRAHMANISM OPPOSED TO RATIONAL HUMANITY. 545 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE late Canon Mozley, a Christian philosopher who has been 
 pronounced, with some justice, the Bishop Butler of this genera- 
 tion, published an Essay on "Indian Conversion," twenty years 
 ago. 1 Writing before the comparatively rapid development of 
 the Church of India, the Protestant sections of which already 
 form a varied community of more than three hundred thousand 
 souls, he argued, on the ground of reason alone, that Brahmanism 
 will be gradually but completely demolished by the fair and 
 solid contact of Christianity with it. Tor Brahmanism is at 
 disagreement with the original type of rational humanity; with 
 the religious type and the moral standard in human nature ; 
 with physical truth, and with the ends of society. Not less 
 convincing is the historical argument; and when both are 
 looked at together in the light of time, as the factor in the 
 world's changes, the conclusion is overpowering, apart from 
 Scripture. From the monotheism and nature-worship of the 
 early Vedic hymns and Zoroastrian gathas, to the polytheism 
 and sacerdotal caste which provoked the Buddhist reform, 
 what a change ! And yet it is spread over, at least, twelve cen- 
 turies. Arrested for a time by men like Asoka, the Brahma- 
 nical corruption leavened the whole lump of Asiatic life, 
 whether Hindoo or Buddhist, till, at the close of the next 
 twelve centuries, the faith of Gautama was wiped out in 
 blood all over the peninsula, and only the conforming Jains 
 remained to tell of the impotence of the creed that had cut its 
 
 1 Bentley's Quarterly, Jan. 1859, republished in his Essays, Historical and 
 Theological, 1878, with a Sketch of the lamented theologian's career. 
 
 2N 
 
546 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1862. 
 
 temples and monasteries out of the living rock, that had sub- 
 dued Tibet and China, Burma and Ceylon. Triumphant 
 Brahmanism entered on the third stage of its descending 
 progress ten centuries ago, with all its evils intensified, and 
 afterwards but little checked by the iconoclastic fanaticism of 
 the Muhammadan invasion. Ceasing to spread, save among 
 the aborigines it had long scorned, when it did not reduce 
 them to the worst slavery, Brahmanism was driven in on 
 itself. For nearly a century it found a protection alike 
 against Mussulman intolerance and Christian light in the 
 encouragement of the East Indian Company, which Charles 
 Grant and Wilberforce first stopped by the Charter of 1833. 
 
 After the persecution of Buddhism there arose the latest 
 development of the Hindoo system in the worship of Krishna. 
 Thenceforth Brahmanism was to act on the elastic policy of 
 finding a place for every sect, every sentiment, every god, 
 every deified hero or saint, that would consent, even indirectly, 
 to affiliate itself. Like the Paganism of the Eoman empire, 
 the Brahmanism which emerged from the struggle with 
 Buddhism, wounded and wise, would have included Chris- 
 tianity itself, if that had consented to be dragged at its chariot 
 wheels. Krishna, on his best side, it was not difficult to iden- 
 tify with Christ, sufficiently to satisfy the uneducated. The 
 Jesuits of the Madura Mission themselves favoured the iden- 
 tification, and forged Vedas to prove it. So saturated is the 
 Bhagavat Puran of this period with Christian-like sentiment, 
 that it is still a subject of discussion whether the similarity 
 was not designed. 
 
 Krishna, the god of love in the Oriental sense of lust, has 
 ever since marked the accelerating corruption of popular Hin- 
 dooism. At first, like Buddhism, a concession to the discon- 
 tent with caste, sacerdotalism, exclusiveness, and rigidity, the 
 Krishna worship seems to rest on the idea of brotherhood 
 including even Muhammadans. From the teaching of 
 
1862.] THE NON-BRAHMANICAL BROTHERHOODS. 547 
 
 Rarnanuj and Ramanand there arose four reformers in the 
 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in each of the great provinces 
 of Hindooism. Kabeer, the weaver, was the Hindee; Nanuk, 
 the herd-boy, was the Punjabee or Sikh; Chaitunya, the Brah- 
 man, was the Bengalee ; and Tukaram, the shopkeeper, was 
 the Marathee teacher, singer, and priest. Each was the Vates 
 of his countrymen. Dr. Wilson early became familiar with 
 their teaching, especially with that of Tukaram, a poet who 
 has of late been frequently translated into English, while the 
 whole Adi G-rantJi, or scriptures of ISTanuk, has been recently 
 turned into English by Dr. Trumpp. All wrote in the ver- 
 nacular ; all proclaimed the brotherhood of Vishnoo in his 
 Krishna form; and all, as developed by their followers, ended 
 in the deification and practice of lust and intolerant cruelty. 
 The Jugganath car- worship, on which a lurid light has been 
 thrown by the recent trial and banishment to the Andamans 
 of its deified representative, the Eaja of Pooree, for murder 
 by torture, is of the same reformed school. 
 
 Gradually Brahmanism found that its subtle policy of 
 widening the bonds of Hindooism so as to include all appa- 
 rently conforming sects, though on the whole successful, 
 encouraged low -caste fanatics to claim, as pontiffs, the 
 adoration and very substantial revenues of the people. The 
 Vaishnava brotherhoods have thus honeycombed the old 
 sacerdotalism with secret, and generally filthy and execrable, 
 cults all over India south and west of the Ganges. Their 
 leaders have established the most frequented shrines, for 
 which whole armies of debased recruiters tout for pilgrims; and 
 they have become wandering popes, who travel with all the 
 pomp and pride of the gods they represent. The regular 
 Brahmans resent this, not on moral but on pecuniary grounds, 
 and strive to compete with their rivals. Thus the deteriora- 
 tion goes on, till India presents the same state of things which 
 is so accurately pictured in the second or third century 
 
548 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. L 1862 - 
 
 romance of The Clementines, the same crowd of Antinomian 
 sects, like the Mcolaitans, through which the paganism of the 
 empire vainly tried to compete with the only Faith that has 
 ever enforced continence and purity. He who would learn 
 what Hindooism now is, whether Brahmanical or Yaishnava, 
 will find the materials in the great treatise of Dr. Norman 
 Chevers on Medical Jurisprudence in India, and in the col- 
 lection of libri execrandi in the Bodleian, made by the late 
 Horace Hayman Wilson for his work on The Religious Sects 
 of the Hindoos. 
 
 Against such teaching and practices there has always been 
 that outraged native opinion which will yet cast forth the 
 whole system responsible for them. So far as the class of 
 educated reformers, in the true sense of the word, has not 
 yet found its way into the Christian Church, but has become 
 known as "Young Bombay" or "Young Bengal," they are 
 indirectly the offspring of the education and influences of 
 the cultured missionaries. In Bombay Dr. Wilson was the 
 teacher, the adviser, the friend, of all such non-Christian or 
 almost Christian natives. To them, in a hundred ways, the 
 most precious portion not only of such morning leisure as he 
 could claim, but of his working hours, was gladly given up. 
 By the press, the college, lectures, the Asiatic Society, public 
 meetings, discussions, social intercourse, and often substantial 
 patronage, he made himself their example and their guide. 
 Poor and rich, low and high caste, pundit and English-speak- 
 ing, they all knew him ; for they, and their fathers, and their 
 children sat at his feet during nigh half a century. In 
 the light of the future, we believe his work among and for 
 the non- Christian natives who resided in or passed through 
 Bombay, to have exceeded in influence that which created 
 the native church. It extended even where he was not 
 personally known ; it returned to him in the most unexpected 
 ways. How he was to the natives as to the Europeans of 
 
 
 
1862.] CARNAL OUTRAGES OF THE MAHARAJ PRIESTS. 549 
 
 Bombay a great and recognised moral force, all the more 
 because of his Hindoo and Muhammadan discussions and 
 Parsee controversies, was seen in what is popularly known as 
 the Maharaj libel case. 
 
 When, at the end of the fifteenth century, Nanuk was 
 gathering his Sikhs or disciples in the Punjab, Vallabh, son 
 of a Brahman of Bijanuggur, went to the north of India as 
 acharya or religious teacher. "To Krishna," he taught his 
 followers, " dedicate body, soul, and possessions " tan, man, 
 dlian. Krishna is to be worshipped in the person of the 
 gooroo or teacher, who himself becomes the god. The teacher 
 is therefore to be addressed as a King or Maharaj ; his 
 followers are to worship him by sexual intercourse, or by 
 witnessing such intercourse. While gods, the Vallabacharyas 
 are also gopees, or herd-women devoted to Krishna according 
 to the scandalous legend; and hence they dress as women, 
 with long hair, female ornaments, and toe-rings. The union 
 with the Maharajas, of the wives and daughters of the devo- 
 tees, according to the vow of dedication, is union with Krishna, 
 as in the Eas Lila. Hence, like the parallel sect of the 
 Shaktees, or worshippers of the female principle in Bengal, 
 the carnal love-meetings of the married followers, known as Eas 
 Mandalis. Hence every Vallabacharya temple becomes the 
 scene of adultery under so-called divine sanction. This faith 
 is professed, these practices were followed, by the largest and 
 wealthiest of the Hindoo communities of Western India, whose 
 scripture is the tenth book of the Bhagavat Puran, translated 
 from Sanscrit into the Brijabasha dialect as Prem Sagur, or 
 the Ocean of Love. The Bhattias, Marwarees, and Lowanas 
 the men who, as clerks and partners in mercantile houses, as 
 capitalists and shopkeepers, come most closely into contact 
 with Europeans were the men who adored the Maharajas, 
 and whose wives and daughters were thus publicly debauched. 
 Numbering probably not fewer than half a million in Western 
 
550 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1862. 
 
 India, they paid the Maharajas' dues, according to a fixed tariff, 
 on every article they sold, the real payer being the consumer 
 of course. Thus these pontiffs of Krishna waxed fat with 
 organised adultery and an ever-increasing tax on half the 
 trade of Bombay. The impost of a farthing on every ten 
 pounds' worth of Lancashire goods sold, yielded two temples 
 alone 5300 in one year. Not one important article of trade 
 escaped a similar impost. 
 
 The Brahmans of the island, being beggars chiefly, receive 
 alms from the Yaishnava, as well as Siva sects ; and this the 
 Maharaj pontiffs in 1855 determined to stop, as an interference 
 with their rights. Their followers consented, on the condition 
 of reforms in the temple abuses, such as the cessation by the 
 Maharajas of adulterous intercourse with their females at the 
 winter service at four in the morning, and the pollution of young 
 girls, the ever-increasing extortion, the taking of bribes in 
 cases of arbitration, the summoning of worshippers to the 
 shrines at all hours to attend the idol, and the beating of the 
 crowds to hasten their passage through the temple. The 
 promises were given but never carried out. The ignorant 
 Maharajas were defeated in a public discussion with the 
 Brahmans who knew Sanscrit ; and their dignity was lowered 
 by the order of the Supreme Court that they must attend 
 when parties in a case, although they objected to sit lower 
 than a European. 
 
 Editing the Satya ProJcash, or " Light of Truth," one of 
 the sixteen Goojaratee newspapers, was a youth Kursundass 
 Mooljee, who was one of their followers and familiar with 
 their practices. He became the centre of the reformers ; and 
 against him the Maharajas hired a Parsee, the editor of our 
 old friend the Chabook, or " Whip." Kursundass welcomed 
 the arrival of Judoonath Brizruthunjee from Surat, as a 
 Maharaj who was said to have himself espoused the cause 
 of reform so far as to establish a female school. But one of 
 
1862.] A REFORMER EXPOSES THE PONTIFFS OF KRISHNA. 551 
 
 the reforming party having caught the new-comer in the very- 
 act of adultery in the temple, it became necessary to expose 
 that Maharaj also. Formerly the principal men of the com- 
 munity had signed a " slavery bond/' vowing to excommuni- 
 cate Kursundass, and to procure the passing of an Act to 
 exempt the Maharajas from attendance in courts of justice. 
 Only when that had been signed were the temples opened 
 and the enforced fasting ceased. Kursundass then pub- 
 lished an article headed "The Primitive Eeligion of the 
 Hindoos and the present Heterodox Opinions," in which not 
 only the whole sect but Judoonath Maharaj by name was 
 charged with doctrines and practices involving " shameless- 
 ness, .subtlety, immodesty, rascality, and deceit." This ap- 
 peared on the 21st October 1860. Seven months after the 
 Maharaj brought an action for libel in the Supreme Court 
 against the editor and printer, laying the damages at Es. 5000. 
 At the same time he induced his leading followers to refuse 
 to give evidence under pain of excommunication. Two of 
 these were sentenced to heavy fines for conspiracy to defeat 
 the ends of justice, and then the main case proceeded. From 
 the 26th January 1862 it lasted forty days, for twenty- 
 four of which it was before Sir M. Sausse, the Chief Justice, 
 and Sir Joseph Arnould, Puisne Judge. 
 
 The success of the defendant, who pleaded justification, 
 was due to two men. Mr. Chisholm Anstey, his senior coun- 
 sel, supplied the legal learning and forensic skill with all that 
 persistence which, when not erratic as too often in his case, 
 made him an antagonist to be feared whether in Parliament, 
 at the bar, or on the bench. Dr. Wilson contributed the 
 learning and the uprightness required to convict the Maharaj 
 out of his own books. Some thirty other witnesses on either 
 side were heard, including Judoonath himself, and the ex- 
 penses amounted to 6000, of which he had to pay the greater 
 part. We have prefixed to this Chapter two passages from 
 
552 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1862. 
 
 Sir Joseph Arnould's judgment. Of Dr. Wilson's evidence 
 the accomplished Judge remarked "Dr. Wilson, who has 
 studied this subject with that comprehensive range of thought 
 (the result of varied erudition) which has made his name a 
 foremost one among the living Orientalists of Europe Dr. 
 Wilson says: 'The sect of Vallabacharya is a new sect, inasmuch 
 as it has selected the god Krishna in one of his aspects, that 
 of his adolescence, and raised him to supremacy in that aspect. 
 It is a new sect in as far as it has established the pusthti-marg , 
 or way of enjoyment, in a natural and carnal sense.' I agree 
 with Dr. Wilson in thinking that, ' all things considered, the 
 alleged libel is a very mild expostulation,' involving an 
 ' appeal to the principle that preceptors of religion, unless 
 they purify themselves, cannot expect success to attend their 
 labours.' " And the author of the volume which contains a 
 history of the whole sect and trial 1 expresses native opinion 
 when he writes : " Dr. Wilson's labours in this trial deserve 
 special notice. He placed at the disposal of the defendant 
 his rich and multifarious stores of learning, which proved of 
 surpassing value. Throughout the whole trial this learned 
 missionary ably sustained the character which he fills in the 
 estimation of the natives of India that of a philanthropist." 
 All the journals of India, native and European, rejoiced at 
 the vindication of morality and purity. 
 
 Under cross-examination Dr. Wilson testified to his 
 witnessing great abominations practised by the Vallab- 
 acharyan sectaries, from which he turned away with dis- 
 gust. So little informed were the English counsel for the 
 ignorant Maharaj that they submitted as a description of 
 the sect a work applicable to another altogether, and Dr. 
 Wilson turned the tables on them. But in re-publishing a 
 report of the trial in the Oriental Christian Spectator he wrote 
 
 1 History of the Sect of the Maharajas or Vallabacliaryas in Western India. 
 London, 1865. 
 
1862.] HIS EVIDENCE AND NATIVE OPINION. 553 
 
 " Its insertion in the instructions of the counsel for the pro- 
 secution shows the unprincipled and unscrupulous measures 
 of the prompters in this case, and the difficulties under which 
 unsuspecting English gentlemen laboured in dealing with it." 
 It should not be overlooked that Dr. Wilson did not know 
 Kursundass Mooljee. The movement was a purely native 
 one for reform within the sect to which the principal Hindoo 
 traders of Bombay belonged. Till he was summoned to the 
 witness-box, with translations of forgotten dialects and ex- 
 posures of iniquities unmentionable save for the ends of 
 justice and morality, the natives had fought alone. And he 
 rejoiced in their courage, which he thus publicly acknow- 
 ledged at a later date : " The educated Brahmans of the 
 present day now bid fair to take a leading part in destroying 
 both ignorance and error. This is specially the case in Western 
 India among many learned and honest-minded gentlemen, 
 such as Dr. Bhau Daji, Eao Saheb Vishvanath, Narayan 
 Mandalik, Mahadeva Govind Eanade, and Eamkrishna Gopal 
 Bhundarkur." When all was over Mr. Kursundass Mooljee 
 resolved to visit England, an account of his travels in which 
 he subsequently published in Goojaratee. Then it was that 
 Dr. Wilson headed all classes in Bombay at a meeting called 
 to raise funds in honour of the earnest reformer, and thus 
 counselled the great mercantile community of the Hindoos : 
 
 " A most horrible system of immorality, impurity, and iniquity, 
 long practised in Western and Northern India, had been exposed and 
 reprobated in a most effective manner, not only on the bench of justice, 
 but (by the help of the public press) throughout the whole length and 
 breadth of India. Only one thing remained to be done on behalf of 
 Mr. Kursundass by the friends of reform in Bombay, and that was to 
 present him with a substantial and permanent token of their approba- 
 tion, esteem, and gratitude. It was pleasing to find that this public 
 intimation was made to him at a favourable time when he and the 
 esteemed friend, Eao Bahadoor Ramchundra Balkrishna, under whose 
 happy roof the present meeting was being held, were about to brave 
 
554 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1862. 
 
 the prejudices and forces of caste and superstition by leaving for a 
 season the soil of India, and proceeding to the blessed climes of Europe, 
 both for their self-improvement and making legitimate commercial 
 arrangements which would be beneficial to their country. Their con- 
 templated voyage and journey, they have been told, was contrary to 
 the direct injunctions of what have been called the Shastres ; and it 
 must at once be freely and unceremoniously admitted that this is a 
 fact. The Shastres do interdict foreign travel. But what of the works 
 themselves so called? They (meaning by them the Smritis or law 
 books) are the products of the darkest age of Indian history. Though 
 in some instances they contain traditional information of a curious 
 kind, their legislation respecting social life is often of the most puerile 
 and foolish character. It is exactly in many respects what we might 
 expect if we were to collect the Bairagees and other devotees of 
 Walkeshwar, Mumbadevi, and Nasik, and fill with them the Council 
 Chamber. Who, nowadays, is prepared to abide by the decision of 
 the law books in regard either to moving or resting 1 I have seen 
 the attempt made to follow them (after their violation by a com- 
 pact of service with a European) by a learned pundit employed to teach 
 the Marathee language to a member of my own family. Care- 
 fully did he survey the interior of his house, a few yards distant 
 from the spot where the meeting had assembled together. He was 
 pleased to find the floor covered with matting of vegetable origin, and 
 to discover a chair on which to squat himself made of the same 
 material. The difficulty in the way of his getting through the duties 
 of the day without inconvenient ceremonial defilement, was seen at the 
 entrance to the residence. There lay a rug of animal material, which 
 he could not overstep without a great effort of muscular power. It 
 was only by a hop, step, and jump that he could clear it. Some- 
 times he fell short of the mark, and then had to be on the look- 
 out for the tail of a cow to touch for atonement on the way home 
 (laughter). Are any of the rational opponents of foreign travel on 
 the score of its opposition to the Shastres prepared to befool them- 
 selves by really making the Shastres thus the rule of their move- 
 ments in common life ? (laughter and applause). Are they even 
 prepared to sit according to the Shastres, and to undergo the well- 
 known penalty to be inflicted on Soodras (low-castes) for seating 
 themselves on the same couch with a Brahman ? Away with this 
 nonsense. Imitate the ancient Indians, who, as we learn from 
 the Vedas, were not afraid to go on distant voyages for mercantile and 
 other purposes. Imitate in this matter the Bhatyas, to whose com- 
 
1862.] HINDOOS URGED TO TRAVEL. 555 
 
 munity the worthy chairman belongs ; who for the purposes of commerce 
 are found on the shores of Arabia, both in the Persian Gulf and the 
 Ked Sea, and on the coasts of Africa even as far south as Mozambique, 
 and who have used these liberties from time immemorial. Messrs. 
 Kursundass and Ramchundra are to be congratulated, not only for the 
 valuable example which they are showing to their countrymen on this 
 occasion, but for the prospects of self-improvement which lie before 
 them. The friends present who have been already in Europe can give, 
 and have given, through the press, strong testimony in this matter. 
 Indian travel in Europe, too, bids fair to be as instructive to the natives 
 of India as European travel in India to the natives of Europe. Our 
 intending travellers are looking in a right direction. They go to the 
 centre of civilisation and philanthropy ; and they will there take 
 lessons in civilisation and philanthropy, as well as see their great parent 
 and nourisher, the Christianity of the 'Bible, in vigorous action. Let 
 them look not only at London, but at England in its length and 
 breadth ; and not merely at England, but at Scotland, where certainly 
 they will have a warm reception. (Applause.)" 
 
 Dr. Wilson had himself suggested and drawn up the 
 appeal for a public recognition of " the disinterested efforts 
 of Kursundass Mooljee to improve the state of Goojaratee 
 society, and especially of his courageous conduct, truthful- 
 ness, and singleness of purpose in the management of the 
 Maharaj libel case." His name is followed by that of the 
 Parsee reformer, Ardaseer Framjee. Christianity, Hindooism, 
 and Zoroastianism were thus seen happily allied in the 
 cause of morality and humanity. The result, with all that it 
 involved, was worth Dr. Wilson's thirty years' strivings. On 
 the same day he assisted Sir Bartle Frere, the Governor, in 
 examining the hundreds of Parsee youth, boys and girls, who 
 crowded the classes of the Benevolent Institution endowed 
 by Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy. The learned controversialist, 
 whose uncompromising but tolerant zeal for his Master had 
 years before excited a panic among the community when 
 several of their ablest youths were baptized into Christ, hail- 
 ing the pursuit of truth in every form, " referred to the intelli- 
 
556 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1862. 
 
 gence and enterprise of the Parsee community, who would 
 not only be patrons of learning in India, like the noble 
 Jeejeebhoy family, but participants of its great advantages." 
 The Governor followed, congratulating the dowager Lady 
 Jamsetjee on the results of her encouragement of female 
 education. 
 
 The subtle influence of Dr. "Wilson and his teaching, per- 
 meating generations of non- Christian native society, not only 
 in the capital but in distant cities and stations, may be best 
 seen if we select one of the many Hindoo families to whom 
 he always was, in the childlike language of the grateful 
 people of India, " Kaka " or Uncle Wilson ; just as soldiers 
 and administrators like Nicholson, Edwardes, and Abbot, were 
 among the wild Afghan tribes of our north-west frontier. For 
 forty years, and with four of its generations whom he 
 educated, Dr. Wilson and his wife maintained a closer 
 personal intercourse and more affectionate correspondence 
 with the family of the Hindoo Tirmal Eao, than we have 
 any example of. The now aged and honoured judge, whom, 
 in 1836, his father took from Dharwar in the far south, 
 to be educated in Bombay, tells the story so well in his 
 quaint English that we need not summarise the sixty-five 
 letters from Dr. Wilson which he prizes. This communica- 
 tion is introduced by his son, the Bombay High Court Inter- 
 preter and Senior Canarese and Marathee Translator, who 
 writes to us " He knew four generations of our family. He 
 loved me and my brother Venkut Eao most tenderly. He very 
 often remarked, in the meetings of his friends, that our father 
 completed his education under him, that we had been his 
 pupils, and that he looked upon us as his grandchildren. 
 You heard the same observation from his lips when he 
 formally introduced us to you in one' of those meetings con- 
 vened by him for your sake." 
 
1864.] INFLUENCE ON FOUR GENERATIONS. 557 
 
 From RAO BAHADOOK TIRMAL RAO VENKUTESH, Pensioned 
 Judge and First Class Honorary Magistrate. 
 
 " 10th February 1878. As my country is situated at the distance 
 of about 350 miles from Bombay, no one in those days sent their 
 children to Bombay to be educated. In 1836 my late father had 
 occasion to go to Bombay on some business, and was struck with 
 the English education that was imparted to the young men in 
 the Government school there, and his European friends advised 
 him to send me to Bombay. It was determined that I should be 
 placed under the care of the then Rev. Dr. J. Wilson, in preference to 
 being put into the Government school. I went to his house to pay 
 my respects to him for the first time. I remember perfectly well how 
 kindly he received me and what encouragement he gave me. He 
 directed me to see him in his house both in the mornings and evenings 
 every day, besides meeting him in the school. For some time Mathe- 
 matics seemed to me to be a dry and useless study. He therefore, on 
 one occasion, passed his hands over the figure of the 5th proposition of 
 the first book of Euclid in such a peculiar manner, and explained 
 matters to me so clearly, that from that moment I began to take 
 great liking for Mathematics. He taught me more of Geography, 
 Astronomy, Zoology, general History, and Scripture, in course of his 
 conversations in his house than in the regular classes in the schools. 
 He appointed the late Rev. R. Nesbit to teach me literature specially, 
 in addition to what I learnt in the classes, and permitted me also attend 
 the lectures given in Logic, Geology, Botany, and Chemistry in the 
 Elphinstone College by Professors Orlebar, Harkness, and Bell. Dr. 
 Wilson's mode of teaching was so entertaining that we never felt that 
 we were studying, but we used to think that we were playing with 
 him. He treated us more like our father than any one else. He 
 attended upon us during our sickness personally. In those days my 
 wife was quite illiterate. He impressed upon my mind the advantages 
 of female education, and made me teach her to read and write. At the 
 same time he got his sisters-in-law, the Misses Anna and Hay Bayne, to 
 undertake the education of my wife. 
 
 " During nights Dr. Wilson took me out in open air, and made me 
 acquainted with the different planets and constellations. He used 
 daily to pray to God in my behalf, and direct my mind towards God. 
 On Sundays he regularly took me to his church to hear him preach. 
 In fact the trouble that he took to educate me and the students of his, 
 classes was really inconceivable. After leaving his school he brought 
 me prominently to the notice of the then Governor, Sir R. Grant, and 
 
558 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1864. 
 
 other officers of the State, and it was in a measure owing to his recom- 
 mendations that I obtained the offices that I held afterwards. Dr. 
 Wilson always looked upon me as one of his earliest scholars, and 
 loved me to excess. Twenty years afterwards it pleased God to enable 
 me to place several of my children under the personal care of the Rev. 
 Dr. Wilson and his late partner, Mrs. Isabella Wilson, for educational 
 purposes. It would be impossible for me to express adequately the 
 peculiar pleasure with which they undertook the task, and how well 
 they executed it. Dr. Wilson had the charge of the education of the 
 boys, and Mrs. Wilson that of the girls. It was owing wholly to 
 Dr. Wilson's prayers, training, trouble, and exertions that my two boys, 
 Jayasattia Boohrao Tirmal, and Venkutrao Rookmangad (now my 
 legal nephew), have been so well educated. The former now holds a 
 very responsible office in the Honourable the High Court of Judicature 
 at Bombay. The latter obtained the degree of B.A. during Dr. Wil- 
 son's lifetime ; and it is a pity that the latter did not live long enough 
 to see Venkut Rao become an LL.B. also, which degree the University 
 of Bombay has just conferred upon him. 
 
 " The above is a partial account of Dr. Wilson's dealings with my 
 family alone. He treated several hundreds of other families in a simi- 
 lar manner. After leaving his college and returning to my country I 
 continued to visit him once in two years or so, and spent several days 
 with him. The whole of his time used to be occupied in doing some 
 public good or other. He wrote and published hundreds of tracts, and 
 several books on religious, educational, historical, and other subjects in 
 English, Marathee, Goojaratee, and other languages. He assisted 
 people of all classes in various ways. His dealings with all were kind, 
 considerate, and honourable throughout ; so much so that natives of 
 all classes and creeds feared and honoured him more than they did any 
 other person. In course of time he had won the hearts of the people 
 so much that they were convinced that nothing could go wrong with 
 him. His very name, or, as the natives called him, ' Wilson Kaka ' 
 (i. e. Uncle Wilson), was sufficient to inspire any one with the fullest 
 confidence. 
 
 " He first arrived in India in 1829-30. Since that time, up to his 
 death in 1875, no less than eighteen Governors ruled over the Western 
 Presidency. Each, in his turn, did what good lay in his power to the 
 country. There is no wonder in that, as all of them were invested 
 with official power, and had at their command money and men. Dr. 
 Wilson was a poor man, without power or money. Nevertheless, he 
 did more good to India, and still more so to the Presidency of Bombay, 
 
1864.] SOCIAL INTERCOURSE WITH HINDOOS. 559 
 
 in the way of educating people, composing books suited to their wants, 
 in various languages and on different subjects, inducing them to be 
 loyal subjects of the British Crown, collecting ancient manuscripts and 
 histories of the country, etc. etc., than all the eighteen Governors put 
 together. He was the father of several religious and educational 
 Institutions. Dr. Wilson was held in the greatest esteem by the suc- 
 cessive Governors, Commanders-in-Chief, members of Council, Judges 
 of the High Court, and almost all the other officers of the State, and the 
 native nobility. I know of no one to whom greater respect was paid 
 than to Dr. Wilson. It may be considered that I am exaggerating 
 his virtues and usefulness, but there are thousands and thousands of 
 Europeans and Natives who would be glad to corroborate my asser- 
 tions, and I challenge every one and all to contradict me if they 
 possibly can. Dr. Wilson was an extraordinary man. Of his learning, 
 travels,- and other good deeds in England and elsewhere, I leave it to 
 better hands than myself to describe. I only say what I have seen 
 and known. It is difficult to find another man like him. I am really 
 sorry that my knowledge of the English language is so limited that I 
 am not able to express more vividly the varied learning and usefulness 
 of Dr. Wilson." 
 
 In all the offices of friendship and affection common to 
 men and women of all countries, save that intercourse from 
 which Hindoo caste alone shuts out its votaries, Dr. and Mrs. 
 Wilson, and the Misses Bayne for a time, were one with this 
 Hindoo family. Children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, 
 came successively to the Ambrolie Institution, and to the 
 Girls' School, while they spent their holiday and leisure 
 hours in the missionary's home, as English youths would 
 have done. Of all he wrote in 1857, "I know of no instance 
 of any family residing at such a distance from the seat of the 
 Western Presidency making such judicious arrangements for 
 the culture and training of its young members." At the fre- 
 quent social gatherings of old students in the mission-house, 
 as in the grateful support of the college and schools, they 
 were foremost. When the aged mother of Tirmal Eao 
 passed away, Dr. Wilson wrote, amid the hurry of his duties 
 in England, to her son, his student of 1836, " I deeply sym- 
 
560 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1864. 
 
 pathise with every one of you. Your mother was no common 
 woman. It tells much in her favour that she was assiduous 
 in her endeavours to promote your well-being, and that of all 
 the members and connections of your family ; that she en- 
 couraged you all in the acquisition of knowledge ; and that 
 she encouraged the work of female education in India by 
 learning to read herself, when she had in her life numbered 
 threescore years. The day must come when we ourselves 
 must make the great transition and appear before the omnis- 
 cient and righteous Judge. May God in His mercy impart 
 to every one of us that salvation from the curse and pollution 
 of sin of which we stand in need, and which is freely offered 
 to all who confide in the great atonement of the Son of God. 
 Of this atonement your dear mother had heard, though not 
 so fully as you yourself have done." Such cases as this are 
 by no means rare in the varied transition states of thought 
 and progress through which India is passing under British 
 rule and missionary agencies of all kinds. In Bengal whole 
 families or clans, like the Dutts, have- together taken the step 
 which seals all, and have publicly professed Christ. 
 
 Very similar to this among the Parsees was Dr. Wilson's 
 relations with another Judge, Mr. Manockjee Cursetjee, last- 
 ing over forty years. So with Dadoba Pandurang since 1834, 
 one of the University Examiners and an early reformer. The 
 Native Princes, Muhammadan and Hindoo, rarely visited the 
 capital without seeking an interview with one who had been 
 a welcome preacher in their durbars ; and on such occasions 
 of rejoicing as marriages, they sent him kkureetas, or letters of 
 honour, illuminated with the perfect taste of the Oriental, 
 and delicately besprinkled with gold dust. When a distin- 
 guished Native statesman like the Eaja Dinkur Eao, who did 
 so much for Gwalior and for Lord Canning's Administration 
 in 1858-62, visited Bombay, he carried an introduction to 
 Dr. Wilson from Sir Richmond Shakespeare. Lord Canning 
 
1859.] INFLUENCE ON NATIVE POTENTATES. 561 
 
 testified of that astute Marathee : " Seldom has a ruler 
 been served in troublous times by a more faithful, fearless, 
 or able minister," for his counsel saved the Maharaja of 
 Gwalior in 1857. When still more distant potentates, like 
 Sultan Abdou of Joanna, repeated his visit to India, the 
 Government, changed every five years, turned to Dr. Wilson 
 for information regarding him. The intercourse of an earlier 
 year, renewed on that occasion, resulted in this farewell letter 
 from the petty but important prince, whose broken English 
 is not discreditable to one who had so few opportunities as 
 this ruler of the Comoro Islands, in the once notorious slave 
 route of the Mozambique Channel: 
 
 " KURACHEE, 4th December 1858. 
 
 " SIR. I have the honour most respectfully to apprize you of my 
 safe arrival in Kurachee. I am extremely sorry that I did not confess 
 the true which is in Christ during my stay at Bombay. I have also 
 not been comfortable since I have left you and your very kind lady, 
 although the Eight Honourable Lord Elphinstone have been very kind 
 to me, and allow me to have in Kurachee five rupees a-day and a pass- 
 age to my country. But this does not make me comfortable whenever I 
 think this for God so loved the world that he gave his begotten Son 
 that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlast- 
 ing life. I hope you will be so kind as to recommend me to one 
 Missionary in Kurachee, and to whom I will confess Christ before I 
 will leave Kurachee. Should this letter find you in the full enjoyment 
 of health and prosperity I shall never forget you and your kind lady. 
 I return you thousand thanks, for your kindness was to me to shew 
 me the true, and I hope God that you and your very kind lady may 
 live long in good health and prosperity." 
 
 But dearest of all to John Wilson were his children in 
 the faith, gathered out of every kindred, and tribe, and tongue ; 
 barbarian, Scythian, bond and free, from all the lands around 
 the Indian Ocean. On the thirtieth anniversary of his land- 
 ing at Bombay the whole adult community, of more than two 
 hundred souls, presented him with a loving address, and a copy 
 of the Hexapla, as best typifying his work and the tie which 
 
 2 o 
 
562 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1359. 
 
 bound them to Mm and to each other. The address was 
 signed in their name by the representative Parsee and Brah- 
 man now ordained Christian ministers, the Eevs. Dhunjeebhoy 
 Nowrojee and Narayan Sheshadri. Its tenor is seen in his 
 reply, which is full of suggestiveness alike to the Church of 
 India and to those Western Churches which have been privi- 
 leged, all too slowly and coldly, to lay its foundations. 
 
 " The love and affection which yon have ever borne to me since 
 before my delighted eyes you one by one, and two by two in some 
 instances, passed from the darkness of heathenism and error into the light 
 and grace of the Lord, has, next to your steady and consistent adher- 
 ence to the cause of Christ and your advancement in usefulness, proved 
 the greatest ministerial solace and comfort which I have enjoyed in the 
 hallowed evangelistic enterprise in which it is my privilege, under a 
 deep sense of personal unworthiness, to engage in this great and pro- 
 mising though still benighted land. I feel that the bond which unites 
 us together in mutual respect and confidence is of a permanent 
 character, and I earnestly pray that it may be more and more 
 sanctified to us all by the spirit of the glorious Saviour by Whom we 
 have been redeemed and Whom we seek to serve. 
 
 " You express your belief that good has followed my labours in 
 India. This, as you see and acknowledge, is, to any extent that it may 
 have been realised, the consequence entirely of the divine blessing, 
 which I ever desire to acknowledge with humility and praise. I thank 
 God on all occasions for bringing me to the shores of India, on which 
 my affections were strongly set from my youthful days, though I was 
 ready to be sent as a Missionary of the Cross to any part of the world 
 which might be selected for me by the wisdom of the Church seeking 
 for divine direction. I bless God for my appointment to found the 
 Scottish Missions at the seat of the Western Presidency of India, the 
 peculiar importance of which I had begun to discern before I left my 
 native land, and for the great and effectual door of usefulness which 
 His gracious providence here opened for myself, and for the esteemed 
 brethren in the ministry particularly my dear brother Mr Nesbit 
 who came to my assistance after a considerable number of years had 
 been passed by me in solitary but not unfruitful labours in this 
 mission. I have constantly sought to use all available instrumentalities 
 and opportunities for the prosecution of the work in which I have been 
 engaged ; and while I more and more earnestly pray the Lord to pardon 
 
1859.] THE NATIVE CHURCH. 563 
 
 my numerous shortcomings and offences in His work, I more and more 
 seek to give Mm the undivided praise for what has been accomplished. 
 It is in His name that I have sought to advance His cause by speech 
 and writing, and by teaching and preaching, both among young and 
 old, in schools and seminaries of learning both for males and females, 
 in the lecture room of this house, and in places of public concourse 
 both in this city and neighbourhood, and in distant districts of this 
 land. A similar assurance I can give you in behalf of the Lord's 
 devoted ministerial services in Bombay and in the contiguous Presi- 
 dencies, many of whom we have been privileged to welcome to this 
 land, and some of whom, as our dear brethren of the Irish Presby- 
 terian, to introduce in the first instance to the field of their labours. 
 
 " While I thank God for the multitudes near us and afar off in 
 India, who by the labours of all his servants in this land have become 
 ashamed of the gods and idols, and doctrines and rites of their varied 
 superstitions ; and while I see many, particularly of the young in this 
 place and neighbourhood apparently not far from the kingdom of God, 
 I especially rejoice, with thankfulness to God, in those who, like your- 
 selves, have altogether entered the Christian fold, ,and who by their 
 spirit and temper, as well as their walk and conversation, give good 
 evidence that they belong not only to the visible but invisible Church 
 of Christ. I view you emphatically as, under God, the hope of this 
 mission. You are the first fruits into Christ in this locality, and have 
 the Christian character to exhibit to those who are bone of your bone 
 and flesh of your flesh. You have the truth of Christ to declare to 
 multitudes from whom, both privately and publicly, you may obtain a 
 hearing. In this work some of you, who have been called to the 
 ministry, have been honoured yourselves to win souls to Christ ; while 
 others of you have brought some of your relations and connections 
 under the sound of the Gospel, and in a good degree aided in their 
 Christian instruction. In the work of personally endeavouring to 
 promote the enlightenment and conversion of your countrymen I trust 
 you will all more and more abound. This work must not be suffered 
 to devolve wholly, or even principally, on the officials of the Christian 
 Church, necessary though they be for its advancement. What would 
 you think of a regiment of soldiers who would be content to trust to 
 its officers for the whole fighting against the common enemy 1 I should 
 be glad to see in you all the activity and zeal of the Christians of 
 apostolical times, not only in your own mutual edification and comfort, 
 but in your efforts to convey to those around you the knowledge of the 
 true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. 
 
564 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1859. 
 
 " My dear brethren Messrs. Dhunjeebhoy and Narayan, in handing 
 me your address and request, have expressed to me their special grati- 
 tude for what I have from time to time sought to do for the native 
 missionary in the matters, as I take it, of his being called to labour as 
 an evangelist, set apart for his great work by the solemnities and vows 
 of ordination God's own ordinance, and in his being permitted to 
 share in the common councils and deliberations of the Christian 
 ministry and mission with which he is connected. For one to have 
 done less than I have done in this matter would have been to sacrifice 
 the deepest convictions of my judgment and conscience, both 
 as far as Christian right and Christian expediency are con- 
 cerned. You know that our mission in general fully concurred in the 
 views which I have been led to take of the questions raised, and that 
 no serious opposition was ever offered to the principles which they 
 recognised in the head-quarters of presbytery in Scotland. While we 
 seek for the due probation of entrants into th# holy ministry, abroad 
 as well as at home, we must remember that when the probation has 
 been satisfactorily rendered, all due privileges should not only be 
 greatly but joyfully and thankfully accorded. Probation in such a 
 land as India, filled with people of a strange countenance and a strange 
 tongue, and what is more, a strange heart, is needed certainly as much 
 by the missionaries from the West as those raised up in the field of 
 labour in the East. They cannot, without the greatest injury to them- 
 selves and the enterprise in which they are engaged, be free of the 
 judgment and experience of those who may be supposed best to know 
 the people and languages, and creeds and customs of India. A common 
 council is the essential characteristic of presbytery. While it gives 
 full scope to the judgment and conscience of all, it gives the fullest 
 scope to the gifts of all for the information of that judgment and con- 
 science. There is even peculiar potency in its administration, because 
 from time to time it can select its own agencies for work to- be done 
 by individuals and committees." 
 
 The practical outcome of this address was the erection of 
 that ecclesiastically becoming church, in which the native 
 congregation under its own called native minister have 
 worshipped since 1869. Aided by friends like Dr. Hugh 
 Miller and Mr. James Burns in the west of Scotland, and 
 themselves contributing ten thousand rupees out of their 
 scanty income, the native church raised the structure at 
 
1863.] STEPHEN HISLOP OF NAGPORE. 565 
 
 Ambrolie, of which Mr. Emerson was architect, with a manse, 
 at the cost of 6000. In this, as in every Christian and 
 philanthropic movement which he advocated, Dr. Wilson's 
 personal subscriptions were almost lavishly generous, for he 
 knew the force of example. The converts who, as elders and 
 members, bestirred themselves to erect this memorial of their 
 gratitude, were Manuel Gomes, Mikhail Joseph, Yohan Prem, 
 Baba Pudmanjee, Bapu Mazda, Behramjee Kersajee, Khan 
 Singh, Mattathias Cohen, Kashinath Vishvanath, Wasudeva 
 Pandurang, Shapoorjee Eduljee, and Eewa Eamjee. More 
 significant than any statue of John Wilson is this Christian 
 temple of his converts, on the spot where he lived and 
 laboured for nigh half a century. 
 
 In 1863 the Christian civilisation of India suffered a loss 
 second only to that of those other pioneers Wilson and Duff. 
 The Eev. Stephen Hislop of Nagpore had proved himself 
 worthy to stand beside them, alike in the intensity of his 
 devotion and the breadth of his culture. Aided by Mr. Hunter, 
 he had built up the mission to the Hindoos and Gonds of 
 Central India, through all the difficulties of bad feudatory 
 rule, annexation, caste disputes, and the misgovernment even 
 of British officers for a short time. The Eev. J. G. and 
 Mrs. Cooper, who still carry on his work in his spirit, helped 
 him. How when he was mistaken for another in 1853 he 
 was nearly put to death by a riotous mob in Nagpore, and 
 how he was the means of preparing the Government against 
 the mutiny and projected massacre by the sepoys and 
 Mussulman rabble of Nagpore, Mr. Hunter has told. 1 Were 
 it becoming so long as some of the actors are alive, we could 
 add the details of his service which, through the Friend of 
 India and privately, opened the eyes of Lord Canning to 
 the misrule that followed the Mutiny, and resulted in the 
 
 1 See the well -written History of the Missions of the Free Church of Scotland 
 in India and Africa, by the Eev. Kobert Hunter, M.A. 1873. 
 
566 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1863. 
 
 creation of the Central Provinces under Sir K. Temple as 
 first Chief Commissioner. In all that related to the 
 neglected territory, ite varied people of five tongues, its 
 simple but savage hill Gonds, its geology and unparalleled 
 mineral resources, its schools, native officials, and admini- 
 strative needs, Sir E. Temple found Hislop his counsellor. 
 The missionary was more to the country than ten regiments 
 or a whole establishment of civil officers were to it. Dr. 
 Wilson rejoiced in his work, so like his own spiritual, scien- 
 tific, philanthropic. But all too soon Hislop was removed 
 suddenly, while the Chief Commissioner and the Bombay 
 philanthropist, each in his own way, published unavailing 
 lamentations and eulogies. It was on the 4th September, 
 after a long break in the latter rain, when Hislop and Sir R. 
 Temple had gone out to examine the Scythian stones at 
 Takulghat, and Hislop remained behind to examine a Govern- 
 ment school, that the missionary disappeared. In the interval 
 between Sir E. Temple crossing a stream and the missionary 
 reaching it on his way to the camp, the water had been 
 swollen by sudden rain, and Stephen Hislop was drowned. 
 His riderless horse told the tale too late to do more than 
 rescue the dear remains. Another martyr to duty had his 
 name written in the great roll of Christian men who have 
 died as well as lived for the people of India. Foremost 
 among his supporters was the friend of Judson, Sir Henry 
 Durand, when, for a time, that officer was the Political Eesi- 
 dent at Nagpore. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 1865-1868. 
 
 NEW BOMBAY DR. WILSON AMONG THE EUROPEANS -- 
 DR. LIVINGSTONE THE ABYSSINIAN EXPEDITION. 
 
 The Changes in Anglo-Indian Society Dr. "Wilson leaves Ambrolie for 
 " The Cliff" The Memories of Thirty Years American Slavery and Bombay 
 Cotton Rise of Prices in India The Bombay Mania of 1863-66 The Crash 
 in 1867 Dr. Wilson's Letters on the Crisis His Hospitalities Distinguished 
 Visitors from 1863 to 1870 Mission in South Arabia Letters to Dr. John 
 Muir Discoveries in East Africa Origin of Nyassa Settlement Lord 
 Elphinstone's Letter Dr. Livingstone's First Visit His Organisation of last 
 Expedition Address in the Town Hall Chuma and Wykatane Letters 
 from Dr. Livingstone by Mr. H. M. Stanley The Abyssinian Converts, Gabru 
 and Maricha Warka A "Father in Christ Four Years' Imprisonment of 
 Captives by Theodoras Sir George Yule's Offer of Rs. 20,000 Military 
 Authorities apply to Dr. Wilson His Abyssinian Converts become Counsellors 
 of Prince Kassai The Prince, now King John of Ethiopia Dr. Wilson en- 
 trusted by Government with more Abyssinian Youths The Light radiating 
 from Bombay. 
 
Thy borders are in the midst of the seas ; 
 
 Thy builders have perfected thy beauty. 
 
 Of cypresses of Senir they made all thy planks, 
 
 Cedars from Lebanon they took to make masts for thee j 
 
 Of the oaks of Bashan they made thine oars, 
 
 Thy benches they made of ivory, 
 
 Inlaid in box- wood, from the islands of Chittim. 
 
 Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt, is thy sail, to serve thee for a 
 
 banner ; 
 
 Blue and purple from the isles of Elishah is thine awning. 
 The inhabitants of Zidon and Arvad are thy rowers. 
 Thy wise men, Tyre, are in thee, they are thy pilots. 
 The ancients of Gebal and its wise men are in thee thy calkers. 
 All the ships of the sea, and their mariners, are in thee, 
 To traffic in thy .merchandise. 
 
 Persia and Lud and Phut are in thine army, thy men of war ; 
 They hang up shield and helmet in thee, 
 They give splendour to thee. 
 The men of Arvad, and thine army, 
 Are upon thy oaks round about ; 
 And the Gammadim are in thy towers ; 
 They hang up their shields upon thy walls round about ; 
 They make thy beauty perfect. 
 Tarshish tradeth with thee 
 For an abundance of all kinds of goods ; 
 With silver, iron, tin, and lead, 
 They pay for thy wares. 
 
 Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they also trade with thee; 
 They trade with thee with persons of men and vessels of brass. 
 From the house of Togarmah, 
 They pay for thy wares in riding-horses and mules. 
 The men of Dedan trade with thee ; 
 Many islands are at thy hand for trade ; 
 They bring to thee in barter horns of ivory and ebony. 
 Syria tradeth with thee 
 For a multitude of the wares of thy making ; 
 They pay for thy wares 
 
 With carbuncles, purple, and broidered work, 
 And fine linen, and coral and rubies. 
 Judah and the land of Israel, they trade with thee ; 
 They trade with thee with wheat of Minnith, 
 And sweet cakes and honey, and oil and balm. 
 Damascus tradeth with thee 
 For a multitude of wares of thy making, 
 For a multitude of all sorts of goods, 
 With the wine of Helbon, and white wool. 
 Yedan and Javan offer yam in thy fairs ; 
 Wrought iron, cassia, and calamus are in thy market. 
 Dedan tradeth with thee in coverings for riding. 
 Arabia, and all the princes of Kedar, they are at thy hand for trade , 
 The merchants of Sheba and Raamah they trade with thee." 
 
 EZEKIEL xxvii. 4-22. 
 
1862.] CHANGES IN ANGLO-INDIAN SOCIETY. 569 
 
 CHAPTEE XVIII. 
 
 the least of the results of the Mutiny was a change in 
 Anglo-Indian society. On the one hand the influx of artisans 
 for the railways, and of adventurers from Australia with 
 consignments of horses or in search of employment, was 
 accompanied by the military mistake which disbanded the 
 East India Company's European army, flooded the cities and 
 stations with discontented and injured soldiers, and in too 
 many cases doomed the widows and wives of the men who 
 had regained the empire to a life of shame. The "loafer" 
 class was called into existence, and for the first time in our 
 history white prostitution was seen in India. Now the ablest 
 even of the English authorities who were responsible for the 
 blunder, in spite of the protests of Lord Canning, Sir Henry 
 Durand, and all the experienced officers on the spot, begin 
 to see that the only solution of the difficulty of recruiting 
 60,000 soldiers for India is to fall back on a local army 
 attached to the new organisation of Lord Cardwell. On the 
 other hand the ruling class, the civil, military, and mercantile 
 communities, who emerged from the two years' conflict with 
 barbarism in its worst form, had lost all confidence in the 
 permanence not of our rule but of our institutions. They 
 ceased to trust the natives, to like the country. The " old 
 Indian" was no more. The change had really begun in 1856, 
 when the first set of Competition -Wallas arrived, and the 
 Haileybury monopoly passed away. But when complete 
 peace once more settled down on the empire with the first 
 day of 1859, there was a rush home. New furlough rules, the 
 
570 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1862. 
 
 substitution of England for the Cape of Good Hope as the 
 furlough sanitarium, more rapid and frequent means of com- 
 munication, cheaper postage, and finally new men, changed 
 the whole character of Anglo-Indian society. Whether for 
 good or evil we shall not here determine, so far as England is 
 concerned. But the change has not been, either politically or 
 socially, for the good of the people of India thus far. India is 
 undoubtedly better ruled so far as systems of administration 
 are concerned. Is it more wisely governed as to the mode 
 in which these systems are applied ? 
 
 Very much against his will Dr. Wilson had to submit to 
 the social revolution, which, however, he continued to influ- 
 ence to the last in Bombay. The attendant rise of prices led 
 the native owner of the Ambrolie mission-house to demand 
 a rent of Es. 300 a month. This, wrote Dr. Wilson to Dr. 
 Tweedie, " is much beyond the ability of both the mission and 
 myself to give ;" and, accordingly, the home of thirty years was 
 vacated. 
 
 "BOMBAY, 13th January 1862. It was not without regret that, a 
 fortnight ago, we left an abode in which we had so long resided and 
 called upon the name of the Lord in union with dear and devoted 
 friends and relatives who have either finished or are now running their 
 appointed course ; in which we have commenced and carried on 
 extensive and diversified evangelistic operations, manifestly blessed by 
 God to the instruction of many and the conversion, all things con- 
 sidered, of not a few ; in which we had witnessed the appearance of the 
 first confessors for Christ of various classes of the community of 
 Western India, and maintained in their behalf, and sometimes with 
 considerable risk to ourselves, a successful struggle for religious 
 liberty and toleration ; in which the first natives ordained to the 
 Christian ministry in the Presidency were set apart for their glorious 
 office ; and in which so many meetings and reunions of the Lord's 
 people and those seeking the Lord, both of the East and of the West, 
 had taken place, with the expected and realised presence of Him who 
 has promised that when two or three are gathered together in His 
 name there He will be in the midst of them. Much sympathy was 
 extended to us on the occasion by our friends, including the converts 
 
 
1862.] LEAVES AMBROLIE FOR MALABAR HILL. 571 
 
 and a goodly number of other natives. We durst not complain against 
 that dispensation of Divine Providence by which our movement was 
 ordered. Even had we been tempted to do this the dealings of a 
 sovereign God with those around us would have rebuked our presump- 
 tion. For three or four days before we left the blast of pestilence was 
 directed against those dwelling at our very doors, so much so that in 
 the nearest inclosure between forty and fifty persons died in this limited 
 time, and fourteen (whom friends were not found either to bury or to 
 burn till the police carried their bodies off in carts) in a single night. 
 More than once during the last thirty years we have witnessed a similar, 
 though not such an extensive mortality, while we have not been afraid 
 for the terror by night nor for the arrow that flies by day, knowing 
 that the Lord would preserve us in the path and place of duty as long 
 as he might be pleased to demand our services. It is not unlikely that 
 Ambrolie House may soon be put to a use very different from that to 
 which it has so long been devoted. But this may not be wondered at. 
 Dr. Owen says that, as far as he knew, sheep soon fed on the spot con- 
 nected with which God had said, ' Put off the shoes from off thy feet, 
 for the ground whereon thou standest is holy.' We are called upon to 
 remember that the earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof ; and to 
 appropriate to ourselves the assurance, ' Wherever I record my name 
 there will I come unto you, and I will bless you, saith God.'" 
 
 To the adjoining Institution were added sheds, tents, and 
 other temporary accommodation, and there Dr. and Mrs. 
 Wilson, his colleague Mr. Stothert, who had brought new 
 strength to the work some time before, the female schools, 
 the book depository, and even some of the native catechists, 
 were accommodated. Twelve years before, when her hus- 
 band was subject to frequent attacks of fever, Mrs. Wilson 
 had urged him to take up his abode permanently in the 
 cottage given him by Dr. Smyttan on Malabar Hill. She 
 did so, seconding the orders of the physicians, and point- 
 ing out that the good air of the higher region had made 
 Dr. Stevenson a new man. But Dr. Wilson had persisted 
 in living among the natives whom he sought to benefit, all 
 these thirty years, trusting to his almost annual tour, and 
 an occasional holiday at Poona or Mahableshwar, for the 
 
572 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1862. 
 
 restoration of such robustness as may be possible in the 
 tropics. Now, when the hot season of 1862 came on, he was 
 fairly forced to reside in "The Cliff," which thenceforth 
 became identified with him. There, and in a guest-chamber 
 which he added, he kept open house for English and Natives. 
 Thence it was his delight, on coming up from the day's toil 
 at Ambrolie, or before returning to it in the morning, to watch 
 the glories of the scene from the busy harbour away to the 
 Western Ghauts, as he sat at work in his library, or pointed 
 out to his friends the spots of historical and scientific interest. 
 The house soon became more than classical in its associations ; T 
 his death made it sacred. 
 
 Hardly had he taken permanent possession of " The Cliff " 
 when, on the 9th June 1862, the United States Senate 
 decreed the abolition of slavery in all territories of the Union. 
 The secession of South Carolina, eighteen months before, had 
 another meaning also, which Bombay, of all cities, was the 
 first to feel, if not intelligently to recognise. For five years 
 the cotton trade of the world was transferred from the Southern 
 States of the Union to Western India from New Orleans 
 to Bombay. The raw cotton of India rose, in price, from 
 threepence to nineteenpence the pound, and the export 
 gradually doubled in quantity. The normal value of the 
 export and import trade of the one port of Bombay, in mer- 
 chandise and treasure, had gradually risen during Dr. Wilson's 
 residence to forty millions sterling in value, or nearly half 
 that of all India. In the year 1865-66, when the effect of 
 the American civil war told most fully, that value was almost 
 doubled, having risen to 75,693,150, exclusive of Sindh, 
 which increased it to above eighty millions sterling, equal to 
 the ordinary sea-board trade of Bengal, Madras, and Burma. 
 Whereas in 1860-61, the year before that war began to tell, 
 Bombay received only seven millions sterling for 355 J mil- 
 
 1 See page 214 of that model Hand-book, Maclean's Guide to Bombay. 1875. 
 
1863.] EISE OF PEICES IN INDIA. 573 
 
 lions of Ibs. of cotton, in the last year of the war she got 
 upwards of thirty millions sterling for little more than the 
 same quantity, or 380 J million Ibs. 
 
 This was only one, though the chief, of a series of causes 
 which had raised prices in India at a rate disproportionate to 
 that throughout the civilised world. The gold discoveries 
 had been working contemporaneously with the Eussian War, 
 which transferred the fibre and seed trade of Europe to Cal- 
 cutta ; with the Mutiny campaigns which poured into India 
 an army and the materiel of war on a scale not witnessed since 
 Napoleon Buonaparte exhausted France ; with the progress 
 of public works made from borrowed capital to the amount of 
 a hundred millions sterling ; and finally with the Hindostan 
 famine in 1860-61. The consequent rise of prices in a poor 
 country, with only a silver currency, was alarming. First in 
 Eastern India Government had been driven to appoint Mr. 
 H. Eicketts commissioner for the revision of civil salaries and 
 establishments. Then, when the wave threatened to engulf 
 Bombay in 1863, Sir Bartle Frere nominated a commission to 
 report on " the changes which had taken place during the 
 preceding forty years in the money prices of the principal 
 articles of consumption, in the wages of skilled and unskilled 
 labour, and in house rents at the principal military stations." 
 Their conclusion was this since 1829 the prices of grain had 
 trebled, and were in 1864 double the average of 1860-63 ; 
 meat and other necessaries had doubled in price ; wages had 
 increased fifty per cent ; the hire of carriage had gone up 
 from 200 to 400 per cent. Contrasted with Bengal, Bombay 
 prices were pronounced double or treble, and in some cases at 
 famine rates. 
 
 Visiting Bombay, as an outsider, at the height of the 
 mania in 1864-65, and one of the earliest to make the journey 
 by mail-cart across the province and Central India to the 
 railway at Agra, we witnessed a state of things, economic and 
 
574 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1864. 
 
 social, which no report could gauge. In the five years during 
 which the cotton market of the world was transferred from 
 New Orleans to Bombay, 1 Western India received eighty 
 millions sterling over and above the normal price of her pro- 
 duce before and since. So far as this reached the cultivators 
 it was well. That it largely reached them, in spite of their 
 ancestral usurers backed by the civil court procedure, has of 
 late been unhappily proved by the quantities of silver orna- 
 ments sent down to the local Mint, in years of enhanced land- 
 tax and repeated scarcity and famine. So far as the sudden 
 profit could be utilised for the public good it was also well. 
 Against the fatal mismanagement of the semi-Government 
 Bank of Bombay must be set Sir Bartle Frere's sale of the 
 land on which the walls of the old fort stood, to form a fund 
 for the creation of New Bombay. But the bulk of the profit 
 was literally thrown into the sea, and with it the reputation and 
 the happiness of not a few of the leading European, Parsee, and 
 Hindoo merchants and bankers of the province. The catas- 
 trophe culminated in 1867, in the fall of the old Bank of 
 Bombay, which led even members of the Government of 
 India to recommend the prosecution of the guilty parties in 
 the criminal courts ; in the collapse of the fund for building 
 New Bombay, which necessitated an addition to the ever- 
 increasing Debt of India ; in the flight of speculators like him 
 who, after buying the Government-House at Dapoorie with 
 paper, left an umbrella as his assets ; and in the exposure of 
 countless scandals under the insolvent jurisdiction of the 
 High Court by Mr. Chisholm Anstey, who as an acting Judge 
 was no less pitiless to the gambling traders than he had 
 proved to be to the obscene high priests of Krishna. But 
 England cannot throw a stone at Bombay, for it was in the 
 year before 1867 that Overend, Gurney, and Company had 
 led the panic race. 
 
 1 See the description, from the spot, in the Times of 24th January 1865, 
 and subsequently. 
 
1864.] THE SPECULATIVE MANIA IN BOMBAY. 575 
 
 The millions which might have enriched and beautified 
 Bombay and its varied communities, were early and almost 
 altogether directed to the mania of reclaiming the foreshore 
 of an Island which already covered eighteen square miles. 
 The harbour, beautiful and spacious by nature, was destitute 
 of wharf and jetty accommodation for the necessary com- 
 merce. Before the mania, there had been undertaken the 
 legitimate and praiseworthy enterprise of removing the 
 reproach by establishing the Elphinstone Company. The 
 prospects and success of this really sound project fired the 
 possessors of the surplus capital of the cotton trade with a 
 dream of the profits to be obtained from reclaiming land. 
 The foreshore of the shallow and useless Back Bay, fit only for 
 fisher craft, became the object of the maddest of the Companies. 
 Just above that, forming the eastern side which shelters it 
 from the great Indian Ocean, rises Malabar Hill, and look- 
 ing down on the generally peaceful water is " The Cliff." One 
 morning when we happened to be breakfasting with Dr. 
 Wilson, he handed to us a letter received by urgent mes- 
 senger. " That," he said, " will show you to what we have 
 come in Bombay ; but I do not give the mania more than a 
 year to collapse." It was an offer from a substantially rich 
 native speculator, to purchase the cottage and garden for a 
 sum twenty times their original value. He of course put it 
 from him at once ; for, all other reasons apart, he was one of 
 the few sane men of Bombay at that time. Officials, chaplains, 
 bankers none escaped the infection, it was said, save three, 
 of whom he was the chief. His entreaties, his counsels, his 
 warnings, especially to his native friends, were in vain. 1 A 
 
 1 In the only fragment on the Tribes of "Western India which Dr. "Wilson's 
 death permitted him to contribute to the Bombay Gazetteer, we find this 
 allusion in the section on the Jains : " They deny the existence of a Creator 
 and an active Providence. "With them Grabhava ' nature' is everything, while 
 Is'hvaronasti, ' there is no operative Lord,' is their deliberate doctrine. I once 
 asked a learned member of their community in the presence of the Rev. Drs. 
 
576 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1865. 
 
 half share of the Port Canning Company, which threatened 
 to lead away Calcutta also at one time, was assigned to him, 
 but the friend who did so took care not to tell him. When 
 some time after it was sold out and he became aware of the fact 
 for the first time, he devoted the money (Es. 4194) to those 
 benevolent purposes which had seriously suffered from want 
 of support at such a time. 
 
 These are extracts from a journal sent to his wife who 
 had gone to Scotland for six months : 
 
 " 22d May 1865. Many of the native firms are in great jeopardy 
 from the time bargains. The Kamas (a Parsee firm) have failed with 
 upwards of three millions sterling of responsibilities, and involve many. 
 This is but the beginning of the evil day, now instant. 
 
 "13th June. I breakfasted this morning with the Heycocks. 
 
 was present. Poor fellow ! his failure, I hear, is for l 00,000. When 
 my work at the Institution was done I went to the Union Press, where 
 our report 'is printing. I there met Dr. Bhau Dajt He and his 
 brother, and most of our reforming friends are ruined in their pecuniary 
 
 positions by their rash speculations. Even Mr. , who had lately 
 
 a fortune of ,300,000 is in great jeopardy. If does not get 
 
 Duff and Glasgow, if he had no scruple in making the latter announcement to 
 his pupils. His answer was : ' We generally postpone it till the third year 
 of their discipleship. ' I have heard a young Jain student, whose intelligence 
 and conscience repelled the doctrine, with the greatest distress of mind exclaim 
 for hours Parame shvara che, Parame shvara che ! ' There is a Supreme 
 Lord, there is a Supreme Lord ! ' In 1864, when seeking to console a bene- 
 volent Jain banker, who, owing to the mad speculation in Bombay of that 
 and the preceding year, was involved in temporaiy ruin, I said to him ' Were 
 you a believer in providence I could make an important suggestion to you.' 
 He immediately replied, ' I do believe in Is'hvara, though I have been taught 
 otherwise. ' I then said to him, ' Concur with the teachings of that Provi- 
 dence and moral government : and ' set your affections on things which are 
 above, and not on things which are below.' Their religious opinions and 
 feelings are often different from those imposed upon them by their teachers. 
 I have to add that some of these teachers are bold enough to challenge the 
 theists (Is'hvaravadi) of the whole world to discussion, as was the case with a 
 Jati in the territories of H. H. the Begum of Bhopal, whose defiant circular 
 was forwarded to me many years ago by the late accomplished Mr. Lancelot 
 Wilkinson, of the Bombay Civil Service, whose comparatively early death was 
 a great loss to Government and Oriental literature." 
 
1865.] THE CRASH OF 1865-66. 577 
 
 through (and his liabilities amount to two or three millions) our 
 friend will almost certainly fail. He was lately seized with the share- 
 mania, and acted quite contrary to the advice of all his friends. The 
 close of this month is by the whole city looked forward to with great 
 apprehensions. Mr. your fellow voyager, has been telegraphed 
 for by his Financial Association. Most of the bankers are in a most 
 perilous position as far as the shareholders (not I believe the deposits) are 
 concerned. The Bombay Bank Shares have been selling at a discount ! 
 It is hoped, however, that Government will come to its aid. Back 
 Bay shares have been down to a Rs. 1000 premium, though bought 
 for Rs. 50,000 in some instances. 
 
 " 2%d June. In the Government Gazette of this morning the 
 announcement of Sir Alexander Grant as Director of Public Instruction, 
 in succession to Mr. Howard, appears. Mr. Howard remains to practise 
 as a barrister ; he has lost much by late speculations. I had the usual 
 Marathee meeting after the Institution work in the evening. David 
 Manaji is now out of employment in consequence of the curtailment 
 of the Back Bay works. I wish our friends would allow us to take him 
 into the employment of the mission, according to his request ; but our 
 prospects for the present year are very low, owing to the great losses 
 following the bursting of the share bubble. 
 
 " 30th June. I went through my ordinary duties. Much anxiety 
 felt throughout the city on account of the morrow being settlement day. 
 
 " 1st July. My lecture to-day, after my Sanscrit class, was on the 
 History of David. The payments on account of time bargains, etc., have 
 
 to a good extent been modified or postponed. Our friend had (it 
 
 is said, but I doubt it) 120,000 paid him by one of his creditors, which 
 
 carries him through his immediate difficulties ; owes him 
 
 350,000 for shares, etc. 's liabilities are for 2,400,000. 
 
 His assets are valued at .1,600,000." 
 
 To Dr. MURRAY MITCHELL. 
 
 " BOMBAY, 24:th July 1867. Since you left India great changes, 
 both for the better and the worse, have occurred. Bombay has had 
 her day of unequalled madness, and now it has her day of great sad- 
 ness. The mercantile failures (especially among the natives), and the 
 losses to our banks, have been astounding and far-reaching in their 
 consequences ; and there has been much fraud connected with them, 
 by which the innocent in many cases have suffered. It is scarcely to 
 be wondered at that our religious and philanthropic Institutions have 
 their local resources much curtailed, though it is sad to see retrench- 
 
 2 P 
 
578 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1865. 
 
 ment appearing so prominent in that direction. It is our prayer that 
 the affliction which has fallen upon the city, in the retributive justice 
 of God, not unmingled with mercy, may be sanctified to many. The 
 native mind is certainly more sober at present than it has been for 
 several years. The reforming party (including about one hundred of 
 our mission friends) have founded a meeting for the social worship of 
 God, but they have not yet come to a conclusion about the treatment 
 and practice of idolatry in their own houses. We have some encourage- 
 ment with the lads in our Institution. The attendance at it is large, 
 but I do not know that our Christian influence over it expands with 
 its extension. In other respects the mission is getting on well. Colonel 
 Tripe of Kamptee, who was much with the converts and inquirers lately, 
 formed a very favourable opinion of them. He presented each of them 
 with a book on practical religion, which he gave them at an entertain- 
 ment which they provided for him in the Institution. The ordination 
 of Baba Pudmanjee at Poona is appointed for the 8th of August." 
 
 Gradually, after the Mutiny, Bombay became the port of 
 arrival and departure for Anglo-Indians, as the railways 
 extended eastward and westward between it, Madras, and the 
 metropolis of Calcutta. Thus the flow of guests through 
 "The Cliff" steadily increased, till it might be said that its 
 hospitable owner became the best known man in India as 
 well as Bombay. From the first Viceroy Lord Canning, and 
 his truly noble wife, to the visit of the Prince of Wales, he 
 was always in request as guide, philosopher, and friend, amid 
 the antiquities not only of Bombay but of Salsette, Karla, and 
 elsewhere. No distinguished person visited the Governor 
 without seeking an introduction to "the king of Bombay." 
 Of these continuous hospitalities and intercourse we find few 
 traces in his correspondence, for, much as he delighted in 
 them, they were too much a part of his everyday life to 
 demand chronicling, save when, as in Lord Lawrence's case, 
 they crossed his one great work. The thirtieth anniversary 
 of his landing, and the passing of that statesman through 
 Bombay, led him to write thus to Dr. Tweedie : 
 
 " I should require every missionary now coming to India to 
 
1865.] JOHN LAWRENCE. 579 
 
 pass an examination in the vernacular before his induction as a full 
 missionary. The Church Missionary Society is here acting on this 
 principle. It is one the propriety of which cannot for a moment be 
 disputed. I intend to show cause in it to yourself in a distinct letter. 
 I have lately received two letters on the subject from Bengal, but I 
 intend to discuss it entirely free of personal and local considerations. 
 I do not think that the missionaries are always to blame in the matter. 
 We have thrust work prematurely upon them ; and we cannot blame 
 them for neglecting, in the first instance, those studies for which we 
 have left them no leisure. 
 
 " To India I feel a growing attachment from year to year, its very 
 woes and miseries, in which I am constantly making new discoveries, 
 increasing the tender regard which I cherish in its behalf. I feel no 
 despair in connection with any of its interests. I see that it is a part, 
 an important part, of the Saviour's purchased inheritance, and I believe 
 that ere long it must become His possession. My only regret is that 
 I can do so little to advance its interests. They will not fail in the 
 hands of Him who has on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, 
 King of kings and Lord of lords. I feel much encouraged, in connec- 
 tion with its present destiny, by a conversation I had last night with 
 Sir John Lawrence, who proceeds to Europe by this mail. He is 
 certainly one of the most courageous of men, both physically and 
 spiritually, his Christian principle regulating and controlling all his 
 movements. His judgment and tact are equal to his courage. The 
 very appearance of such characters on the Indian scene on the day they 
 have been specially wanted, is a pledge from God of His purposes of 
 mercy towards this great and interesting land." 
 
 Again, we find him mourning the death of Bishop Carr, 
 in a letter to Mr. Farish ; seeking to comfort the widow when 
 announcing the movement from Serampore to raise a fund 
 in commemoration of the services of the accomplished Dr. 
 Buist ; and bidding farewell to old friends on their final de- 
 parture home, like Mr. Eraser Tytler, Mr. Harkness, and Sir 
 Bartle Frere. To one who has proved himself the most 
 learned and generous of true pundits in his own Edinburgh, 
 as lie long was the friend of. trie Christian education of the 
 Hindoos at Benares and elsewhere, Dr. John Muir, C.I.E., he 
 writes of Sanscrit MSS. Dr. Hanna he welcomes as the new 
 
580 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1862. 
 
 superintendent of the Foreign Missions of his Church at home, 
 and delights him with a report of the success of Mikhail 
 Joseph's mission in South Arabia. Besides the glimpses given 
 by extracts from his letters to these, the best idea of that happy 
 life at " The Cliff" will be gained from the bare notes regard- 
 ing its visitors made by his niece, Miss Taylor. 
 
 To Dr. HARKNESS. 
 
 11 May 9th 1862. I cordially bid you Adieu, in the proper sense 
 of the word. Its Gallican origin recalls to me the fact that in early life 
 we were together at the French classes of Mr. Wells, and others of more 
 importance in our Alma Mater. How many of our friends and 
 acquaintances have left this sublunary scene since we entered on our 
 studies ! Our career in India, even, has been a long one. I guess that 
 it is not without emotion that you leave this great country, for the 
 enlightenment of which you have done so much ; though I can under- 
 stand you wish to spend the evening of your days in your highly- 
 favoured native land. Stand up for India till your latest hour. I 
 believe that a glorious future destiny is in reserve for it ; and that the 
 moral movement which, by the blessing of God, is to have this issue, 
 has already commenced. To that movement your labours have effectively 
 contributed. I feel so much interested in it in my own department of 
 labour that I consider myself highly privileged in being permitted to 
 continue at my post, the importance of which constantly rises in my 
 estimation. I shall have pleasing remembrances of all our agreeable 
 intercourse and co-operation ; and while I am here you will have a 
 warm and faithful friend in Bombay. What an exodus of friends from 
 India I am having this year ! " 
 
 To JOHN MUIR, Esq. " 22d May 1862. 
 
 " MY DEAR MR. MUIR. By Colonel Lang I sent you such litho- 
 graphed Sanscrit works procurable in Bombay as seemed to me to fall 
 under your order. I have since seen the Ramayana (of the Northern 
 recension, I think) on sale for Es. 25 or Us. 30. Should you wish a 
 copy of this work I shall be happy to send you one. It is neatly got 
 up. An old copy of the Vishnu Ptirana will be sent to you when I 
 get down to Bombay. The owner is having it copied before parting 
 with it. For this, as well as the lithograph works sent, Colonel Lang 
 left money with my Vishnoo Shastree. It may be useful to Mr. Williams 
 at Oxford, who tells me he is editing the Vishnu Pumna. This same 
 
1862.] LETTERS TO DR. JOHN MUIR AND DR. HANNA. 581 
 
 Shastree lias been wandering through the country to find a copy of the 
 Mahabhashya of Patanjali, with the commentary of Kayata and the 
 Vivavarna of Nagliojee Bhatta. He has at last found one in excellent 
 order, but the owner will not part with it. He asks Ks. 450 for a 
 copy to be made of it, and duly revised and compared verbatim with the 
 original. Pray mention this to Dr. Goldstiicker, 1 that he may judge of 
 the propriety of ordering this work or not. The demand made for it 
 is above the sum mentioned in your memorandum, but I do not think 
 it is extravagant, as the work is said to be equal to 100,000 slokas in 
 size. The Shastree has found a copy of the Commentaries on the 
 Mimansa, by Sabar Soami, and by Tutata, for a transcription of which 
 Rs. 100 are asked. Are these wanted at this rate ? Of the Commentary 
 of RashaJcrishna, etc., he has not yet been able to hear anything. I 
 find him good at hunting out MSS." 
 
 " 27th June 1862. By to-day's mail I send to your address the 
 copy of the Vishnu Purana, of which I lately wrote. The MS. is a 
 very excellent one. The Shastree, who procured it under my 
 directions, paid only Rs. 40 for it. The Rs. 10 which thus remained 
 of the sum left by Colonel Lang (Rs. 50) I have given to the Shastree 
 for his journey to and from Poona, etc. The postage of the MS. to 
 Europe, and of a printed volume on the Vallabhacharya trial (which 
 I also send to you) I pay myself, in acknowledgment of your kindness 
 in sending me the Rig- Veda in the Roman character. 
 
 " The institutor of the [scheme for prizes for essays on the Vedas 
 will feel greatly obliged to you if you will kindly bring it to the notice 
 of Sanscrit students in Europe, as you may have opportunity. His 
 generous proposal originated in my lectures on Ancient India last 
 season, and was communicated first to the Rev. Mr. Dhunjeebhoy. It 
 will certainly call attention to your important works among others." 
 
 To Rev. Dr. HANNA. 26th July 1862. 
 
 " MY DEAR DR. HANNA. We have been very glad to learn that, on 
 the retirement of our excellent, able, and zealous friend Dr. Tweedie, 
 you have accepted the important office of Convener of our Foreign 
 Missions Committee. "We look forward to the prospect of having 
 much pleasant and profitable intercommunion with you, and of receiving 
 very valuable services at your hands. We have noticed lately, with 
 great satisfaction and gratitude, a revival of the interest felt in Scotland 
 in connection with our enterprise in this great land, and we look for 
 corresponding results." 
 
 1 See page 496. 
 
582 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1864. 
 
 VISITOKS TO BOMBAY IN 1863-70, WITH WHOM DR. WILSON 
 HAD SOME INTERCOURSE. 
 
 1863. Dec. 3d Messrs. Russell, Jeffrey, and Brewin, at breakfast. 
 They belonged to the Society of Friends, and made a tour in India, 
 visiting the different missions. 
 
 12th. Dr. Cotton, Bishop of Calcutta, at breakfast. Bishop Gell 
 in Bombay at the same time. 
 
 1864. Jan. 4th. Mr. Pease at breakfast, a Quaker from Darling- 
 ton, cousin of Mr. Pease, M.P. for Darlington. Dr. Wilson took him 
 over the Institution and ice factory. 
 
 13/i. Mr. Ferguson, editor of Colombo Observer, at dinner. 
 
 25th. Dr. Wilson went with Colonel Ballard and his brother to 
 the Vehar Lake and Kanheri Caves. 
 
 30th. Mr. Pease, and Mr. Tumor (from Lincolnshire, and grandson 
 of Earl of Winchilsea) went with Dr. Wilson to see the Parsee Dokh- 
 mas (Towers of Silence). Mr. Tumor travelled in India, and walked 
 from Simla to Lahore. 
 
 Feb. 1st. Mr. Pease and Mr. Tumor came to the Institution to see 
 the girls of the Native Female Schools examined. For many years it was 
 Dr. Wilson's practice to have a meeting on the first Monday of every 
 month for prayer for missions, after which all the girls of the Female 
 Schools were gathered together and examined. 
 
 25th. Dr. Wilson lectured in Town-Hall on " Bombay during the 
 Last Two Hundred Years." Mr. Pease at lecture, and also at a party 
 the next evening to meet Mr. Small, who had just arrived. 
 
 March 3d, Bishop of Victoria, Hongkong, and Mrs. Smith, at 
 breakfast, and went to see the Parsee tombs. 
 
 8th. Sir Mordaunt Wells called on Dr. Wilson at the Institution, 
 on his way home from Calcutta. 
 
 16th. Maharaja Dhuleep Singh arrived in Bombay. He went to 
 Bombay with the body of his mother. She died and was buried in 
 England, but afterwards, in deference to the wishes of the Sikhs, her 
 body was taken to India, and burned on the banks of the Godavery, 
 near Nasik. The Maharaja did not go to Nasik ; a Sirdar from the 
 Punjab performed the ceremonies. 
 
 20th, Sunday. Dhuleep Singh at the Free Church, and attended 
 a service in the Native Church at two, in Hindostanee, and took the 
 Communion with the Native Christians. 
 
 21st. Dr. Wilson showed the sights of Bombay to the Maharaja. 
 
1864.] VISITORS TO BOMBAY AND DR. WILSON. 583 
 
 23d, Wednesday. Maharaja came to meeting. Dr. Wilson, from 
 his arrival in India, until two or three years before his death, had a 
 meeting of friends in his house every "Wednesday evening, to read the 
 Bible and converse on the passage. The Native Christians who knew 
 English usually attended, and sometimes non-Christian Natives came. 
 
 25th. Large party of Europeans and Native friends to meet the 
 Maharaja. 
 
 26th. Dr. "Wilson, Mr. Bowen, and Mr. Ballantine, American mis- 
 sionaries, dined with Maharaja. 
 
 27th, Sunday. Maharaja at Free Church, and at two at a service in 
 Hindee in the Institution. Dr. Wilson had the service in Hindee for 
 the benefit of the Sirdars and their followers who had come from the 
 Punjab to meet the Maharaja. 
 
 28th. Dr. and Mrs. House, seventeen years missionaries in Siam 
 at breakfast. Dr. Wilson took Dr. House to the Institution. 
 
 8th. Maharanee's body burned at Nasik. Dr. and Mrs. Wilson, 
 Miss Taylor, Madame Surtoo, a Native lady, who had been in England 
 with the Maharanee and became a Christian there, her little boy, and 
 the Maharaja, spent the day quietly at the Vehar Lake, Salsette. 
 
 12th. Party iri the Institution given by the Maharaja to all the 
 missionaries and Native Christians in Bombay; 300 Natives were pre- 
 sent ; the Maharaja wore the Star of India. 
 
 13th. Maharaja called to say good-bye. He took a very decided 
 stand in Bombay as a Christian. 
 
 22d. Dr. Wilson lectured on board the " Ajdaha," to sailors, on 
 "The Shores of the Eed Sea." 
 
 June 23d. Dr. Livingstone called. Dr. Wilson took him over 
 the Institution. Dr. Livingstone came to Bombay for a few days on 
 his way home from Africa. He crossed from Africa in the " Lady 
 Nyassa," a small steamer, 115 feet long and 14 feet broad, built for 
 lake navigation, with a crew of seven Natives who had never seen the 
 sea before. They came down with him to the coast at Zanzibar. He 
 did this in the monsoon, too. Somehow they entered the harbour of 
 Bombay unobserved, and Dr. Livingstone landed with no one to meet 
 him no one knew he was coming and found his way in a deluge of 
 rain in an old shigram to Dr. Wilson's. The Governor was in Poona. 
 Dr. Livingstone left with Dr. Wilson, to be educated, two African boys, 
 Chuma and Wykatane. They attended the Institution for a year and 
 a-half, and learned a little English. They boarded in a Native Chris- 
 tian family. They were baptized by Dr. Wilson at Dr. Livingstone's 
 request, just before he took them back to Africa, in the end of 1865 
 
584 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1865. 
 
 Dr. Livingstone thought it would make a good impression on their 
 minds, and be a safeguard to them in their future life. Every one 
 knows how faithfully Chuma kept by Dr. Livingstone to the last, and 
 brought his body to England. Wykatane had been rescued by Bishop 
 Mackenzie and his party from a slave-catching gang, and was a great 
 favourite of Bishop Mackenzie's. On Dr. Livingstone's last journey 
 he became lame, and had to be left behind. 
 
 Dec. 2 3d. Dr. Wilson went with Sir Bartle Frere to visit the 
 Kajah of Dongurpore. He was staying in Dr. Wilson's old house at 
 Ambrolie, and Sir Bartle recalled how he himself had gone there as a 
 young man with a letter of introduction to Dr. Wilson. 
 
 1865. Jan. 1 6th. Dr. Wilson lectured in the Town-Hall on " The 
 Wandering Tribes of India." 
 
 Feb. 1st. Sir Dinkur Kao, ex-minister of Sindhia, called. 
 
 Sept. Ilth. Dr. Livingstone arrived from England on his way to 
 make his last journey of discovery in Africa. He called on Dr. Wilson 
 the day after his arrival, but Dr. Wilson was out. He went imme- 
 diately to Poona to see the Governor, and to Nasik to arrange about 
 some of the African Christians there going with him to Africa. 
 
 October 6th. Dr. Livingstone came from Poona and stayed with 
 Dr. Wilson till the 20th a fortnight. 
 
 *ltli. Dr. Wilson and Dr. Livingstone walked to see the temples 
 at Walkeshwar (Malabar Point). 
 
 Sth. Dr. Livingstone at the Free Church, and at the Marathee 
 Service in the Native Church. 
 
 9th. Dr. Livingstone called with Sir Bartle Frere on the Sultan 
 of Zanzibar. 
 
 I Oth. Dr. Livingstone went with Captain Leith to select men from 
 the Marine Battalion to go with him to Africa. 
 
 I 1 th. Durbar in Town-Hall in honour of the Sultan of Zanzibar. 
 Dr. Livingstone there. 
 
 12th. Dr. Livingstone lectured on Africa in the Town-Hall. Dr. 
 Wilson said it was the most enthusiastic meeting he had ever seen in 
 Bombay. The lecture was very simple. Dr. Livingstone said much 
 the same things and in much the same way as he did in conversation. 
 A subscription was begun then which soon realised more than Ks. 7000, 
 to help the expedition. Dr. Livingstone refused to accept it as a per- 
 sonal gift. The Bombay branch of the Geographical Society wished 
 to present him with an address, and Captain Sherard Osborn was to 
 read it, but Dr. Livingstone declined to come forward, and said he 
 would rather have it if he should be spared to come back from Africa. 
 
1866.] DR. LIVINGSTONE. 585 
 
 19th. Drove through the native town to see the Diwallee illumi- 
 nations. 
 
 Nov. 13th. Dr. Wilson called on Lord Edward Seymour (eldest 
 son of the Duke of Somerset) at the Governor's bungalow, Malabar 
 Point. Lord E. Seymour went out to travel in India. He visited the 
 Institution, and examined some of the classes himself, and took a great 
 interest in all that he saw. He died soon after, at Belgaum, from the 
 effect of injuries he got when hunting a bear. 
 
 14th. Dr. Wilson, Dr. Livingstone, Lord Edward Seymour, and 
 some others went to Elephanta. 
 
 Dec. 6th. Dr. Wilson, Dr. Livingstone, and a party of gentlemen 
 went to the Kanheri Caves, Salsette. Party was arranged by Mr. 
 Alexander Brown, son of Dr. Charles Brown, Edinburgh. 
 
 10th. Chuma and Wykatane baptized by Dr. Wilson in presence 
 of Dr. Livingstone. 
 
 1 2th. Large party at Dr. Wilson's to meet Dr. Livingstone. 
 
 21st. Dr. Wilson to Nagpore to the Exhibition. 
 
 1866. 1st Jan. Dr. Livingstone and the two boys came to say 
 goodbye. 
 
 3d, Wednesday. Dr. Livingstone sailed for Africa in the " Thule." 
 Dr. Livingstone was engaged most of the time he was in Bombay 
 in preparations for his expedition. He also visited Goojarat. The Rev. 
 Joseph Taylor (son of the Eev. Mr. Taylor, of Belgaum), of the Irish 
 Presbyterian Mission in Goojarat, was at college with Dr. Livingstone, 
 and they lodged together in Glasgow. Dr. Livingstone left for Africa, 
 accompanied by eight or nine Christian Africans from Nasik, the 
 same number, I think, of Sepoys of the Marine Battalion Bombay (they 
 deserted him in Africa, and found their way back to Bombay with a 
 story of his having been murdered), Chuma and Wykatane, and the 
 Africans who had come across with him in 1864. They stayed in Bom- 
 bay while he was in England, and used to come to Dr. Wilson's to get 
 news of him. Dr. Livingstone wished to have no European companion. 
 
 In January 1866 Lady Franklin visited Bombay, and Dr. Wilson 
 saw her a few times. She spent one evening with Dr. and Mrs. Wilson. 
 
 March 23d. Dr. Mullens, Calcutta, stayed with Dr. Wilson on 
 his way home, and lectured in the Institution on " Young Bengal." 
 
 Oct. 23d. Mrs. Wilson took Miss Carpenter to visit the Boarding 
 School and Native Female Day Schools. 
 
 Dec. 14th. Dr. Wilson lectured in Institution on " Foundational 
 Facts of Paradise Lost," the first lecture of a series on University Sub- 
 jects, under the direction of the Missionary Conference. 
 
586 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1869. 
 
 1867. In the beginning of this year Mr. Tinling visited India, 
 chiefly to address English-speaking Natives on the subject of religion. 
 He stayed for a short time when in Bombay with Dr. Wilson. 
 
 Nov. In this month Dr. Norman Macleod and Dr. Watson arrived 
 in Bombay. They stayed with two young merchants. They spent 
 most of a day with Dr. Wilson, going over the Institution, and another 
 day in the Boarding School and Female Schools, and calling on several 
 native gentlemen. They attended the Marathee service, and sat down 
 with the native congregation at the Communion. Dr. Macleod read 
 Wee Dame in the Town-Hall, for the benefit of the Scottish Orphanage. 
 
 1868. March 20. Mr. Clark of Gya, and Dr. Watson called. 
 23d. Keshub Chunder Sen came to breakfast. 
 
 Oct. 23d. Dr. Wilson visited the Rajah of Kolhapore. 
 
 Dec. 21s. Dr. Wilson attended a reception at Parell for Lord 
 and Lady Mayo and Lord Napier. 
 
 29th. Foundation-stone of University laid by Lord Mayo, Dr. 
 Wilson, Vice-Chancellor. Dr. Wilson, after the ceremony, went to 
 Elephanta with the Government-House party. 
 
 1869. Jan. 10. Miss Carpenter at the Native Church. 
 I6th. Chevalier von Scherzer called. 
 
 28th. Native Church opened. First service in the morning at eight. 
 
 March 17. Dr. Wilson and I started for Calcutta. Lord Napier 
 was a fellow-passenger to Nagpore, on his way to the Durbar at 
 Umballa. We stayed a day or two at Nagpore with the Coopers, 
 then went on to Serampore and Calcutta. 
 
 April 3. Large party at Mr. Fyfe's, of Europeans and Native 
 Christians, to meet Dr. Wilson. 
 
 From Serampore we went to Benares, and spent a day with Messrs 
 Hutton and Blake, London Mission ; next to Mirzapore, and stayed 
 with Mr. Sherring ; Allahabad, with Mr. and Mrs. Walsh, American 
 Mission ; Cawnpore, Agra, Umballa, with Dr. Morrison ; Subathoo, 
 with Dr. Newton, Medical Missionary. At Simla Dr. Wilson was the 
 guest of Lord Mayo for about ten days. His old friend, Sir Donald 
 M'Leod, was there at the same time, also Sir Douglas Forsyth. 
 
 June 28. Dr. Wilson dined with Mr. H. Rivett-Carnac, at 
 the Byculla Club, to meet General Ylangally, Russian ambassador from 
 China. 
 
 Aug. 31s. Lord Napier went home. Dr. Wilson went to say 
 goodbye to him at the Boree Bunder Station. 
 
 Oct. 1st. Rev. Mr. Long, Calcutta, staying with Dr. Wilson. Party 
 of natives to meet Mr. Long. 
 
FIRST STEPS TO LIVINGSTON! A. 587 
 
 Nov. I3th. Bishop of Madras called. Dr. Wilson dined with. 
 Mr. Fox to meet him. 
 
 16th. Captain Beaumont and Mr. J. Candlish, M.P. for Sunder- 
 land, at breakfast. 
 
 29/i. Mr. Shaw called the traveller who had been a year in 
 Kashgar. 
 
 1870. Dr. Wilson went, in January, to Jalna and Nasik. 
 
 22c. Dr. Wilson called on Dr. Prime, editor of New York 
 Observer, travelling with a party round the world. Dr. Elmslie, Cash- 
 mere, at tea. 
 
 Feb. 1st. Dr. Wilson lectured in Town -Hall on " Marathee 
 Country and People." 
 
 Feb. 3d. Dr. Wilson at a party given by Chief of Jamkhundee. 
 
 17th. Addresses to students and native Christians of Bombay. 
 
 19th. Left Bombay for Scotland. 
 
 It was a Bombay officer, Kichard F. Burton, who, in 1857, 
 set out from Aden to East Africa to find the great lake 
 reported by the Church missionaries at Zanzibar. That proved 
 to be Tanganika. In 1860 Baron Yon der Decken first struck 
 out what has thus far proved a more important route into 
 the lake region of Africa, that to Lake Nyassa from Kilwa 
 along a portion of which the Messrs. Moir have recently con- 
 structed a road. 1 The first reference to that promising line 
 of commerce and civilisation which we find is in this letter 
 from Lord Elphinstone, when Governor of Bombay. It refers 
 also to the little Waghur war at the Krishna shrines of Beyt 
 and Dwarka ; to the case of a Scottish boy rescued from the 
 wilds of Central Asia; and to the iniquities of Louis Napoleon's 
 " free " slave trade, which Lord KusselTs convention stopped, 
 only by sacrificing our Indian coolies to this day. 
 
 "PooNA, Qth October 1859. 
 
 " MY DEAR DR. WILSON. I am very sorry to find that you have 
 already left Malabar Point. 2 I was going to write to you that I should 
 
 1 See the Notes on the Country between Kilwa and TanganiJca, by Jj 
 Stevenson, Esq. of Glasgow, who, with Mr. William Mackinnon and other 
 philanthropic capitalists, is opening up Eastern Africa. 
 
 2 Dr. and Mrs. Wilson had been residing in the Government House there 
 after an attack of fever. 
 
588 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1869. 
 
 not return before Monday when I received your letter telling me that 
 you were going to leave the Point yesterday. I know that there is a 
 very sensible difference between the climate there and at Parell at this 
 season, and I have no doubt that it is much more healthy than any 
 inland spot in the Island. 
 
 " I read what you say about Beyt and Okamundel with much in- 
 terest. I know very little about Kathiawar, and especially that corner 
 of it ; and I do not even know of what race or tribe the Waghurs are. 
 I am somewhat relieved by your account of the character of the 
 inhabitants at large, for hitherto I have looked upon the expedition as 
 a political necessity only ; and my last recommendations to Colonel 
 Donovan were to spare the people as much as possible, and to remem- 
 ber that they were not in rebellion against us but against the Gaikwar, 
 whose officers had probably oppressed them. As they had seized about 
 150 boats belonging to Bombay, we had so far a direct quarrel with 
 them, but otherwise our object was to keep the peace, and to prevent 
 the spread of rebellion and confusion into other districts, rather than 
 the punishment of the Waghurs. 
 
 " I was very glad to see that you had taken the youth John Camp- 
 bell. I fear that he is not a very promising pupil, but he has had 
 many disadvantages in early education, and if it please God he may 
 yet be made an honest and useful man. I really think that if he can 
 be reclaimed he may be of very great use either to Government or to 
 your Mission, and I do not see why he should not be to both, but he 
 must first be thoroughly reclaimed, and untaught a great deal I fear. Mr. 
 Boswell gave a very bad account of him, but he probably did not make 
 sufficient allowances for previous circumstances. He should of course 
 be taught English (which by the way he has not learned during the two 
 or three years that he has been at Mr. Boswell's) ; but he should not 
 be allowed (if possible) to forget his Pushtoo and Persian. If he is 
 ever to be of use in the countries where he has been wandering for so 
 many years he must keep up his knowledge of their languages. I 
 think he is more likely to be of service in this way (if he can be 
 trusted) than in any other; he showed a great disinclination to be 
 taught mechanics. It was proposed to bring him up as an engineer, 
 but how he was to be taught without knowing English I really cannot 
 imagine. I suppose only the practical acquaintance with machinery 
 which would enable him to work an engine in a steam-vessel or on a 
 railway. 
 
 " I received an interesting packet yesterday from Captain Rigby at 
 Zanzibar. I know you take an interest in Africa, and you may like to 
 
1869.J LOUIS NAPOLEON'S "FREE" SLAVERY. 589 
 
 know that a German traveller, sent out by the Bavarian Government, 
 has lately arrived on the coast with the intention of proceeding to the 
 Lake Nyassa, and making further discoveries. The French have got 
 into some difficulty at Madagascar, where they have been endeavouring 
 to establish a settlement on the Western Coast. Since Louis Napoleon's 
 proclamation about the slave-trade the French have not shipped any 
 slaves, but before that they were actually kidnapping them (not content 
 to pay five dollars a head for them) and shipping them for Bourbon under 
 convoy of a French man-of-war. I am sorry to add that several 
 American clipper- built vessels, under Spanish colours, are shipping 
 slaves on the coast of Mozambique for Cuba. The place of embarka- 
 tion is Ibo or Ebo. The Portuguese governor of Mozambique is anxious 
 to put a stop to the traffic, but apparently his authority is not much 
 felt at the more distant ports ; and at Ibo the local authorities connive 
 at the export, and receive a gratuity from the slave-dealers of ten 
 dollars per head upon each slave shipped. I am glad that the French 
 Government has put a stop to the slave-trade under French colours, 
 and under the protection of the Imperial Navy. The Portuguese 
 Government is so honestly anxious to put a stop to it that I have no 
 doubt that when the facts are brought to their notice they will remove 
 the offenders, and take effectual steps to prevent the thing going on ; 
 of course Captain Rigby's reports will be brought to their notice by Her 
 Majesty's Government. Yours, most truly, ELPHINSTONE." 
 
 But it was Dr. Livingstone, in many respects a man like 
 Dr. Wilson, who, after discovering Lake Ngami so early as 
 1849, and crossing South Africa from the Atlantic to the 
 Zambesi and the Indian Ocean in 1854-5, opened up Lake 
 Nyassa itself, and pronounced it the spot, of all Africa, for 
 such a missionary settlement as had killed the slave-trade 
 by lawful commerce at Sierra Leone. His great Zambesi 
 expedition, which lasted from 1858 to 1864, confirmed his 
 desire to see Nyassa the centre of light to Eastern Africa. 
 His passing visit to Bombay in June 1864, described by Miss 
 Taylor, was repeated in September 1865, when he returned 
 from England to organise in that capital the greatest of all 
 his journeys of exploration, in which, after seven years, he 
 died. We remember well the enthusiasm which his address, 
 
590 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1873. 
 
 first at Poona and then in Bombay, excited all over India, 
 when he compared Eastern Africa physically to the low Kon- 
 kan and high Ghauts and uplands of Western India, and 
 declared that all Great Britain was doing for the people of 
 India she must yet do for the negroes of Africa. And there, 
 he said, Nyassa is the spot. How well his vision is being 
 realised, first by Mr. Young, RN"., who went to help him, and 
 then by his companion Dr. Stewart of Lovedale, who together 
 have there established the Livingstonia settlement of the Free 
 Church of Scotland, every year is revealing. 
 
 In all the public enthusiasm which bore rich pecuniary 
 fruit for the last expedition, and in organising the details, as 
 in the relaxation of delightful social intercourse, Dr. Wilson 
 was foremost. But perhaps his best gift to Livingstone was 
 the Christian training of the two little slave-boys left with 
 him eighteen months before Chuma and Wykatane. The 
 baptism was to both the heroic missionaries a joy, and all 
 know the fruit it bore. The beginning of 1866 saw Dr. 
 Livingstone at Zanzibar with a letter of commendation from 
 Sir Bartle Frere to the Sultan, and charged with the pleasant 
 duty of presenting to his Highness the gun-boat "Thule," 
 in which he had crossed the Indian Ocean, as a gift from 
 the Government of Bombay. From that sad hour on the 
 27th April 1873, when Livingstone made his last note in 
 his Journal, Chuma became leader of the caravan, and 
 brought safely to Lieutenant Cameron the precious remains 
 which find fit resting-place in the nave of Westminster Abbey. 
 To him, and to Susi, Amoda, and the two Nasik boys, his 
 faithful comrades since 1864-5, Mr. Waller, the editor of 
 the Last Journals, has expressed the nation's gratitude. And 
 hardly less is due to Wykatane of whom, in his Nyassa, Mr. 
 Young, K.N., gives us this glimpse, showing how the light from 
 Bombay had penetrated all the darkness of the slave-boy's life, 
 and continued to shine, however dimly, as years passed on. 
 
1873.] CHUMA AND WYKATANE. 591 
 
 The scene is the jungle at night, near Livingstonia, among the 
 Maviti; the time is September 1876. " I called to Wykatand, 
 who lay in the next hut, and asked him who was singing : he 
 replied that it was he. On telling him to repeat it I found it 
 was one of the chants used by the missionaries sixteen years 
 ago in the hills at Magomero. Eemembering how much 
 pains Dr. Livingstone had taken with him, and good Dr. 
 Wilson too, I asked him if he remembered anything of the 
 former days. He said, ' This is what Dr. Livingstone taught 
 me: 
 
 ' This night I lay me down to sleep, 
 I give my soul to Christ to keep, 
 If I should die before I wake, 
 I pray to God my soul to take. Amen.' 
 
 In the long interval since he had seen white men he had 
 forgotten nearly all the English he ever knew; but those 
 lines, together with some few simple questions and answers 
 taught him by Dr. Wilson he could repeat." When, at the 
 end of 1864, we presided at the examination of Dr. Wilson's 
 college, Chuma and Wykatane were prominent in the class of 
 catechumens gathered from all the natives of the East. Dur- 
 ing Livingstone's wanderings in the last seven years of his 
 life he wrote to no friend so frequently as to Dr. Wilson, and 
 the letters were posted at Aden by Mr. Henry M. Stanley. 
 They were so much read in Bombay as to have been almost 
 wasted away, and this is the only trace we now find of com- 
 munications of surpassing interest and sacred associations : 
 
 From Kev. Dr. WILSON, Bombay, to His EXCELLENCY the VICEROY, 
 Simla, per POLITICAL DEPARTMENT, BOMBAY. 
 
 1st August 1872. 
 
 " I have a letter from Dr. Livingstone dated ' about twelve days east 
 of Tanganyika, 24th. January/ and ' Unyanyembe, 13th March 1872.' 
 The loss of all supplies sent to him he attributes to the circumstance 
 of their having been intrusted to slaves (who should never have been 
 employed by Government officials) instead of Pagazi (carriers). He 
 
592 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 [1867. 
 
 acknowledges relief extended to him by Stanley, and expects to finish 
 his research in two years, embracing the discovery of the ancient 
 fountains of Herodotus, if they exist. He also gives information about 
 the slave trade of Eastern Africa and the connection with it of British 
 subjects, etc., which I shall privately communicate to Government." 
 
 Still more remarkable than in Chuma's case was the 
 providence which in 1837 led Dr. Wilson unconsciously to 
 prepare two Abyssinian youths for the deliverance of their 
 country by Lord Napier's expedition of 1867. We have 
 told how, in the former year, Dr. Wolff sent to Bombay for 
 instruction in Dr. Wilson's college, and residence under his 
 roof, Gabru and Maricha Warka, with their father, a high 
 officer in the Abyssinian army. The two lads became most 
 active catechists, occasionally accompanied Dr. Wilson in his 
 tours, and left him only at Aden, whence, in 1843, he sent 
 them with his benediction to evangelise their own people, and 
 the oldest but most corrupt of Christian Churches. They 
 found the almost chronic conflict of chief with chief raging, 
 and attempted by personal intercourse and discussion to 
 influence the priests. Very close, and at this time very 
 pathetic, seems their correspondence with Dr. and especially 
 with Mrs. Wilson to have been. They were at first sup- 
 ported by the kirk-session of the native church in Bombay, 
 which thus early sought to evangelise the regions beyond. 
 After a visit to the old scenes, on Dr. Wilson's return from 
 Scotland they settled down at Adowah, where for a long 
 time they conducted a vigorous mission school, encouraged 
 by the periodical epistles from Ambrolie. What a picture 
 this is of the influence of the old mission home, in a letter 
 written by Maricha from Aden on his return to his native 
 country for the second time, in April 1849 : 
 
 " Yes ! it is a dream ; and not only so, but it is a mystery and an 
 awful dream that troubles my thoughts. Let me only be thinking of 
 that family where I was brought up from my childhood, especially when 
 now and then I think myself to be seated round that family altar ; 
 
1867.] HIS PART IN THE ABYSSINIAN EXPEDITION. 593 
 
 beside me I see Hormasdjee and Gabru, and there I see you both you, 
 Sir, whom we love like a father, and by you sitting one whom we love 
 like a mother. I see the large family Bible and the Psalm-book in 
 your hands. I see you meeting round that family altar to offer up a 
 living sacrifice. I hear you praying, especially for Ethiopia's soon 
 stretching out her hands unto God. From up-stairs let me take you 
 down where I used to meet among the different denominations that 
 have come out from darkness to light, and from the kingdom of Satan 
 to the kingdom of Christ. From thence let me convey you to that 
 holy spot, which spot is to be desired more than all the dwellings of 
 Jacob. There I hear the harmonious songs of Zion, that carry the heart, 
 as it were, to the third heaven. And what shall I not say more of 
 Zion ? yes, I might tell of the pure doctrines that are taught Sabbath 
 after Sabbath, but the time will not allow me to do so. Alas ! is it 
 true that I am to dwell with a people who have no fear of God in 
 their sight ? Yes, my soul, thou art no more in that holy society, 
 thou art no more round that family altar where thou usedst often to sit, 
 where thou usedst to be glad when they said unto thee, ' Let us go up 
 to the house of God.' Now then is the time for thee to cry out with 
 a loud voice, ' My soul longeth, yea fainteth, for the courts of the Lord ; 
 my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.'" 
 
 The years passed as the young men married and carried 
 on their mission-school, when they suddenly became of vast 
 importance to the Commander-in-Chief of Bombay and the 
 Viceroy of India. From the third day of 1864 the chief 
 Theodorus, who called himself emperor of Abyssinia, had kept 
 in confinement Consul Cameron and several German mission- 
 aries. When Mr. Rassam, an Armenian friend of Sir Austen 
 Layard, along with Dr. Blanc and Lieutenant Prideaux of 
 the Bombay army, had been sent as an envoy for their release, 
 they too were put in chains. Still neither Lord Palmerston 
 and the one party, nor Lord Stanley and the other party 
 moved, in . spite of the most persistent representations from 
 the Government of India. The shame of it was such that, 
 anonymously at the time, Sir George Yule asked us to publish 
 his offer of Es. 20,000 to fit out a volunteer expedition to 
 rescue the captives who had languished under the power of 
 
 2Q 
 
594 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1867. 
 
 a madman for nearly four years. That was on the 1st August 
 1867. The close of that year saw an imperial expedition of 
 50,000 men, including followers, on the way to Abyssinia, and 
 the advance guard above the Ghauts at Senafe, whence the 
 march to Magdala and its fall proved a holiday excursion that 
 cost several millions sterling. How much of the facility with 
 which the work was accomplished was due to the two Abys- 
 sinian students of Dr. Wilson, may be imagined from these 
 circumstances. They had risen to be the official councillors 
 of Kassai, the Prince of Tigre", who steadfastly supported the 
 British in spite of the urgent overtures of Egypt and Turkey. 
 In frequent telegrams and despatches Lord Napier of Magdala 
 warmly acknowledged their services. The special correspond- 
 ents with the expedition were even more emphatic, the most 
 experienced of them 1 writing thus " The belief that, in con- 
 nection with the campaign in Abyssinia, England owed more 
 to the Free Church of Scotland's Mission Institution in Bom- 
 bay than it does to any institution in the Presidency, the 
 Government itself and the commissariat department not 
 excepted, was entertained by not a few." 
 
 In truth, when her Majesty's Government had tardily 
 resolved on the expedition, the first men consulted by Lord, 
 then Sir Eobert Napier, were two missionaries. Mr. Blumhardt, 
 half a century before a Church Missionary in the country, 
 and then in the peaceful Bengalee villages of Christian 
 Krishnaghur, was asked by telegram for information, and 
 was invited to accompany the force as interpreter. At Lord 
 Lawrence's request we at once published at Serampore the 
 Amharic vocabulary which he hastily drew up, since old 
 age denied him the privilege of going in person. Dr. Wilson 
 received the following letters from the Quartermaster-General 
 of the army the first of a correspondence, in which his multi- 
 farious information and experience also were called into requi- 
 
 1 The late Mr. R. E. Shepherd, M.A., of the Times of India. 
 
1867.] GABRU AND MARICHA WARKA. 595 
 
 sition on all details, from the history of the ancient church of 
 Ethiopia to a certain breed of camels well adapted for mountain 
 work. All his replies were submitted to the new Governor, 
 Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, who had succeeded Sir Bartle Frere. 
 
 "22d August 1867. 
 
 " MY DEAR Dr. WILSON. Now that Government have determined 
 to send an expedition into Abyssinia I should feel very much obliged 
 by your advice, and every information you could give me in regard to 
 procuring a good interpreter and other aid for the Intelligence Depart- 
 ment. Of course the movement of the main body depends upon our 
 success in procuring land transport, but within a month or so an 
 advanced brigade may possibly be sent to effect a lodgement on the 
 Abyssinian table-land at Dixan or thereabouts. 
 
 "A good reliable interpreter and other means of gaining good 
 intelligence are indispensable. His Excellency Sir Kobert Napier 
 desired me to write to you this morning, and I said that I had yester- 
 day mentioned the subject in a letter to Mr. Weatherhead, who spoke 
 to me regarding Mr. Blumhardt some time ago, but the latter is, I 
 fancy, too aged to undertake such a task now. I mentioned to Sir 
 Robert that you had two relatives of a principal family in Tigre at 
 your school, and I said I would write and ask your advice upon the 
 subject of interpreters, and intelligence generally. Believe me, yours 
 very sincerely, B. PHAYRE." 
 
 " 30th August. I have to thank you very much for the valuable 
 information and advice given in your note relative to interpreters and 
 intelligence in connection with the Abyssinian Expedition. I took 
 it at once to his Excellency Sir Robert Napier, who telegraphed to Mr. 
 Blumhardt, asking him to give certain information which we now 
 require, and inviting him to accompany the Expedition should he be 
 in a position to do so. You will see that his Excellency the Governor 
 wishes, if possible, an interview to be arranged between Colonel Mere- 
 wether and Mr. Gabru Warka and Mr. Maricha Warka. Colonel Mere- 
 wether will leave Bombay on the 10th proximo, and proceed to Massowa, 
 and you could perhaps give him letters to these gentlemen. It is 
 essential that this reconnoitering party should communicate with reli- 
 able agents, upon whose information guidance as to further measures 
 would be obtained. Perhaps the persons in Bombay to whom you refer 
 could give us information also regarding the possibility of our securing 
 the lowland tribes (Badaween) on the coast between Amphila and 
 
596 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1868. 
 
 Massowa to assist us with, land transport and in other ways. If you 
 will kindly think over these matters and give me a few lines express- 
 ing what appears to you to be the best arrangements under the circum- 
 stances, I will, as before, take your note to his Excellency Sir Eobert 
 Napier, and we can decide what should be done. B. PHAYRE." 
 
 Colonel Phayre secured the services also, as interpreter, 
 of Mr. Mikhail Joseph, who as Bible colporteur had made 
 a remarkable tour through south-west Arabia. Lord Napier 
 gladly accepted the Bible Society's gift of books to the soldiers 
 of the expedition, and to the hospitals. 
 
 The result, to himself, of the war, for the humane and 
 bloodless fruits of which, then and since, Dr. Wilson is in a 
 large sense responsible, was further work for the people of 
 Abyssinia. With the approval of the Government of India 
 General Merewether entrusted to his training two Anglo- 
 Abyssinian girls, and two Abyssinian boys, Pedro and Wuldee 
 Magios, one of whom had helped the captives, while the other 
 had been presented by Prince Kassai to the conqueror. Lord 
 Napier desired to place the son of Theodorus under his care, 
 to fit the boy for a career in Abyssinia hereafter, but the 
 English authorities decided that the youth should be trained 
 in England, where he is now a cadet in the Eoyal Military 
 College. So the radius of light and life from the Bombay 
 mission went on ever extending. The prince whom ,Gabru 
 and Maricha counselled so well, has, as Negoos and King 
 Johannes, 1 given to the people of Abyssinia a degree of peace 
 and prosperity which only the unprovoked aggression of the 
 Mussulman Khedive of Egypt has broken for a time. 
 
 1 See that most interesting narrative of travel by E. A. de Cosson, F. K. G. S. , 
 The Cradle of the Blue Nile : A Visit to the Court of King John of Ethiopia. 
 

 CHAPTEK XIX. 
 
 1867-1871. 
 SECOND AND LAST VISIT HOME. 
 
 The Shadow Darkening Sir Bartle Frere Leaves Bombay Isabella 
 Wilson's Death Legislation of Sir Henry Maine and Sir Fitzjames Stephen 
 Acts for He-marriage of Converts and Marriages between non-Christian 
 Natives Testimonial from the Inhabitants of Bombay on Fortieth Indian 
 Anniversary Addresses from University and Asiatic Society Summoned 
 to be Moderator of General Assembly Addresses to the Assembly Modern 
 Criticism and Missionary Translators Work at Home Portrait Evidence 
 before Commons' Committee on the Opium and Excise System Return to 
 Bombay. 
 
" Thy converse drew us with delight, 
 The men of rathe and riper years : 
 The feeble soul, a haunt of fears, 
 Forgot his weakness in thy sight. 
 
 " On thee the loyal-hearted hung, 
 
 The proud was half disann'd of pride, 
 Nor cared the serpent at thy side 
 To flicker with his treble tongue. 
 
 "The stern were mild when thou wert by, 
 The flippant put himself to school 
 And heard thee, and the brazen fool 
 "Was soften'd, and he knew not why ; 
 
 " While I, thy dearest, sat apart, 
 
 And felt thy triumph was as mine ; 
 And loved them more that they were thine, 
 The graceful tact, the Christian art. 
 
 " For who can always act ? but he, 
 
 To whom a thousand memories call, 
 Not being less but more than all 
 The gentleness he seem'd to be, 
 
 "So wore his outward best, and join'd 
 Each office of the social hour 
 To noble manners, as the flower 
 And native growth of noble mind ; 
 
 " Nor ever narrowness or spite, 
 Or villain fancy flitting by, 
 Drew in the expression of an eye, 
 Where God and Nature met in light, 
 
 " And thus he bore without abuse 
 
 The grand old name of gentleman, 
 Defamed by every charlatan, 
 And soil'd with all ignoble use." 
 
 TENNYSON : In Memoriam. 
 
 "Need I name Dr. Wilson of Bombay a distinguished scholar, with 
 few equals in his knowledge of Oriental philosophy and theology. When I 
 met such men I appreciated more than ever the glory of their self-sacrifice, 
 and the grand position occupied by them towards the Church at home, 
 towards the heathen, and, let me add, towards the Anglo-Indian. They have 
 devoted their lives to the civilising and Christianising of our fellow-subjects 
 in India, while their salaries are such as no city clerk would accept such, in- 
 deed, as many of the natives whom they have educated would despise. I 
 here lamented more than ever the ignorance and ingratitude of professing 
 Christians of all churches, who seldom think of them or pray for them. I 
 keenly felt then, as I have often felt since, that so far from our missionaries 
 being unworthy of us we are unworthy of them ! " 
 
 NORMAN MACLEOD : Peeps at the Far East. 
 
1367.] FAREWELLS OF FRIENDS SIR BARTLE FRERE. 599 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE year 1867 cast over Dr. Wilson the first shadow of 
 that darkness beyond which is the everlasting light. In his 
 long course of nigh forty years he had seen band after band 
 of temporary English settlers in the land come and go ; he 
 had himself trained generations of native youth, and built up 
 a native church, colleges, and schools. As friend departed 
 after friend he bewailed the exodus from a land which 
 needed all their experience and their energy. The last was 
 the Governor whom he had received at Ambrolie fresh from 
 Haileybury, and had admitted to an almost life-long in- 
 timacy. Sir Bartle Frere turned from the honours and the 
 applause which attended his departure from Bombay, to 
 spend one of the last days there with the missionary among 
 his schools and college students. Still invested with all the 
 influence of his office, his Excellency, having personally 
 examined the youth, expressed to them his personal convic- 
 tion that religion is all important as an element of education. 
 He warmly commended the life-long efforts of Dr. Wilson 
 and others who sought to impart that to the natives of India, 
 to whom it could not fail to be a blessing even when they fall 
 short of embracing Christianity. 
 
 As the hot season passed into the rainy time, and the one 
 really intolerable month of the Indian year, September, came 
 round, when wearied humanity pants for the cooling breezes 
 and reviving life of what Europe calls winter, Isabella Wilson 
 was taken away. Her abundant labours of twenty years, 
 in which she had enjoyed only the combined rest and toil of 
 
600 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1867. 
 
 a six months' visit to her sisters in Scotland, precipitated the 
 end. All Bombay, from the Chief Justice and Judges of the 
 High Court to the humblest Native Christian and student, 
 followed to the Scottish cemetery the remains of one whose 
 influence was all the greater that it had been never obtruded 
 yet ever present in all that was good in the place. In her 
 own home, in the native church, in the central native 
 female day-school, in the monthly inspection of the district 
 and other girls' schools, in the Beni-Israel school, in the 
 native female boarding-school, in the Ladies' Committee of 
 the Scottish Orphanage, in the Bible-women's Association, 
 and in other philanthropic institutions of Bombay, she had 
 proved so potent a force that it was difficult to realise how 
 these organisations could prosper without her. Her social 
 intercourse for the highest ends, with Hindoo, Parsee, Jewish, 
 and Muhammadan families had been closer than that of any 
 other English lady in all India. What she was to her hus- 
 band in his literary researches and missionary tours, which 
 taxed the courage and resources of the bravest men, we 
 have partially seen. But the purest tribute to her memory 
 was that which the converts rendered, the women and the 
 girls, the catechumens from all the lands of the East from 
 Abyssinia to China, the ordained Natives who, in an eloquent 
 sermon by the Eev. Dhunjeebhoy Nowrojee, expressed the 
 loss of the whole Church of India. Henceforth, to his own 
 last hour, Dr. Wilson is cared for by his niece, Miss Taylor. 
 All this came upon him at the time of the preparations for 
 the Abyssinian Expedition, which, however, gave Lord Napier 
 an opportunity of calling on him to express warm sympathy. 
 His own sorrow he manifested by erecting a female school, 
 as the best memorial of one who had given herself for the 
 women of Bombay. 
 
 Soon after his appointment as law member of the Gover- 
 nor General's Council, Sir Henry Maine had been led by 
 
1867.] SIR H. MAINE'S RE-MARRIAGE ACT. 601 
 
 Lord Lawrence to devise a legislative solution of the two 
 questions What relief should be given, first, to Christian 
 converts whose spouses refuse to join them, or are prevented 
 for years from doing so ; and, secondly, to non-Christian dis- 
 sidents from Hindooism who have conscientious objections to 
 the idolatrous and suggestively indecent marriage rites of 
 Brahmanism. This second question was afterwards settled 
 by Sir Fitzjames Stephen, so as to satisfy the followers of 
 Keshub Chunder Sen, and even to lead English Comtists to 
 take advantage of an Act under which the parties must 
 declare that they are not Christians. The Converts Ee- 
 marriage Bill had a keen interest for all Christians, how- 
 ever, and called forth ecclesiastical discussion for years. Dr. 
 Wilson was consulted by Government on both difficulties, 
 and the assistance he gave to Sir Henry Maine was warmly 
 acknowledged. Unlike the sacramentarians who hold that 
 a marriage is irrevocable by whomsoever made, even if one 
 of the parties refuses for ever all conjugal duties, Dr. Wil- 
 son showed, from the early Fathers down to the Eeformers, 
 that Scripture had been consistently interpreted so as to give 
 proper relief. He laid special stress on the opinion of Basi- 
 lius of Caesareia, 1 because of the great authority of that 
 bishop in the Eoman, Greek, Syrian, and Gothic Churches. 
 The result of a learned and sometimes bitter discussion in 
 the Press as well as the Legislative Council of India, was the 
 most equitable Act under which, if a wife persistently refuses 
 to join her converted husband (and vice versa) for two years, 
 notwithstanding private opportunities of remonstrance judi- 
 cially given, the district courts may only then pronounce 
 divorce. The Act has worked extremely well, by affording 
 opportunities to the law to free wives from such restraint 
 as we have seen Brahmanism and Parseeism impose on in- 
 quirers, and so to prevent divorce. The great jurist and the 
 
 1 Epistola 138, in which Basil cites 1 Cor. vii. 13-16. 
 
602 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1869. 
 
 experienced scholar were thus happily allied in removing 
 one of the last obstacles to perfect toleration. Nothing now 
 remains to be done by the legislature save the promulgation 
 of a uniform rule or procedure for the protection of the rights 
 of conscience of minors, in a country where marriage takes 
 place at and sometimes before puberty. 
 
 As the 14th of February 1869 approached, the leaders of 
 all the communities in Bombay, European and Asiatic, re- 
 solved to honour their foremost man on that, the fortieth 
 anniversary of his arrival in Western India. Mr. Sassoon, 
 the Jewish millionnaire, and Dr. Bhau Daji, the most learned 
 reforming Brahman, were active in the movement, side by side 
 with Mr. James Taylor, secretary of the Chamber of Commerce 
 and of the Asiatic Society, and with the secretary of the 
 committee, Mr. James Douglas. The long roll of subscribers 
 and signatures in many languages on the parchment sheets, 
 represents all races, creeds, and classes in the East, and all 
 varieties of Christian sects. Although E~ew Bombay was 
 still suffering from the ruin and apprehension that followed 
 the cotton mania, and the work was rapidly done, upwards of 
 Es. 21,000 (2100) was presented to the missionary on a silver 
 salver wrought by native artists, and bearing the inscrip- 
 tion, in Sanscrit: "This salver was presented to the Eev. 
 John Wilson, D.D., F.E.S., at a meeting of the inhabitants of 
 Bombay, as a mark of esteem for his high personal character, 
 and in acknowledgment of his great services to India in the 
 cause of education and' philanthropy." The design repre- 
 sents him as a missionary standing under the sacred peepul 
 tree, a Hindoo temple and figure of Eama behind, and before 
 him a crowd of Asiatics of every cult and caste in Western 
 India, from the learned Brahman to the ignorant peasant. 
 The Governor, Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, presided at a great 
 meeting in the Town-Hall of Bombay, on the 15th February 
 1869, and made the presentation. The Chief- Justice, Sir 
 
1869.] HIS FORTIETH INDIAN ANNIVERSARY. 603 
 
 Eichard Couch, assisted. A loving letter was read from Sir 
 Bartle Frere, and the other speakers were Mr. Sassoon and 
 Dr. Bhau Daji. Dr. Wilson thus reported the event to Miss 
 Margaret Dennistoun : "It is wonderful to think that 
 gratification has been felt with the issue through the whole 
 of India. Only one element of my felicitation (I was humbled 
 rather than exalted) was wanting the sympathy of her, the 
 beloved one who was so lately removed from me. I have 
 been weeping whenever I have been thinking of this depriva- 
 tion. I always felt that one quiet glance of her loving and 
 approving eye was better to me than the applause of the 
 multitude. Her love was always an emblem to me of that 
 of the Saviour Himself." It was characteristic of his whole 
 career and of his unfailing tact, that, agreeing to use the 
 interest only in his philanthropic and literary labours, he 
 should designate the capital sum to aid the higher studies 
 of the youth of Bombay, " in a form which will be agreeable 
 alike to my European and Native friends." The fund has 
 accordingly devolved on the University of Bombay for the 
 foundation of the John Wilson Philological Lectureship, to 
 which his friend and executor, Professor Peterson, has been 
 the first to be appointed. Dr. Wilson desired that lectures 
 may thus be delivered " by a competent European or Native 
 scholar, annually elected for the purpose, on either of the 
 following classes of languages and the literature in which 
 they are embodied : Sanskrit and the Prakrit languages 
 derived from it ; Hebrew, and the other Shemitic languages ; 
 Latin and Greek ; English, viewed in connection with Anglo- 
 Saxon and its other sources." 
 
 The address of the inhabitants of Bombay, followed by 
 one from the Hindoos and Muhammadans of Nasik, from 
 which he had been almost expelled in his first missionary 
 tour, reviewed the whole course of Dr. Wilson's work for the 
 people, and thus expressed their own special gratitude : " As 
 
604 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1870. 
 
 citizens of Bombay we thankfully acknowledge that the 
 credit of this city has been upheld by the personal courtesy 
 and learned aid which distinguished foreigners and others, 
 coming hither as visitors or for purposes of Oriental research 
 or Christian philanthropy, have always received from you, 
 as acknowledged by them subsequently in their published 
 writings or otherwise." 
 
 But again, as in 1842, it was left to the Asiatic Society 
 to review his contributions to scholarship, and to the Uni- 
 versity to acknowledge his work for the higher education. 
 Never before in its history had there been such a concourse 
 of the members of that Society as on the 17th Febru- 
 ary 1870, when it was known that Dr. Wilson had been 
 summoned to his native country once more, to fill the highest 
 office which the democratic Scottish Church can confer, that of 
 annual Moderator of the General Assembly., The Governor, 
 who presided, after stating the thanks of Government for his 
 political services, which, "as regards our relation with the 
 people in trying times, have been of the utmost value," de- 
 clared it a happy thing that one who had been able to com- 
 bine the fearless assertion of what he believed to be true with 
 a conciliatory demeanour and tender respect for the belief of 
 others, had been summoned to take the chief part in the 
 government of a religious body who had sacrificed much for 
 the truth at a time when religious discussion too often means 
 animosity and estrangement. Mr. Justice Tucker, Dr. Bhau 
 Daji, Mr. Dhunjeebhoy Framjee, the Portuguese Dr. J. N. 
 Mendonca, Mr. Manockjee Cursetjee, and Messrs. Wedder- 
 burn and Connon, told successively what Dr. Wilson had 
 done for scholarship, for literature, for education, for progress 
 of all kinds. Dr. Wilson's reply was more generous to his 
 fellow members than just to his own researches. Two days 
 after he was on his way to Edinburgh. The native journals 
 followed with their eulogies the now venerable apostle, whose 
 
1870.] MODERATOK OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 605 
 
 delight it had been to spend and be spent in the service of 
 the people, with an unselfishness which all admired, though 
 all did not trace it to Him whom the missionary proclaimed. 
 The office of Moderator of the General Assembly is 
 filled, as a rule, by the unanimous vote of the six or seven 
 hundred members on the first day of its meeting. But the 
 Moderator is designated some months before by those sur- 
 viving who have previously filled the chair, is approved of 
 after consultation by the "commission" of the previous 
 Assembly, and is requested by his immediate predesessor to 
 allow himself to be nominated. In this way Dr. Wilson re- 
 ceived a formal invitation from the Eev. Sir Henry Wellwood 
 Moncreiff, Bart., to come home for the Assembly of May 1870. 
 The Churches, like the country generally, know so little of 
 India till a catastrophe occurs which knowledge might have 
 prevented, that the whole learning and power of Dr. Wilson 
 in his new position proved a surprise to the Free Church of 
 Scotland. Courtesy of the old school; knowledge of men 
 and their public assemblies ; promptitude and fluency in ex- 
 pression ; learning, rarely obtrusive but always present ; and 
 grace of that highest kind which comes down from heaven 
 alone, marked all his public services and official receptions. 
 The time was one when the vexed question was near the 
 embittered stage Whether the great goal of one recon- 
 structed Kirk of Scotland could best be reached by imme- 
 diate union with the earlier seceders of the United and 
 Eeformed Presbyterian Churches, or by waiting till the min- 
 ority of the Established Church atoned for the wrong they 
 have since confessed ? To Dr. Wilson, it was well known, 
 the immediate duty of union with all like-minded who would 
 unite was plain, but he held the balance fairly as became 
 one in his judicial position. So long before as in 1864 he 
 had moved the Presbytery of Bombay to "overture" the 
 General Assembly for this possible instalment of union ; for 
 
606 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1870. 
 
 to one in the distant high places of the field the still existing 
 divisions look both ludicrous and criminal. Only on the one 
 disputed question of the use of hymns in public worship did 
 he, when he had ceased to be Moderator, let out the force of 
 his alternate scorn and ridicule for views which would strike 
 evangelical catholicity out of any Church. 
 
 His opening address as Moderator was directed to the 
 part which Scotland has taken in the reception, propagation, 
 and conservation of Christianity. A hearer might have sup- 
 posed that he had never been out of Scotland, but for the 
 extent of his knowledge and the breadth of his sympathies. 
 His vindication of the Westminster Confession of Faith did 
 justice to the foresight and spirit of its authors, only now 
 beginning to be acknowledged, while he quoted with a keen 
 delight the motto of the first Confession of 1560 : " And 
 this glaid tydingis of the kyngdome sail be precheit through 
 the haill warld for a witnes unto all natiouns, and then sail 
 the end cum." To the then debated question of National 
 Education he gave his support with a confidence since fully 
 justified by the religious stedfastness of his countrymen. The 
 narrow, the sectarian, the purely ecclesiastical found no 
 quarter from him. His closing address was no less fair in the 
 tribute to the lay elders of his Church, and in the remark when 
 alluding to the rationalism of the great French scholar " This 
 I say, without accusing M. Eenan of playing false with his 
 own convictions or depreciating his Shemitic scholarship." 
 
 When the report on Foreign Missions was read he left 
 the chair and told the story of his life-work in words which 
 concluded with the declaration that, notwithstanding his 
 forty-one years' connection with India, if he lived to the 
 age of Methuselah he would consider it a privilege to devote 
 his life to its regeneration. The General Assembly of 1870 
 appointed the Eev. Eobertson Smith, then fresh from the 
 students' benches but of great reputation, as Professor of 
 
1870.] MODERN CRITICISM AND MISSIONARY TRANSLATORS. GO 7 
 
 Hebrew in succession to Mr. Sachs at Aberdeen. Eeferring 
 to the translations of the Scriptures by the Eev. Dhunjeebhoy 
 Nowrojee into the Parsee-Goojaratee language, Dr. Wilson 
 said : " The missionaries know and take advantage of the 
 results of modern criticism ; not of rash, but devout, intelli- 
 gent, and reverent criticism, knowing what passages have 
 often been misunderstood. We have to deal in Bombay 
 with languages drawing all their technical terms from the 
 Sanscrit, one of the most wonderful of all languages in regard 
 to its power of expressing human thought. We have great 
 need of able men in India for biblical and other literary 
 work ; and if Mr. Smith, who has this day been appointed 
 a Professor of Hebrew, will come out to India after he has 
 obtained a few years' experience at Aberdeen, he will find 
 there ample scope for his linguistic talents." 
 
 If the duties, ecclesiastical and social, devolving on a 
 Moderator are not few during the ten days' sittings of the 
 General Assembly, those which occupy or distract his year of 
 office are formidable. Every cause that needs the preaching 
 of a popular sermon ; every new church that is founded or 
 opened; every neighbouring Church to which a brotherly 
 deputation has to be sent, in England, Ireland, and on the 
 Continent, looks to the Moderator. To all this, and especially 
 to his own more special work of stimulating missionary zeal, 
 Dr. Wilson gave himself up with an ardour that taxed his 
 waning energies, as time soon showed. The charms of his 
 talk and companionship in private life were universally 
 recognised with a delighted surprise, for who knew anything 
 of Bombay ? Dr. Wilson was as ready to lecture to the theo- 
 logical students of the Established Church in the University 
 Association which he had founded in 1825, as to those of the 
 three New Colleges. And not only to them, for Principal 
 Shairp induced him to delight the students of St. Andrews with 
 a lecture on the Literature and History of the People of India, 
 
608 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1871. 
 
 intended to stir them up to claim their share of appointments 
 in the Services which Scotsmen once almost monopolised. 
 
 This growing appreciation led to a movement for securing 
 a portrait of the philanthropist for his native country, since 
 he persisted in his resolution to return to much-loved Bom- 
 bay. On the 9th June 1871 he thus wrote to Mr. David 
 Maclagan, who had organised the matter "The proposal 
 has taken me by surprise, as I feel that I have no claim to 
 be an aspirant to the honours which you and other friends 
 desiderate on my behalf. In giving my grateful consent to 
 that proposal, I feel very deeply that it is the judgment of 
 God and not that of man with which I have mainly to do, 
 and that I have many grounds for personal humiliation in 
 the divine presence in connection with my ministrations in 
 all the places in which they have been conducted." The 
 portrait, painted by Mr. Norman Macbeth, has since adorned 
 the common hall of the New College, Edinburgh. 
 
 The Select Committee of the House of Commons, which 
 began to take evidence on the financial system of India in 
 1871, examined Dr. Wilson on the subject of the opium 
 cultivation of Central and Western India and the excise 
 laws. Almost from the year of his first landing at Bombay 
 he had, on the ground of temperance, memorialised Govern- 
 ment on the increase of drunkenness under our rule. He 
 admitted, from the Vedas and from the state of Poona under 
 the Marathas, that intoxication had been known in India, 
 both from drugs and distillation. From his tours, in Eajpoot- 
 ana especially, he gave much information as to the extent to 
 which the cultivation of the poppy is absorbing the best 
 lands, demoralising the people and killing off their chiefs. 
 He urged an increase of the spirit duties, the protection of 
 native villages from the invasion of the drink-sellers caused 
 by our excise system, and at least the conversion of the 
 Bengal opium monopoly into the Bombay system, for which 
 
1871.] LAST FAREWELL TO SCOTLAND. 609 
 
 the Government and the nation, as such, are not responsible. 
 He testified to the satisfaction of the natives with British rule 
 as contrasted with that of their own princes. That Select 
 Committee was not allowed to give in a final report on the 
 voluminous evidence which it took. The excise laws and 
 opium monopoly remain unchanged to this day, a blot on our 
 generally benevolent administration of India, excused but not 
 justified by financial difficulties. 
 
 The toil-worn man of sixty-five, the missionary of forty- 
 three years' service, might well have been pardoned if he 
 had chosen to rest where he was. But whether in Scotland 
 or in India rest could not be for that burning spirit, that 
 busy mind, that active body. " I go bound in the Spirit to 
 India to declare the Gospel message," he wrote to Miss 
 Margaret Dennistoun, when about to step on board the 
 ' Ceylon ' at Brindisi. " Nothing but this object sustains my 
 heart. I am sure you will all earnestly pray for me. My 
 solace is in the Lord." 
 
 "4th October 1871. Took leave of my beloved friends at 
 Lauder, who were all deeply affected, not expecting again 
 to see me in the flesh. Though I felt much on parting with 
 them I was wonderfully supported by the Lord Jesus. I 
 read the 129th and 121st Psalms before engaging in prayer 
 in my own house with the surviving members of our family. 
 They gave me the convoy in the carriage till we got out of 
 sight of the valley of the Leader. Drove to Greenlaw, where 
 I was received with much kindness by Mr. and Mrs. Fair- 
 bairn, and Eev. Messrs. Cunningham, Fraser, and Spence, 
 whom they had invited to meet me. Addressed a meeting 
 in the Free Church. 
 
 " 5^. To Langton, where I addressed Mr. Logan's con- 
 gregation in the evening. In the afternoon I visited Langton 
 House, to renew my acquaintance with the excellent Lady 
 Hannah Tharpe, who gave me a very kind reception. I had a 
 
 2R 
 
610 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1871. 
 
 long talk, too, on the grounds, with Lady Elizabeth Pringle 
 who has done much for their improvement as well as for 
 that of the mansion. She is a most vigorous and intelligent 
 old lady. 
 
 " 6th. Driven by Mr. Logan to Dunse, to the Eev. Mr. 
 Miller. After calling on Dr. Eitchie of the United Presby- 
 terian Church I left for Selkirk by rail. I was recognised 
 at Galashiels by Mr. Ovans, son of an old friend, who took 
 me to his house. I posted to Harewood Glen, where James 
 Dennistoun and his family were delighted to see me. 
 
 " 8tk. Driven to Selkirk and preached in the Free Church." 
 Dr. Guthrie's was the last " kent " face he saw in his 
 native land. Accompanied by his niece he followed his old 
 route by the Ehine to Munich, seeing Professor Christlieb at 
 Bonn, and bitterly lamenting the loss of " my grand walking- 
 cane, the gift of Colonel Davidson." At the Bavarian capital 
 he writes : " I renewed my acquaintance with Dr. Haug, Pro- 
 fessor of Sanscrit in the University, and he treated the two 
 of us to a right good German supper in the evening, at which 
 we met not only his wife and son, but Mr. West (now Ph.D.) 
 and Mrs. West, old Bombay friends, much with dearest Isabella 
 and myself. Dr. Haug offered to introduce me to Dr. Doll- 
 inger, the living lion of the place, but I could not spare the 
 needful time." And so, after a day at Trent, and in the 
 cathedral and church of Sta. Maria Maggiore " in which the 
 famous Council intended to defeat the Eeformation was held," 
 the last week of November 1871 saw him in the hospitable 
 house of Dr. Yule, the consular chaplain at Alexandria, and 
 soon after on an excursion from Suez to the Wells of Moses. 
 At Aden he and General Irving, E.E. repeated the usual 
 five miles' ride to the town and tanks. On the 9th December 
 he was welcomed back to Bombay by Dhunjeebhoy and the 
 son of the Nawab of Nasik, who boarded the steamer as it 
 entered the harbour. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 1872-1875. 
 BEST. 
 
 Assassination of Chief Justice Norman and Lord Mayo Dr. "Wilson on 
 Muhammadan feeling Translates Treasonable Proclamation Welcomes from 
 Old Students At the Allahabad Missionary Conference Additions to the 
 Native Church Shapoorjee's Persecution Vithabai's Habeas Corpus Case 
 Missionary Statistics Holkar's Gift Consulted by Viceroy on Baroda Case 
 Vernacular Press and State Education Triumphs of opposition to the Slave- 
 Trade and the Crimes of the Indian Cults On Kirk Union and Disestablish- 
 mentSocial Duties Mr. Grant Duff Lord Northbrook H. R. H. the 
 Prince of "Wales Illness Death Funeral Memorials Tributes by Vice- 
 Chancellor Gibbs, Captain R. Mackenzie, I.N., and the Wife of Major-General 
 Ballard, C.B. 
 
One only, of God's messengers to man, 
 Finish'd the work of grace which He began ; 
 E'en Moses wearied upon Nebo's height, 
 
 Though loth to leave the fight 
 With the doom'd foe, and yield the sun-bright land 
 
 To Joshua's armed band. 
 
 ' And David wrought in turn a strenuous part, 
 Zeal for God's house consuming him in heart ; 
 And yet he might not build, but only bring 
 
 Gifts for the heavenly King ; 
 And these another reared, his peaceful son, 
 
 Till the full work was done. 
 
 List, Christian warrior ! thou whose soul is fain 
 To rid thy Mother of her present chain ; 
 Christ will avenge His Bride ; yea, even now 
 
 Begins the work, and thou 
 Shalt spend in it thy strength, but, ere He save, 
 
 Thy lot shall be the grave." 
 
 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN : in 1833. 
 
 " I, Galahad, saw the Grail 
 
 . . . Blood-red. And in the strength of this I rode 
 Shattering all evil customs everywhere, 
 And past thro' Pagan realms, and made them mine, 
 And clashed with Pagan hordes, and bore them down, 
 And broke thro' all, and in the strength of this 
 Come victor. But my time is hard at hand, 
 And hence I go ; and one will crown me king 
 Far in the spiritual city ; and come thou, too, 
 For thou shalt see the vision when I go." 
 
 TENNYSON : The Holy Grail. 
 
1872.] DR. WILSON ON MUHAMMAD ANS AND LORD MAYO. 613 
 
 CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 A THRILL of feeling like that called forth by the Cawnpore 
 massacre followed the assassination of the Viceroy, Lord 
 Mayo, by a fanatical Afghan convict in the penal settlement 
 of the Andaman Islands, on the 8th February 1872. Not 
 five months before a Wahabee traitor had cut down the 
 blameless Chief Justice, Mr. Norman, as he entered the High 
 Court in Calcutta. It was difficult, at the time, to believe 
 that both of these events, unprecedented in our history, were 
 not the expression of more than the individual blood- 
 thirstiness of the assassins. But the voice of Dr. Wilson, 
 who knew well the most excitable Muhammadan com- 
 munities in India, next at least to the Wahabees and 
 Afghans on the frontier, was raised again, as in 1857, in 
 deprecation of sweeping charges against millions of our 
 fellow-subjects. In a Town-Hall meeting, and again at the 
 annual conference of the British and Foreign Bible Society's 
 branch in Bombay, he used such language as this of Lord 
 Mayo's assassin : " The murderer must be prayed for in the 
 spirit of the prayer offered up by Christ, that we should 
 ask forgiveness for those who trespass against us. I am 
 thoroughly convinced of the loyalty of the main body of 
 Muhammadans. I believe that many of them are most 
 anxious for the diffusion of knowledge, and even knowledge 
 concerning God." His eulogy of " the benevolent and 
 beneficent Governor-General" was based on the experience 
 he had had of his character and conversation when his 
 guest at Simla. Since that other Irish administrator, the 
 
614 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1873. 
 
 Marquis Wellesley, no ruler had exercised on Native and 
 European alike such a personal fascination as the upright 
 Peer whose only fault was that he had sometimes too little 
 suspicion of abler intellects directed by lower motives than 
 his own. The missionary's correspondence with Lord Mayo 
 was brief, but it is sufficient to justify the assertion that 
 the Viceroy felt a keen interest in all Christian and philan- 
 thropic agencies, " and promised to give all assistance in his 
 power to their efforts amongst the heathen tribes of the land." 
 Soon after, Dr. Wilson was consulted by the authorities on 
 the translation and significance of a treasonable proclamation 
 found in the pulpit of the Jumma Musjeed, the great mosque 
 of Delhi, and in another place. 
 
 Lord Northbrook, the successor of Lord Mayo, had hardly 
 taken his seat when he turned to Dr. Wilson for information 
 and counsel as to the working of the University system, in 
 itself and in its influence on the lower and vernacular 
 education. Dr. Murdoch had long called the attention 
 of the various Governments to the idolatrous and obscene 
 passages in Government school-books, from which, neverthe- 
 less, Christian allusion^ were carefully excluded. The new 
 Governor-General instructed each provincial Government to 
 report on the subject, and with his own hand thus wrote to 
 Dr. Wilson on the 3d May 18*73 : " The revision of the school- 
 books is intended to extend to the Vernacular as well as the 
 English books, and to give the opportunity of eliminating 
 any indecencies or passages which teach the Hindoo or 
 Muhammadan religions .... I did not think it desirable to 
 take any public notice of this part of the question, but I wish 
 to set the matter straight without making a fuss. It is very 
 gratifying to me that you should agree with what I said at 
 the Convocation of the Calcutta University." Lord North- 
 brook then invited Dr. Wilson's opinion on such vexed 
 questions as the compulsory requirement of an ancient 
 
1873.] GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE AT ALLAHABAD. 615 
 
 language (Sanscrit, in Bengal) for University pass degrees, 
 and the establishment of University Professorships. On the 
 latter the Scottish scholar's opinion was most strongly that 
 of Mr. S. Laing when Finance Minister, Mr. C. U. Aitchison, 
 Bishop Cotton, Archdeacon Pratt, Dr. Duff, Principal Miller, 
 and Lord Northbrook himself at last, that the Universities 
 should not be prevented from becoming teaching as well as 
 examining bodies, especially in such subjects common to all, 
 and not involving religious difficulties, as the mathematical 
 and physical sciences. Calcutta and Bombay now possess 
 at least one University Chair. 
 
 On the two occasions on which, in 1872 and 1873, Dr. 
 Wilson travelled by railway to Nagpore, to inspect the mis- 
 sion and do presbyterial duty, and to Allahabad to attend 
 the General Missionary Conference, he made something like 
 a triumphal progress. These great cities were the outposts to 
 which his direct influence had extended during the previous 
 forty years. At every station where his advent was known, 
 natives, young and old, converts and non-Christians, crowded 
 to the train to see their teacher once more, while some accom- 
 panied him for forty miles to prolong the dearly loved inter- 
 course. His letters show how deeply this affection moved 
 the old man. At Allahabad he was honoured, above all, by 
 the 136 missionaries of 19 societies, Native and European, 
 from all parts of India, who met to discuss the methods and 
 results of the missions in India during the previous decade. 
 In the whole history of foreign missions no such Synod has 
 ever been held, whether we look at the number and varied 
 experience of the members, at the evangelical unity of their 
 faith and love, or at the weight and critical value of their 
 discussions. 1 Dr. Wilson was one of the daily presidents, 
 and he preached on " The Glory of Christ" on the evening of 
 
 1 Report of the General Missionary Conference held at Allahabad, 1872-73. 
 London : Seeley, Jackson, and Halliday, 1873. 
 
616 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1873. 
 
 the united communion service. The subject assigned to him 
 for a paper was " On Preaching to the Hindoos," which he 
 treated not as purely evangelistic, not as only educational, 
 but as the proclamation of the gospel in many forms. His 
 plea for doing justice to the languages of the peoples of 
 India as the grand, though not exclusive, media of Christian 
 instruction legendo, scribendo, et loquendo was not less em- 
 phatic than when he first applied it to himself in 1829. But 
 he advocated English as " an alternative vernacular language, 
 specially adapted to the higher regions of thought and feel- 
 ing," especially in the great cities. " It is rapidly becoming 
 under the British Government what the Greek became under 
 the Seleucidse and the Ptolemies and the Latin became under 
 the Eoman Consuls. I leave all absolute anti- Anglicists to 
 answer for themselves the question, Why did the wisdom of 
 God choose the Greek language for the New Testament ? " 
 Nowhere will the young Englishman, and especially the 
 preacher and teacher, who goes out to India, find such ripe 
 wisdom and practical counsels as in that paper, and in the 
 subsequent opinions on intercourse with the Muhammadans, 
 the aboriginal tribes, and the advanced Brahmists. The hints 
 are worthy to be placed side by side with, so as to supple- 
 ment, the famous but now too little known, " Notes of Instruc- 
 tions" to young officials, in Malcolm's Memoir of Central India. 
 To the last, whether in Bombay or elsewhere, Dr. Wilson 
 looked, worked, prayed for true converts, and not in vain. The 
 case of Dhunjeebhoy Nowrojee more than thirty years before, 
 and oft-repeated since, was renewed in 1872. Shapoorjee 
 Dhunjeebhoy Babha, a youth of good family, entered the Surat 
 mission school to learn English. On the" second day of his 
 attendance Dr. Wilson happened to visit the school and to 
 distribute copies of his elementary catechism. The simple 
 book issued in Shapoorjee's baptism two years after, in spite 
 of the controversial treatises placed in his hands on the other 
 
1874.] REAPING THE FIRST FRUIT. 617 
 
 side, and the frantic declarations of his father that he would 
 destroy himself. The usual persecution followed kidnap- 
 ping and imprisonment. But the youth remained firm. He 
 nursed Dr. Wilson in the last hours, and has visited Scotland 
 for the completion of his theological studies. Again, in 1874, 
 Yithabai, a married lady of high caste, sought baptism, and was 
 driven from her home by the violence of her husband, whose 
 treatment of the children was such that the mother had them 
 brought into court on a writ of " habeas corpus." The eldest 
 girl, twelve years of age, vehemently protested her desire to 
 live as a Christian with her mother, but the father's rights were 
 declared absolute, in spite of his acknowledged cruelty. The 
 evidence showed that he had himself placed his daughter in the 
 Free Church female school, and had arranged that she should 
 receive lunch in violation of caste rules ; that when she left 
 the school, a Christian book she took with her led her mother 
 to Christ ; that he then asked the wife of the Eev. Gunputrao 
 Navalkar to teach Christianity in his own house ; and that he 
 himself had even proposed to go over to Chistianity with his 
 whole family. Who that knows the little faith and much 
 fearing of his own heart will do more than pity the timidity 
 that prevailed ? In the same year Dr. Wilson wrote to Miss 
 Camilla Dennistoun : " Mission objects are pressing upon me 
 the more that the enterprise expands. Last year I admitted 
 into the Christian Church eighteen individuals of hopeful 
 character, education, and intelligence. This year the harvest 
 promises to be equally extensive." Statistics are no adequate 
 test of such work as Dr. Wilson's. But the latest figures for 
 1877 show that in Bombay and the stations of the Free 
 Church founded by him, 1071 converts have been admitted, 
 on the intelligent profession of their faith, since the beginning 
 of his mission; while there were 2877 pupils and students 
 in 56 schools. That is but the first-fruit of the harvest 
 which he sowed. We find it in other forms so opposite, as 
 
618 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1875. 
 
 the gift at this time, through Sir Madhava Bao, of Es. 500 
 from the Maharaja Holkar, which was devoted to enriching 
 the libraries of the college and schools in vernacular and 
 Sanscrit works ; and this communication from one who had 
 been long a chaplain in India : " I can never forget that it 
 was at a social meeting at your house in Ambrolie, and while 
 you were engaged in prayer, that a remarkable change, or 
 rather the first step of a remarkable change, passed over 
 my wife. I may say that the life of faith is a different thing 
 to me now from what it was when you and I were first 
 acquainted." 
 
 The last of the political services which Dr. Wilson was to 
 be able to render to the Government was called for by Lord 
 Northbrook. As an interpreter between the Oriental and the 
 European mind, as a mediator between the races, he was 
 asked in 1875 for his impressions as to the effect of the recent 
 Baroda trial on the minds of the natives. " The opinion 
 of one occupying your position, with large experience of the 
 country and peculiar opportunities of mixing with all classes, 
 would be very valuable," he was told, as different at once 
 from official reports and the utterances of the Press. His 
 elaborate reply (see Appendix) called forth a warm letter of 
 gratitude, and a further request for his opinion on these ques- 
 tions, one of which has since been hastily dealt with : " Is it 
 desirable to impose any check upon the native Press, or to 
 endeavour to counteract the effect of the disloyal native papers 
 by supporting papers which will put forward correct views ? " 
 " Has the time arrived for making those who receive a high 
 English education pay the whole cost of it, limiting the aid 
 of the State to those youths who, by distinguishing them- 
 selves in the lower schools, show that they deserve assistance 
 in completing their education, thereby bringing fully into 
 operation the principles expounded in the Educational 
 Despatch of 1854 ? " The leisure for replying to these 
 
1875.] INIQUITIES OF INDIA REMOVED BY GOVERNMENT. 619 
 
 questions never came, but it is not difficult to say what 
 Dr. Wilson's answer would have been to both. Certainly he 
 would have urged the Governor-General, by arguments no 
 less powerful than those which gave the Despatch of 1854 
 its force, to remove every obstruction to the development of 
 a policy which would give all religions, educationally, a fair 
 field, and would permit positive moral and spiritual principle 
 to affect the education of the young, while ceasing to build 
 up and to hedge round pure secularism, and all which that 
 involves, by a State monopoly. It is deeply to be regretted 
 that, in spite of his premature abolition of direct taxation, 
 so that the burdens of India are thrown mainly on the 
 poor, Lord Nbrthbrook did not continue for at least the usual 
 five years' term of office, to maintain the safe traditional 
 foreign and feudatory policy of his great predecessors, and 
 to develop his own wise educational views. 
 
 In the mission of Sir Bartle Erere to Africa and the 
 East, to arrange with the Khedive, the Sultan of Zanzibar, 
 and the petty potentates of the littoral from the Persian Gulf 
 west and south to the still slave-trading territory of the 
 Portuguese Government of Mozambique, Dr. Wilson saw 
 the philanthropic efforts of his life approaching that happy 
 issue which our vigorous consul at Zanzibar, Dr. Kirk, soon 
 after reached by treaty. In India itself, as he reviewed the 
 gradual amelioration of Asiatic customs under the East India 
 Company, and the growth of toleration under the Crown, he 
 thus tersely catalogued the bloodless triumphs that had been 
 won on a field where, it may be said, he himself completed 
 what Carey had begun eighty years before : 
 
 HORRORS AND INIQUITIES OF INDIA REMOVED BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 I. MURDER OF PARENTS. 
 (a) By Suttee. 
 
 (6) By exposure on the banks of rivers. 
 (c) By burial alive. Case in Jodhpore territory, 1860. 
 
620 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1875. 
 
 II. MURDER OF CHILDREN. 
 
 (a) By dedication to the Ganges, to be devoured by crocodiles. 
 (6) By Rajpoot infanticide, West of India, Punjab, East of India. 
 
 III. HUMAN SACRIFICES. 
 (a) Temple sacrifices. 
 
 (6) By wild tribes Meriahs of the Khonds. 
 
 IV. SUICIDE. 
 
 (a) Crushing by idol cars. 
 
 (6) Devotees drowning themselves in rivers. 
 
 (c) Devotees casting themselves from precipices. 
 
 (d) Leaping into wells widows. 
 
 (e) By Traga. 
 
 V. VOLUNTARY TORMENT. 
 (a) By hook-swinging. 
 (6) By thigh-piercing. 
 
 (c) By tongue-extraction. 
 
 (d) By falling on knives. 
 
 (e) By austerities. 
 
 VI. INVOLUNTARY TORMENT. 
 (a) Barbarous executions. 
 (6) Mutilation of criminals. 
 
 (c) Extraction of evidence by torment. 
 
 (d) Bloody and injurious ordeals. 
 
 (e) Cutting off the noses of women. 
 
 VII. SLAVERY. 
 
 (a) Hereditary predial slavery. 
 (6) Domestic slavery, 
 (c) Importation of slaves from Africa. 
 . VIII. EXTORTIONS. 
 (a) By Dharana. 
 (6) By Traga. 
 
 IX. RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 
 
 (a) Prevention of Propagation of Christianity. 
 (6) Calling upon the Christian soldiers to fire salutes at heathen 
 festivals, etc. 
 
 (c) Saluting gods on official papers. 
 
 (d) Managing affairs of idol temples. 
 
 X. SUPPORT OF CASTE BY LAW. 
 
 (a) Exclusion of low castes from offices. 
 
 (6) Exemption of high castes from appearing to give evidence. 
 
 (c) Disparagement of low caste. 
 
1875.] A RECONSTRUCTED KIRK OF SCOTLAND. 621 
 
 But it was ever to the spiritual, the divine, that Dr. 
 Wilson looked as the motive power of all effective philan- 
 thropy. Hence, as his end drew near, he longed more and 
 more for the restoration of that unity of the Kirk of Scotland 
 which, when the later Stewarts had failed to wipe it out in 
 blood, the short-sighted advisers of Queen Anne first secretly 
 shattered. His experience during the year of his Moderator- 
 ship showed him that, without a united Kirk reconstructed on 
 the historical lines of spiritual but lay independence, as stated 
 by Francis Jeffrey and Cockburn, his country would never do 
 its duty in the Christianization of India. These were his last 
 letters on that subject, written at a time when he was wel- 
 coming back to India the Rev. Narayan Sheshadri " after his 
 most successful campaign in Britain and America," in which 
 the Christian Brahman had pleaded for the depressed tribes 
 and ignorant peasantry for whom he has given his life 
 
 " 4th September 1874. Nulla vestigia retrorsum must be the motto 
 of tlie Free Presbyterian Churches. If others can claim, and receive 
 and maintain their full liberty in Christ, and prove faithful to evan- 
 gelical truth, let them be received into the advanced fraternity ; but 
 let there be no obscurations, or concessions, or retrogressions, which, 
 would endanger or weaken our position or injure our character. The 
 duty of the State now, in the present advanced state of Christian 
 society and the many divisions which exist, is to remove all imposts 
 for the support of religion, and to devote all church property held by 
 the State to such objects as, in the spirit of its original destination, are 
 not inconsistent with its original consecration, viewed in a general 
 and liberal sense." 
 
 " 5th October 1874. I am pleased to a certain extent with the Act 
 of Parliament abolishing Patronage, and more particularly because it 
 was sought for by the Established Church of Scotland ; but it does not 
 recognise the essential freedom and autonomy of the Church, and is 
 entirely destitute of Presbyterian Catholicity. We are the historical 
 Church of Scotland, and let the Established Churchmen be abreast of 
 us before we unite with them. The hasty comprehensions of the 
 [Revolution bear a solemn lesson to us which we should not forget. I 
 am convinced that they are the best friends of the Established Churches 
 of Scotland and England who, in a Christian spirit, seek their disestab- 
 
622 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1875. 
 
 lishment. Saying or doing nothing in this direction we are respon- 
 sible for much error and much sin. I express this opinion with much 
 personal regard for thousands of their members and ministers, and with 
 still greater regard for those of our own Church who may not see eye 
 to eye with us in this matter. Much discretion will be needed in the 
 advocacy of the disestablishment cause." 
 
 Every year, to the last, seemed to bring with it an increase 
 of Dr. Wilson's social duties and influence, while there was 
 no abatement in his services to the public by frequent lec- 
 tures on such subjects as " Views of Sin in the Hindoo Books 
 and in the Bible ; " " Hindoo Philosophy," etc. Among the 
 guests and visitors whom he again and again guided amid 
 the rock-cut temples around Bombay, while he opened to 
 them its native, its benevolent and scientific institutions, and 
 delighted them with his conversation, were, in these last 
 years Lord Northbrook, Lady Hobart, Sir Arthur Gordon, 
 Sir Harry Parkes, Count Cserakotsky, Dr. Hermann Jacobi, 
 Dr. Begg, General Litchfield, Mr. Grant Duff; Mr, Maughan 
 and Mr. Octavius Stone, the travellers ; Mr. Seibert, and other 
 United States' astronomers ; Dr. Andreas, sent by the Austrian 
 Government to study the Parsee religion; Miss Tucker 
 (A.L.O.E.) ; M. Minayeff, a Eussian traveller; Professor 
 Monier Williams ; the Armenian bishop ; the Maharaja 
 Holkar, Sir Madhava Rao, and the Chief of Jamkhundee; 
 Canon Duckworth, and the Rev. Dr. A. N. Somerville. 
 It was at the farewell meeting held by that evangelist on 
 April 7th, 1875, that Dr. Wilson appeared among the non- 
 Christian natives of Bombay for the last time a fitting occa- 
 sion. Dr. Templeton closed the long succession of mission- 
 aries and friends who had been his guests. The last time he 
 gathered his children in the faith around him was on the 
 18th August, when he opened the "Day-school for Indian 
 and other Eastern Females," which he had erected in affec- 
 tionate remembrance of Isabella Wilson, " from a bequest by 
 herself for any one evangelistic object of his choice." 
 
1875.] HIS KOYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WALES. 623 
 
 Mr. Grant Duff has told the world his delight in the 
 companionship of the missionary : " We drove round a large 
 part of the town with Dr. Wilson a great pleasure, to be put 
 in the same class as going over Canterbury Cathedral with 
 the author of the Memorials, the Greyfriars' Churchyard with 
 Eobert Chambers, or Holyrood with poor Joseph Eobertson. 
 
 . . I leave Bombay with a much stronger impression 
 than I had of its great Asiatic as distinguished from its merely 
 Indian importance. It is and will be more and more, to all this 
 part of the world, what Ephesus or Alexandria was to the 
 eastern basin of the Mediterranean in the days of the Eoman 
 Empire. I wish I could give it a fortnight, and be allowed to 
 pick Dr. Wilson's brains all the time." By the time that the 
 Prince of Wales landed, and there had been put into his hands 
 that exposition of the " Religious Excavations of Western 
 India," over which Dr. Wilson was to have been his guide, 
 the great missionary was too ill to receive His Royal Highness, 
 who graciously deputed so old a friend as Sir Bartle Frere to 
 visit the dying apostle, and sent him the royal portrait. The 
 Viceroy, Lord Northbrook, sought an interview with him, as 
 Lord Hastings and Lady W. Bentinck had done with Carey 
 when he was sick. 
 
 Frequent attacks of fever, after his return to Bombay at 
 the end of 1871, had ended in September 1875 in chronic 
 breathlessness from weakness of the heart. But he could not 
 rest so long as any duty had to be done in the Institution, in 
 the financial affairs of the mission, and in the University, 
 although he had Mr. Stothert and zealous young colleagues 
 to relieve him. On attempting to reach Mahableshwar, after a 
 previous visit to Poona, he was forced by an alarming attack 
 to return from Panchgunny, twelve miles short of the loved 
 sanitarium. Miss Taylor, Dr. Macdonald the medical mis- 
 sionary, and Professor Peterson nursed him with devotion. 
 When again in Bombay under the tender skill of Dr. Joynt, 
 
624 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1875. 
 
 he had ever in his hand, as he sat in the chair to which the 
 disease confined him, a volume of hymns marked at Kelly's 
 " Comfort in Prospect of Death." In the last letter written 
 with his own hand he said : " In the goodness of my Heavenly 
 Father I think I am a little better, but if you saw my 
 difficulty of breathing you would pity me. Let that pity pass 
 into petitions addressed to the Throne of all grace." Eeady to 
 die he yet desired life that he might finish, as he thought, his 
 Master's work. To Mr. Bowen, the American missionary, he 
 said the day before he died : " I have perfect peace, and am 
 content that the Lord should do what seems good to Him." 
 And then he talked of the advance of Christ's kingdom in 
 India, expressing an eager solicitude that during the Prince's 
 tour among its peoples and nobles nothing might be done that 
 should even seem to countenance false religions, or to depart 
 from the Government's attitude of simple toleration. He 
 had lived for the freedom of Truth ; rejoicing in Him Who 
 alone has guaranteed that freedom he died. 
 
 At his feet gathered more, and more to him, than prince 
 or viceroy, governor or scholar. The Hindoos were there ; 
 Tirmal Rao and his two sons came from far Dharwar to seek 
 his blessing. They knelt before him, their turbans on the 
 ground, as they laid the Christian patriarch's hands on their 
 heads ; and when he died they Hindoos begged his body 
 that they might bury it. The Muhammadans were there. 
 A family greatly attached to him brought their own physician 
 to see him, pleading that a Jiukeem who had healed the Shah 
 of Persia must do him good. The Parsees were represented 
 by Dhunjeebhoy and Shapoorjee, his first and his latest 
 sons in the faith from their tribe. In the wanderings of 
 unconsciousness, the words of Scripture, clearly read, often 
 recalled his soul to follow them. At five on the evening of 
 the 1st December, peacefully, John Wilson entered into his 
 rest. In ten days he would have completed his seventy-first 
 
1875.] HIS GEAVE IN BOMBAY. 625 
 
 year. The old Scottish Burial Ground, closed by an act of 
 the legislature, was opened that his dust might lie in the 
 same grave with that of Margaret and Isabella Wilson. 
 There, too, lie Anna Bayne and Eobert Nesbit, of whose wife 
 Hay Bayne, who died at sea, there is a marble record. And 
 there was placed the young wife of Dr. Valentine. When 
 we last stood there it was with Dr. Wilson, who said that by 
 the grave which was to open for him he would take posses- 
 sion of India for the Lord. For, he used to remark, the way 
 to Heaven is as short from India as from England. While 
 some may regret that the veteran of threescore and ten did 
 not retire to the leisure and the influence to which his native 
 country invited him, surely there was a dramatic complete- 
 ness, a spiritual unity, in the death which he died in Bom- 
 bay. By him such an end was desired, but not as a 
 mere sentiment. In 1849 he had written, " though for long I 
 thought that missionaries should seek to die in India and not 
 contemplate retiring in any circumstances, observation has 
 led me to qualify my opinion." He would have worked un- 
 ceasingly anywhere ; he desired to go on working long. It is 
 well for the natives he loved and for the Church to which he 
 is an example that he was permitted to fall while still in the 
 front of the battle. 
 
 How all Bombay, how half India, made great lamenta- 
 tion for John Wilson, and carried him to his burial, the 
 journals of the day record. Governor, Council and Judges ; 
 University Vice-Chancellor, General, and Sir Jamsetjee 
 Jeejeebhoy ; Missionaries, Chaplains, and Portuguese Catho- 
 lics ; the converts, students, and school children ; Asiatics 
 and Africans of every caste, creed, and hue, reverently 
 followed all that was mortal of the venerated philanthropist, 
 for two hours as the bier was borne from " the Cliff " along 
 Malabar Hill, and down the road which sweeps round the 
 
 2 s 
 
626 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1875. 
 
 head of the Back Bay to the Free Church on the Esplanade, 
 and then to the last-resting place. 
 
 The University of Bombay possesses his library, and has 
 commissioned from Mr. J. Adams-Acton a marble bust of its 
 virtual founder. An endowment has been raised by his 
 countrymen in Scotland for memorial scholarships to stimulate 
 the youth of the Border to follow in his footsteps. Dr. 
 Norman Macleod's proposal, in 1870, that Dr. Wilson's Insti- 
 tution should become the United Christian College of Bombay, 
 is likely to be carried out. Mr. Vice- Chancellor Gibbs, at the 
 first convocation of the University afterwards, paid this official 
 tribute to the learning and reputation of his predecessor : 
 
 " This venerable missionary brought all his power, tempered by 
 a most catholic spirit, to the service of this University ; and in every 
 branch of its government, including the office which I have now the 
 honour to hold, gave it not only his best and warmest support, but 
 also the incalculable benefit of his great experience as a teacher and 
 guide of the native youth of this presidency. He has gone, in the 
 fulness of the age allotted to man, to his reward and his rest ; the 
 regret we entertain for his loss is sincere, though perhaps selfish, but all 
 will, I think, agree in the applicability to him of the often quoted 
 sentiment of the Prince of Denmark : 
 
 ' He was a man, take him for all and all, 
 We shall not look upon his like again.' " 
 
 Captain E. Mackenzie, I. N"., writes to us of his work 
 among the officers of the Indian Navy : 
 
 " Under his usual calm and placid demeanour there lay a strong 
 current of genial humour which he often gave vent to in his intercourse 
 with his more intimate friends. The interest he manifested in the 
 spiritual welfare of the officers both of the Army and the Indian Navy 
 soon made Ambrolie Mission House a great centre of attraction for 
 many in both Services ; and the awakening to spiritual life that mani- 
 fested itself very decidedly on the western side, can be traced to the 
 prayers and influence of Dr. Wilson. Apart from his work among the 
 native community, had he done nothing more than what he was directly 
 and indirectly instrumental in accomplishing among his own country- 
 men of all classes, he would have done enough." 
 
1875.] HIS DIVINE CHARITY. 627 
 
 Major-General Ballard and his wife enjoyed Dr. Wilson's 
 friendship for sixteen years, and they were long his neighbours 
 on Malabar Hill. Mrs. Ballard recalls his care of the native 
 converts, and his unwearied patience with all their difficulties. 
 "How often have I watched one after another go in at his 
 gate, all sure of a welcome, of his courteous attention and 
 sympathy. JSTo matter how interesting the study in which he 
 was engaged, he seemed to me to be always ready to lay it 
 down if he could do the least good to a human soul, or speak 
 a kind word to a sorrowing heart. He always appealed to 
 what was best in every man. He fixed his eye steadily, not 
 on the weaknesses, the inconsistencies of frail human nature, 
 but on the inherent dignity of the soul, the priceless value of 
 that for which Christ died. I have heard a native Christian 
 of low caste say in a tone that touched my heart, ' Dr. Wilson 
 believes me ; the Padre Saheb knows I say true ; ' as if hug- 
 ging to his soul the consciousness that some one trusted him. 
 I have heard those who were incapable of having even a 
 glimpse of the nobleness of his nature say with a smile that 
 he was ' often taken in.' I never could admit that it was a 
 reproach to say so not unless it be a reproach to say that a 
 man's soul is steeped in charity, the charity that thinketh no 
 evil, that ' beareth all things, believeth all things, and hopeth 
 all things.' Yes, he was often taken in, and in nothing do I 
 venerate his memory more. I venerate it, because when he 
 had been deceived and disappointed, chilled with ingratitude 
 or wearied with inconsistency, he was able to begin afresh to 
 love and to pity, to hope and to trust. Few of us are capable 
 in this sense of being ' often taken in ! ' 
 
 " But we must not overlook what his life and example 
 did for many of the natives who felt his elevating influence 
 though they lacked the moral courage or the strength of con- 
 viction to profess his faith. A Parsee gentleman said to me 
 soon after his death, ' Dr Wilson did not make me a Christian, 
 
628 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1875. 
 
 but I hope I am a better man for having known him than 
 I would otherwise have been.' This may be said of hundreds 
 in Bombay. There is one class of Dr. Wilson's native 
 friends that I cannot think of without sadness the students, 
 numbering hundreds in Bombay, who had the privilege of 
 being instructed by him ; to whom all the doctrines of Christi- 
 anity are familiar; who are convinced, as many of them 
 acknowledge, of the worthlessness of their own system, but 
 who outwardly cling to it still. I never saw Dr. Wilson look 
 so sad as in speaking of some of these ' They know they 
 ought to be Christians.' Surely it cannot be that so much 
 love and so much labour have been expended in vain ! 
 
 " I know that there are many missionaries doing noble 
 work in India who come little into contact with English 
 society. They avoid rather than welcome opportunities of 
 entering into it. I would not undervalue their labours ; 
 but it is impossible not to regret that the lesson of their 
 lives is in a great measure lost upon their own countrymen. 
 Of course it may be said that Dr. Wilson possessed special 
 social gifts, that few have acquired such stores of information, 
 and few have the same power of imparting it to others. 
 I do not think that the secret of his popularity lay in his 
 gifts, but rather in his ready sympathy, his catholic spirit, 
 and his genial nature. He had in a rare degree the power 
 of imparting knowledge without making others too painfully 
 conscious of their ignorance. Then no uncharitable judgments 
 or injurious reports were ever traced to him. Every man 
 felt so safe in talking to him. Scandal passed him by, the 
 evil weed found no soil to take root in. While alive to all 
 that interested us, our joys and our sorrows, he lived in the 
 world but not of it. Dr. Wilson made it a special aim to 
 lead his countrymen to think justly and kindly of those 
 around them, and he was often the connecting link between 
 the English and the natives, helping them to understand 
 
1875.] HIS CATHOLICITY AND SELF-SACRIFICE. 629 
 
 each other better. Many of us have felt that his presence in 
 the midst of us had a softening effect in our dealings with 
 the natives in our households, leading us more earnestly to 
 desire to do them good. When a hasty word rose to our 
 lips, or a severe thought of them, the remembrance of him 
 seemed to say ' Hush ! there is one who would lay down his 
 life to save their souls ! ' 
 
 " Though he was an attached member of the Free Church 
 of Scotland, we never found that his ecclesiastical views 
 chilled his friendship for those of us who adhered to other 
 communions. He seemed to belong to all who loved the 
 Lord Jesus in sincerity. I remember with what tender 
 regard he spoke to me of Dr. Douglas, then Bishop of Bom- 
 bay, and how deeply he grieved for him at a time of sore 
 bereavement in his family. I believe that regard was reci- 
 procal, and that though they differed widely in some articles 
 of their creed, each recognised and honoured in the other 
 devotion to the same Lord. They see eye to eye now ! 
 
 " Many look back gratefully to Dr. Wilson's simple but 
 cordial hospitality, which was exercised to the full extent of 
 his means ; and I believe his liberal charities could only be 
 kept up by the exercise of great personal self-denial. He 
 entered cheerfully into society, and his presence had an 
 elevating influence on conversation. He seemed so much 
 part of Bombay and its interests that every visitor of note 
 made an effort to make his acquaintance, and he took a 
 prominent part on every occasion of public interest there. In 
 the last event of importance, however, during his life, he was 
 missed from his wonted place. When Bombay was stirred by 
 loyal enthusiasm on the arrival of the Prince of Wales, our 
 venerable friend was ' wearin' awa' to the land o' the leal ! ' 
 As we drove past his darkened house to join the brilliant 
 gathering the night after the arrival of the Prince, I felt 
 saddened by the thought that, while we were going to a scene 
 
630 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. [1875. 
 
 which would have been full of interest to him, he was laid on 
 a bed of suffering. I was reminded, however, by Sir Bartle 
 Frere, of the higher view to be taken of his state, and how he 
 was waiting at the entrance-chamber of the King of kings. 
 ' How I have missed Dr. Wilson from his place to-day,' said 
 Sir Bartle. ' But when one thinks of things as they really 
 are, probably there is no man on earth more to be envied at 
 this moment than Dr. Wilson. What must it be to be near 
 the close of such a life ! ' 
 
 " I stole into the silent bungalow to lay a wreath on his 
 coffin. The sun was rising over the distant hills and tinging 
 the bay with gold. No sound broke the stillness but the 
 rustle of the wind in the dry palm leaves and the dash of the 
 distant wave, until I entered the little study. There a voice 
 of bitter weeping met my ear in the verandah the Native 
 Christians, sorrowing most of all that they should see his face 
 no more. ' We are so glad,' said a Native Christian once to 
 me, ' that Dr. Wilson will never go home. You all go and 
 leave us, we know you are always looking longingly to 
 England, but Dr. Wilson will never go home.' Ah ! he had 
 gone Home now." 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 DE. WILSON ON NATIVE EULE IN BAEODA AND 
 NATIVE OPINION ON BEITISH EULE. 
 
 "GOVERNMENT HOUSE, SIMLA, June 19th, 1875. 
 
 " MY DEAR DR. WILSON. Lord Northbrook has desired me 
 to ask you whether you would be so kind as to let him know 
 your impressions as to the effect of recent Baroda events on the 
 minds of the Natives. During the progress of the trial and sub- 
 sequent proceedings, there was naturally a good deal of excite- 
 ment, and not a few erroneous impressions as to matters of fact 
 got abroad. By this time things have begun to settle down. 
 The truth must be pretty generally known, and opinion is pro- 
 bably beginning to assume its ultimate form. The present, 
 therefore, seems a fitting time to enquire what effect, for good or 
 evil, the general policy of Government has produced on the 
 Native mind. 
 
 " The only two main sources of information in our possession 
 are of course official reports and the utterances of the Press. 
 The former are, I have every reason to believe, good and trust- 
 worthy as far as they go, but it is obvious that there are many 
 sources of information which are more or less closed to those 
 who occupy an official position. As to the latter the Press it 
 is very difficult to judge of the degree of importance which is to 
 be attached to the opinions of any particular journal, European 
 or Native. 
 
 " The opinion of one occupying your position, with large ex- 
 perience of the country and peculiar opportunities of mixing with 
 all classes, would, I need hardly say, be very valuable, and Lord 
 Northbrook hopes that you will be willing to express your views 
 to him with complete freedom. Believe me, yours very truly, 
 
 " EVELYN BARING." 
 
632 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 " MALABAR HILL, BOMBAY, 3d August 1875. 
 
 " DEAR SIR. I very readily reply to the inquiries which 
 you confidentially addressed to me some time ago ; but before 
 doing this I find it necessary to advert to certain peculiarities in 
 the Baroda State, and its rulers, which it is needful to bear in 
 mind for the right understanding of the position of affairs in the 
 West of India, as I shall to the best of my information and 
 judgment represent them. 
 
 " Among the natives of Goojarat the Maratha Government at 
 Baroda has been unpopular from its very commencement to the 
 present day. By these it is viewed very much as a foreign 
 Government, differing to a very considerable extent in language 
 and customs, and exercising authority without offering the 
 advantages of quiet, security, education, enlightened legislation, 
 and protection of labour and commerce as are presented by the 
 British Government, and without even generally, even in a sub- 
 ordinate capacity, employing the natives of the province. The 
 fact to which I allude I have ascertained from varied and unex- 
 ceptionable testimony, and from complaints thrust upon me during 
 my journeyings through much of the Gaikwar's territories, 
 by many respectable natives of Goojarat. Baroda (in which 
 is to be found much of the refuse of the Maratha 
 country, both Brahmanical and non-Brahmanical) is con- 
 sidered a cesspool of moral corruption. Notwithstanding the 
 productiveness of much of its soil, and the extent of its land 
 revenue, and transit and other duties, it has seldom, if ever, been 
 free from pecuniary embarrassments. No proper adjustment, as 
 far as I am aware, has been made between the claims of the State 
 and those of the ruling family. Much caprice has been shown 
 in the exactions made from the agricultural population. The 
 treatment of the wild tribes was barbarous in the extreme, till 
 the management of them, by mutual agreement, passed into the 
 hands of the British Government, in connection with the Mahee- 
 Kanta agency. The administration of justice through the 
 Gaikwar's dominions has been most imperfect and partial, lead- 
 ing frequently, I am persuaded, to the injury and cruel treatment 
 both of the innocent and guilty. I can never forget the shock 
 which I got the first day of my entrance into the Gaikwar's 
 territory, now upwards of forty years ago, when the ashes of a 
 
APPENDIX. 633 
 
 fire (under a tree) were pointed out to me by a friend high in 
 the Medical Service "of the East India Company, over the blazing 
 flames of which four humble Bheels, suspended by the feet from 
 the branch of a tree, with their heads nearly reaching the flames, 
 had been executed. My journeyings among jungle tribes, five 
 years afterwards, led to revelations equally painful. ' Through 
 these (in 1840) I learnt, from Mr. James Sutherland, C.S., 
 that he had succeeded in inducing Sayajee Rao, Gaikwar, to 
 abolish Suttee. I think it right, however, in justice to the 
 Baroda Government, to mention that it has readily concurred 
 with the British Government in the measures proposed by it for 
 the abolition of infanticide among the tributaries of both Govern- 
 ments in Kathiawar, leaving the British authorities free to adopt 
 what action they might please in the exigencies of the case. It 
 is to the credit of the Baroda Government, I also mention, that 
 it has allowed the British Government to collect and pay over 
 to it its share of the Kathiawar tribute, thus avoiding such 
 unhappy collisions as occurred between the Gaikwar and the 
 Peshwa of Poona, whom we succeeded in Kathiawar. 
 
 " The Baroda Government has for long received much kind- 
 ness from the British Government. This, however, it has not 
 sufficiently appreciated and improved. A notable instance of 
 this appeared in the unwillingness of Sayajee Eao to fulfil his 
 engagement to pay, for the support of the cavalry troops he was 
 bound to maintain, the capital and interest of the large sums of 
 money which he had borrowed from Soukars and bankers, 
 on the pledge of the British Government that it should see 
 to the ultimate rectification of the accounts. For this he 
 nearly lost his throne in 1832, when Lord Clare visited Baroda 
 on his way to confer with Lord William Bentinck at Ajmer 
 about this and other exigencies which had arisen. It was 
 only after repeated entreaties, almost tearful, that he ultimately 
 accepted the advice proffered to him by the Resident at his 
 Court, Mr. James Williams, C.S., as I find in a private letter 
 addressed to the brother of Mr. Williams, in my possession. 
 Sayajee Rao, it is admitted, had long had bad native advisers in 
 his employment ; while the British Residents at his Court, in 
 general able and honourable men, too much shrank from inter- 
 fering with him even by friendly advice, except when the British 
 
634 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 interests were directly concerned. It is to be regretted that he 
 did not, more frequently than he did, solicit their advice. He 
 bore them no good will ; and his memory is associated with 
 suspicions in connection with the lives of two of them. He did 
 nothing to encourage education among his people, though he 
 took approbatory cognisance on one occasion of two small ver- 
 nacular schools supported by the officers of the British camp. 
 At a late period of his age he got a qualified teacher for his elder 
 sons from one of the industrial classes of the Marathas, who, if 
 they made but little progress in learning, was not to be blamed 
 on that account. Gunputrao, who succeeded him on his death, 
 was certainly personally the better of the instructions which he 
 received, though he did not succeed in remedying the grievances 
 of his subjects, or in curtailing the extravagant expenses of his 
 palace. He gave away large sums of money in furnishing and 
 filling the garden palace at the Motee Bagh with expensive gew- 
 gaws and toys. He viewed the British Government with respect, 
 and came down to Bombay in 1850 to meet Lord Dalhousie. He 
 died on the 19th November 1856. 
 
 " Gunput Eao was succeeded by his brother Khunde Rao, but 
 little fitted to hold the reins of Government or to follow good 
 advice when proffered to him. He spoke of his predecessor as a 
 fool, but he had remarkable vagaries of his own. He is said to 
 have spent a lakh and a quarter of rupees (12,500) on one 
 occasion in reward for a successful wrestler. He was fond of 
 pashuguddha as well as of mallaguddha of fighting brutes as well 
 as of men, and spent large sums of money in promoting these 
 oriental sports, happily now not very common. When the 
 Mutiny broke out and extended to serious dimensions, he 
 was greatly afraid, as he well might ; but the sight of 
 the brawny legs and arms of the 92d Highlanders mitigated 
 his fears, and called forth imitations of defence for himself 
 in the formation of a still existent regiment with highlandish 
 habiliments, though without the cor or the corpus of the 
 valiant Gael. In consideration of his fidelity and friend- 
 ship to the British, there was remitted to him the payment of 
 the sum of three lakhs of rupees per annum for the payment of 
 the Goojarat Irregular Horse, and the acknowledgment of the 
 right of adoption on the failure of natural heirs. Trusting to 
 
APPENDIX. 635 
 
 the toleration of " the Sirkar," as he denominated the British 
 Government, he had serious thoughts of becoming a Muham- 
 madan, and frequently sat on the bare ground to receive instruc- 
 tions in the doctrines of the Koran from a Brahman convert to 
 Muhammadanism seated before him on a stool. He prepared at 
 an immense expense a pall studded with precious stones and 
 jewels for the tomb of Muhammad at Medina, or failing there, 
 for the tomb of Hassan or Hussein at Kerbela in Mesopotamia, 
 and which, there having been no prospect of acceptance by the 
 Muhammadans, is still at Baroda. At the close of 1859 I had 
 an interview with his Highness in the presence of the Resident, 
 Colonel Wallace ; when, after commending him for the erection 
 of a hospital, I almost succeeded in getting him to found a 
 high school at Baroda for the benefit of his subjects. He came 
 to believe, from suspicious circumstances brought to his notice, 
 and from information which he received, that his brother, Mulhar 
 Rao, had intended to attempt to murder him for his throne ; and 
 he put him into restraint and confinement under this belief. 
 On no account would he suffer him to be set at liberty, even 
 under surveillance. From peculiarities in the temperament and 
 actings of Khunde Rao, at which I have above only gently hinted, 
 considerable sympathy was for a time felt for Mulhar Rao, 
 especially throughout the Maratha country. Nevertheless, it was 
 a mistake to set Mulhar Rao on the throne without an investigation 
 of the charge of attempted fratricide which had been brought 
 against him, more especially as Mulhar Rao had been more than 
 an object of suspicion during the Mutiny, and reckoned from 
 his early days to be altogether untrustworthy and injurious. 
 
 " The remarks which I have now to make bear directly on 
 the inquiries which you have confidentially addressed to me. 
 For convenience they will still be made mainly in a narrative form. 
 
 " The inefficient and devious administration of Mulhar Rao, 
 and his bad choice of agents, were thought by many both in the 
 Goojarat and Maratha country to be such as would likely bring 
 on a crisis. The appointment of Colonel Phayre, a gentleman 
 well known to possess the highest moral character with very 
 extensive knowledge of the different provinces of Western India, 
 to the Residency of Baroda, rendered the crisis, in the judgment 
 of many, almost certain. The Commission headed by Sir Richard 
 
636 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 Meade, and its finding, hastened its advent. It was intensified 
 by the marriage by Mulhar Eao of Lukshmibai (illegal in a 
 Hindoo point of view in this kali yuga, or iron age), and by the 
 suffering peasantry, sirdars, officers, etc., who, more urgently than 
 ever, sought relief from their grievances and payment of their 
 dues. The Gaikwar, failing in his attempt to corrupt the British 
 officers by bribery, resolved to adopt the desperate measure of 
 destroying Colonel Phayre by poison a catastrophe which the 
 good providence of God averted. 
 
 " The vigorous measures which were adopted by the Govern- 
 ment of India to bring the Gaikwar to trial for the heinous crime 
 of which he was suspected, had, notwithstanding the circumstances 
 above alluded to, a stunning effect upon the Marathas, many of 
 them throughout the country fearing that he would be found 
 guilty. I have the strongest belief that the Gaikwar had his 
 agents soon at work on this emergency. The tone of many of 
 the native papers was at once changed for the worse, and many of 
 the educated natives, particularly at Poona, held defiant meetings, 
 at which it was alleged that the British Government had no right 
 to put on his trial an independent prince, as they termed the 
 Gaikwar (forgetful of the subordinate position of his ancestors 
 even in the Maratha empire). The appointment of two princes 
 of high status in India, and a famous administrator, to sit in 
 commission for taking and recording evidence, formed for the 
 time being a quietus to some proud spirits ; but anon the flame 
 of discontent again burst forth, and indignation was felt that any 
 Maratha princes should sanction the principle of sitting in a 
 quasi-couii for the trial of their peers. Their last ' dodge ' was 
 that of getting up a loud protestation of the actual innocence of 
 the Gaikwar, while he and his case were sub judice. Never since 
 I came to this country, upwards of forty-six years ago, have I felt 
 so ashamed and grieved because of our educational protege's, for 
 whom a parental Government has done and is doing so much, 
 devoting their talents and energies, in a spirit of marked 
 ingratitude, to the worst of purposes. 
 
 " And yet the affair is to my mind perfectly intelligible. 
 It has long been the ambition of the Maratha Brahmans to 
 assume the direction of the Maratha power. This is perfectly 
 obvious from the usurpation of the Brahman Peshwas, who with 
 
APPENDIX. 637 
 
 the Putwurdhans and Rastias, and other Brahmanical warriors, 
 made state prisoners and ciphers of the Rajas of Satara and their 
 Maratha nobles, as so well brought out in Grant Duff's History, 
 and the condensed notices of it by Mr. Elphinstone, Sir John 
 Malcolm, Sir Bartle Frere, and others. The young men to whom 
 I now refer, and the partisans whom they have succeeded in 
 acquiring, do not intend rebellion at present, but their object is to 
 depreciate the Paramount Power by plausible misrepresentations, 
 to promote a spirit of discontent among the people, which may 
 employ them at present and eventually turn the course of events 
 in the direction of their final aspirations. Their consciousness of 
 the depravities of Baroda made them really fear the absorption 
 of that State. Its preservation, under happily devised arrange- 
 ment, I verily believe is to many of them in a certain sense a 
 disappointment ! Their business of grievance-mongering has 
 had a termination sooner than they expected. They form the 
 same party who go about the country poisoning the minds of 
 the peasantry, and who make them dissatisfied with the terms of 
 their holdings, notwithstanding their visible progress in social 
 prosperity, in the extension of their fields, in the improvement of 
 their dwellings, utensils, and clothing. Many of them I know 
 to be a disappointment and a grief to their aged connections. 
 A worthy old Brahman when speaking of them to me lately 
 said, with tears running down his cheeks, ' they have become 
 ashamed of their parents and abandon them, betaking themselves 
 to vicious courses ; what they may erelong do no man can tell.' 
 In connection with them I would observe, in passing, that we 
 have a portion of educated youth of a very different spirit from 
 theirs. At the same time we must have a thorough revision of 
 the educational system. We must give useful instruction to the 
 masses, that they may not be the dupes of the designing ; and 
 leave particular classes, hitherto too highly favoured, to work 
 their way upwards by their own merits. It has been rightly 
 said of Scotland that there is a pathway to the Universities from 
 every parish in the land ; but the youth going to these Univer- 
 sities have generally to pay for their own education. 
 
 " In conclusion, keeping your queries in view, I may truth- 
 fully say that, after much observation and inquiry, I am con- 
 vinced that Goojarat has all along had faith in the righteousness 
 
638 LIFE OF JOHN WILSON. 
 
 and wisdom of the proceedings of the British Government, and 
 that the Maharashtra, exclusive of a band of self-conceited and 
 mischievous youth (worthy of a term or two in the house of 
 correction), now sees that the Government, though misrepre- 
 sented for some time as to its motives and endeavours, is really 
 deserving of confidence and praise. The late occurrences at 
 Baroda will occupy a chapter in the history of India of a most 
 instructive character; and the blessing of God will rest on 
 those who have taught the Princes of India that they have duties 
 to their subjects to discharge, which cannot be overlooked with- 
 out the endangerment of their own position even with that 
 benign Government which is faithful to the spirit of all its 
 engagements. I am, my dear Major BARING, with the greatest 
 respect for His Excellency the VICEROY, yours truly, 
 
 " JOHN WILSON." 
 
 " GOVERNMENT HOUSE, SIMLA, August 7, 1875. 
 
 " DEAR DR. WILSON. I am very much obliged to you for 
 your most interesting letter on the subject of the effect of the 
 action taken at Baroda upon native opinions in the Bombay 
 Presidency. It is the more valuable as you have so long an 
 experience, and many means of forming a sound judgment which 
 officers of Government do not possess, or at least do not so 
 fully possess. 
 
 " There are two subjects which are raised by the experience 
 we have lately acquired upon which, at your leisure, I should 
 much like to know what you think : First. Is it desirable to 
 impose any check upon the Native Press, or to endeavour to 
 counteract the effect of the disloyal native papers by supporting 
 papers which will put forward correct views 1 Second. Has the 
 time arrived for making those who receive a high English educa- 
 tion pay the whole cost of it, limiting the aid of the State to 
 those youths who, by distinguishing themselves in the lower 
 schools, show that they deserve assistance in completing their 
 education, thereby bringing fully into operation the principles 
 expounded in the Educational Despatch of 1854? Yours very 
 sincerely, NORTHBROOK." 
 
INDEX. 
 
 AAEON, tomb of, 363. 
 Aberdeen University, 211, 267. 
 Aboo, 293, 337. 
 Aborigines of India, 318. 
 Abyssinian youths, 251, 357, 449, 592, 
 596. 
 
 expedition, 593. 
 
 Accadian bricks, 331. 
 Adam, Dr., 16. 
 
 John, 43. 
 
 Aden Jews, 262, 358. 
 
 Administration reports, 314, 498. 
 
 Adoption, law of, 342, 432. 
 
 Adowa, 251. 
 
 Adultery, 549. 
 
 JSdesius, 358. 
 
 Afghan war, 231, 265, 304, 353. 
 
 Africa, 249, 399, 583. 
 
 Agathokles, 323. 
 
 Agricultural Society of Bombay, 398. 
 
 Agriculture of Lauderdale, 6. 
 
 Ahmedabad, 53, 146, 215. 
 
 Ahriman, 224, 226. 
 
 Aitchison's Treaties, 169. 
 
 Mr. C. U., 615. 
 
 Aitken, Rev. Mr., 432. 
 Ajmer, 294, 521. 
 Ajunta, 276, 278. 
 Akbar Khan, 303. 
 Albert, Prince, 416. 
 Albuquerque, 16, 170. 
 Aldeen, 447. 
 
 Alexander the Great, 431, 443. 
 Alexandria, 37, 449. 
 Alimenting converts, 254. 
 Aljuva, in Goa, 168. 
 Allahabad Conference, 128, 615. 
 
 pillar, 323. 
 
 presbytery, 394. 
 
 Alphabets, 325. 
 
 Alya Bai, 306. 
 
 Amba Bhowanee, 291. 
 
 Ambrolie Mission House, 78, 570. 
 
 Ambrose, 448. 
 
 Ameers of Sindh, 446. 
 
 American missions, 27, 50, 369, 624. 
 
 Amharic, 251, 594. 
 
 Andaman Islands, 613. 
 
 Anderson of Madras, 255. 
 
 Anglo-Indian Christian Union, 269. 
 
 Animal food, 528. 
 
 Anjengo, 53. 
 
 Annandale, 12. 
 
 Anquetil. See Perron. 
 
 Anstey, Mr. C., 551, 574. 
 
 Ant-eater, 450. 
 
 Anti-conversion memorial, 238. 
 
 Antigonus, 329. 
 
 Antiochus the Great, 326. 
 
 Apocrypha, 275. 
 
 Apostles as examples, 140. 
 
 Arabian Jews, 261, 364. 
 
 Aravullee hills, 293. 
 
 Archaeological Survey, 467. 
 
 Archduke Joseph, 373. 
 
 Ardaseer Framjee, 460, 565. 
 
 Ardeshir Dhunjeesha, 215. 
 
 Argyll, the Marquis of, 5. 
 
 Arian alphabet, 325. 
 
 Arnould, Sir Joseph, 544, 551. 
 
 Armenians, 125, 231, 235, 320, 366. 
 
 Arrian, 331, 444. 
 
 Arthur, Sir George, 303, 305, 343. 
 
 Aryan civilisation, 450. 
 
 Asiatic Society of Bengal, 313, 320. 
 
 of Bombay, 315, 331, 344, 604. 
 
 of Paris, 412. 
 
 Koyal, 313, 320. 
 
 Asoka, 312, 327, 332. 
 Assye, battle of, 43, 279. 
 Astronomical Society, 313. 
 Athenaeus, 331. 
 Auckland, Lord, 240, 302, 304. 
 Augustine's Confessions, 2, 430. 
 
 De Civitate Dei, 544. 
 
 Augustinians in Goa, 169. 
 Aungier, 39. 
 Aurungabad, 153. 
 Aurungzeb, 153. 
 Avasta. See Zand. 
 Avatars, 106, 109. 
 Awdry, Sir John, 235. 
 
 BABBINGTON, Dr., 322, 
 
640 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Baber, T. H., 249, 279. 
 
 Back Bay, 575, 625. 
 
 Bactrian Greek, 325. 
 
 Badaween, 363, 366, 595. 
 
 Banajees, 216. 
 
 Banias, 369. 
 
 Bank of Bombay, 574. 
 
 Bankote, 52. 
 
 Balkh, 431. 
 
 Ballautyne, Mr. J., 343. 
 
 Ballard, Mrs., 627. 
 
 Baptist Missions, 246, 401. 
 
 Bapu Mazda, 439. 
 
 Bard, Native, 286. 
 
 Baroda, 15, 185, 283, 428, 523, 618, 
 
 631. 
 
 Baring, Major E., 631. 
 Basel Mission, 250. 
 Basil the Great, 601. 
 Bassein, 40. 
 
 Bayne, the Sisters, 32, 263, 297, 625. 
 Beaconsfield, Lord, 124, 125. 
 Beawur, 521. 
 Beckwith, Sir S., 178. 
 Bees, Indian, 434. 
 Beejapore Library, 482. 
 Beke, Dr., 362. 
 Behari Lai Singh, 396. 
 Behistun inscription, 331. 
 Beith, Dr., 402. 
 Bell, Dr. A., 75. 
 Bellis, Rev. G., 256. 
 Bengal Asiatic Society, 313, 320. 
 Benares, Massacre of, 43. 
 
 - pundits, 334. 
 Beni-Israel. See Jews. 
 Bennie, Rev. J., 134. 
 Bentinck, Lord W., 65, 125, 229, 240, 
 
 397. 
 
 Berlin Mission, 395. 
 Bernier, 261, 413. 
 Berwickshire, 3, 5, 609. 
 Bexley, Lord, 237. 
 Beyt, 201. 
 Bhagat, a, 290. 
 
 Bhagavata Purana, 203, 318, 333, 549. 
 Bhang, 445. 
 
 Bhau Daji, Dr., 553, 602. 
 Bheels, 293. 
 Bhonsla family, 394. 
 Bhooj, 198. 
 Bhownuggur, 192. 
 Bhundarkur, R. G., 553. 
 Bible in Goa, 274. 
 
 Society, 14, 20, 270, 460, 613. 
 Translations, 50, 64, 260, 337, 
 
 460. 
 
 Bibliotheca Indica, 315. 
 Birdwood, Dr. G., 511. 
 
 Bishop's Walk, The, 376. 
 
 Black, Dr., 357. 
 
 Blackwood's Magazine, 198. 
 
 Blumhardt, Rev. Mr., 594. 
 
 Boden, Colonel, 315. 
 
 Bodleian Library, 548. 
 
 Bohoras, 455. 
 
 Bombay, first influences on Wilson, 
 15 ; foundation of, 38 ; Governors, 
 45 ; population in 1833, 78 ; Asiatic 
 Society, 315, 331, 344, 398 ; the 
 Scotch Kirk Disruption, 380; Quarterly 
 Review, 411 ; mutiny in, 505 ; Uni- 
 versity, 536 ; native gentlemen, 537 ; 
 trade, 572 ; mania, 574 ; Testimonial 
 to Dr. Wilson, 603 ; Missions, 617 ; 
 influence, 623. 
 
 Bonar, Dr. A., 357, 367. 
 
 Mr. A., 96. 
 
 Dr. J. J., 25. 
 
 Bonn, 425. 
 
 Bopp, 219, 480. 
 
 Border Men in India, 5. 
 
 Boston, Thomas, 11. 
 
 Bowen, Rev. Mr., 624. 
 
 Brahma, 105. 
 
 Brahmanical discussions, 103, 111. 
 
 Brahmans, 176, 195, 308, 392, 545. 
 
 Braidwood of Madras, 225. 
 
 Brainerd, Rev. David, 18. 
 
 Breadalbane, Marquis of, 388. 
 
 Brewster, Sir David, 12, 410. 
 
 Briggs, Colonel, 315, 425. 
 
 British & Foreign Evangel. Review, 411. 
 
 Broach, 38. 
 
 Brookes, Augustus, 151. 
 
 Broughton, Lord, 302. 
 
 Brown of Langton, 14, 30. 
 
 Dr. T., 388. 
 
 Browning, Robert, 98. 
 
 Brunton, Professor, 22, 85, 380, 384. 
 
 Bryce, Dr., 158. 
 
 Buchan of Kelloe, 481. 
 
 Buchanan, Claudius, 161, 447. 
 Dr. J., 402. 
 
 Buckland, Dean, 414. 
 Buda, 373. 
 
 Buddhism, 278, 282, 312, 545. 
 Buist, Dr., 358, 579. 
 Bulgarians, 370. 
 Bundeshne, 222. 
 Bunting, Dr., 401. 
 Burgess, Mr. J., 192, 327. 
 Burke, 314. 
 Burkhardt, 287. 
 Burma, Missions in, 460. 
 Burne, Minstrel, 4. 
 Burnouff, 317, 332, 343, 463. 
 Burns, 197. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 641 
 
 Burton, R. F., 587. 
 Byculla Schools, 241. 
 
 CABUL, 125, 431, 433. 
 Caesarism, 390. 
 Cairo, 360. 
 Cajetan, St., 167. 
 Calcutta Review, 411. 
 
 Mission, 403. 
 
 Callian, 38, 50, 157. 
 Calvin, 166. 
 
 Calvinistic Methodists, 291. 
 Cameron, R., 389. 
 Camoens, 138. 
 Campbell, Mr., 245. 
 
 Dr., 245, 284. 
 
 John, 588. 
 
 Candlish, Dr., 96, 262, 400, 436. 
 Candy, Captain, 76. 
 Canning, Lady, 470. 
 
 Lord, 42, 132, 198, 314, 397, 431, 
 
 467, 513. 
 
 Sir Stratford, 370. 
 
 Cape Town, 34, 399. 
 
 Carey, Dr., 51, 58, 66, 135, 198, 623. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 12. 
 
 Carnac, Sir J. R., 237, 241, 295. 
 
 Carpenter, Miss, 586. 
 
 Caste, 393, 492. 
 
 Catechumens, School of, 449. 
 
 Cator, Peter, 340. 
 
 Cave-temples, 152, 318. 
 
 Commission, 468. 
 
 Census of India, 314. 
 
 Ceylon Government, 260. 
 
 Chaitunya, 547. 
 
 Chalmers, Dr., 139, 184, 389, 405. 
 
 Chandragupta, 331. 
 
 Chaplains, English, 158, 315, 618. 
 
 Scotch, 378. 
 
 Charters, E. I. Co's., 132, 229, 447, 530. 
 
 Chaucer, 56. 
 
 Chevers, Dr. N., 543. 
 
 Child, Sir John, 41. 
 
 Chinese Missions, 135. 
 
 Chinturam, 524. 
 
 Cholera, 241, 301. 
 
 Chorao, 166. 
 
 Christianity in the East, 288. 
 
 Christlieb, Professor, 610. 
 
 Chuma, 590. 
 
 Church History, 320, 379. 
 
 Missionary Society, 51, 144. 
 
 and State Question, 390. 
 
 Cicero, 159. 
 
 Civilians in India, 71, 91, 139, 325. 
 
 Clare, Earl of, 77, 125. 
 
 Clement, 449. 
 
 Clerk, Sir George, 427. 
 
 Cochin Jews, 262. 
 
 Cockburn, Lord, 376, 621. 
 
 Coins, 325. 
 
 Colaba, 64, 428. 
 
 Colbert, 218. 
 
 Colebrooke, 99, 192, 313. 
 
 College de France, 332. 
 
 Colombo, 275. 
 
 Colquhoun, Mr. J. C., 237. 
 
 Comorin, first view of, 34. 
 
 Company, E. I., 151, 160, 229, 339, 619. 
 
 Competition-Wallas, 569. 
 
 Confessions of Faith, 606. 
 
 Connon, Mr., 604. 
 
 Conscience, rights of, 230, 236, 239, 
 
 242, 310, 378, 392, 455, 616. 
 Constantino de Braganza, 170. 
 Constantinople, 369. 
 Converts. See Native Christians. 
 Cooper, Rev. J., 52, 60, 515. 
 
 Rev. J. G., 565. 
 
 Coorg, 353. 
 Copenhagen, 219. 
 Copperplate grants, 319. 
 Copts, 359. 
 Cormack, Dr., 9, 66. 
 
 Sir J. R., 13. 
 
 Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, 325. 
 
 Cosens, Rev. Mr., 9. 
 
 Cost of living in Bombay, 90, 573. 
 
 Cotes, Rev. Mr., 439, 446. 
 
 Cotineau, 164. 
 
 Cotton, Bishop, 67, 158, 537, 615. 
 
 Cotton in India, 45, 572. 
 
 Couch, Sir R., 602. 
 
 Couper, Sir George, 521. 
 
 Covenanting, last century, 18. 
 
 Crawford, Rev. A., 52. 
 
 Criticism, Biblical, 607. 
 
 Crocodile pool, 441. 
 
 Cromwell and Bombay, 38. 
 
 Csoma. See Korose. 
 
 Cufic Inscriptions, 345. 
 
 Cunningham, General, 323, 500. 
 
 Principal, 23, 96. 
 
 Cust, Mr. R. N., 454, 515. 
 Cutch. See Kutch. 
 Cuttack, 332. 
 Cynewulf, 244. 
 Cyrus, 132, 214. 
 
 DADOBA PANDURANQ, 266, 560. 
 Dadyshets, 216. 
 Dakore, 293. 
 Dalhousie, Earl of, 388. 
 
 Marquis of, 42, 133, 198, 431, 434, 
 
 447. 
 
 Daman, 182. 
 Damascus, 366. 
 
 2T 
 
642 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 
 Daniel Deronda, 352. 
 
 Danube, 370. 
 
 Darab Dustoor, 218. 
 
 Davidson, Colonel, 141, 610. 
 
 Dealtry, Bishop, 451. 
 
 D'Aubigne, Merle, 410. 
 
 Decken, Baron von der, 587, 589. 
 
 De Conti, 465. 
 
 Delhi, 614. 
 
 Dellon, M., 162. 
 
 Devil-worship, 451. 
 
 Denmark, 336, 416. 
 
 Dennistouns of Dennistoun, 420, 480, 
 
 609. 
 
 Dhagob, 464. 
 Dharana, 620. 
 Dharwar, 172. 
 Dheds, 457, 464. 
 Dhoondra Sect, 196. 
 Dhuleep Singh, 440, 582. 
 Dhunjeebhoy Framjee, 604. 
 Nowrojee, Rev., 228, 232, 296, 
 
 357, 371, 394, 402, 457, 624. 
 Diamper, Synod of, 274. 
 Dickinson, Colonel, 337, 347. 
 
 - Mr., 320. 
 Dinkur Rao, 560. 
 Disruption of Kirk, 374, 385. 
 Dm, 214. 
 Divorce, 115, 601. 
 Doctor of Divinity, 212. 
 Dollinger, Dr., 610. 
 Dorabjee Nanabhoy, 216: 
 Dosabhoy Sohrabjee, 226. 
 Douglas, Bishop, 629. 
 
 Mr. James, 602. 
 
 Miss, 460. 
 
 Dowlutabad, 153. 
 
 Drought, 147. 
 
 Drummond, Dr., 315. 
 
 Druzes, 369. 
 
 Duff, Dr. A., 17, 50, 79, 93, 130, 255, 
 
 267, 281, 445, 535. 
 
 Captain Grant, 315. 
 
 Mr. M. E. Grant, 622. 
 
 Dukshina Fund, 47. 
 
 Duncan, Jonathan, 15, 41, 314. 
 
 Dr. John, 371. 
 
 Dunlop, Mr., M.P., 388. 
 Dunse, 197. 
 
 Durand, Sir H., 431, 566. 
 Dustoors, 222, 350. 
 Dntt Family, 560. 
 Dwarka, 201. 
 
 EASTERN CHRISTIANS, 92, 364. 
 East Indians, 145. 
 Eastwick, Captain, 446. 
 E. B , 210, 226. 
 
 Ecclesiastical Establishment, 158. 
 Edal Daroo, 226. 
 Edicts of Asoka, 312, 327. 
 Edinburgh, 15, 159. 
 
 Medical Missionary Society, 482. 
 Edmonstone, Sir G., 521. 
 Education, English, 77, 245, 399, 557. 
 
 See Female. 
 
 - Despatch of 1854, 532, 619. 
 in Bombay, 47, 69, 74, 252, 257, 
 
 437, 536, 626. 
 
 in Ceylon, 260. 
 in Egypt, 360. 
 
 - in India, 32, 273, 447, 452, 458, 
 529, 614, 618. 
 
 in Scotland, 9, 605. 
 
 in Sepoy Army, 287. 
 
 Edur, 292. 
 Egypt, 360. 
 
 young, 434, 443. 
 Eisdaile, Professor, 23. 
 Elephanta, 465, 471. 
 Elephant-baiting, 185. 
 Eliot, George, 352. 
 John, 27. 
 
 Elliot, Sir W., 322, 467. 
 
 Elisaeus, 221. 
 
 Elora, 152, 193. 
 
 Ellenborough, Lord, 45, 206, 302, 309. 
 
 Elphinstone College, 48, 252, 449. 
 
 Mountstuart, 42, 315, 539. 
 
 Lord, 257, 458, 498, 509, 534. 
 
 Endowments of Idols, 161. 
 
 English Language in India, 77, 245, 399, 
 
 577. 616. 
 Erastiauism, 132. 
 Erskiue, Claude, 314. 
 
 - W., 221, 315, 342. 
 Erskines, The, 389. 
 Escombe, Mr., 156. 
 Esther, 214. 
 Eunuchs, 201, 250. 
 
 Europeans in India, 269, 437, 447, 628. 
 Everest, Sir G., 409. 
 Evil, existence of, 296. 
 Ewart, Dr. D., 17, 85. 
 Examinations, 483. 
 Excavations of Petra and India, 365. 
 
 FABER, 465. 
 
 Faerie Queen, The, 272. 
 
 Fairbairn, Principal, 9. 
 
 Dr. J., 9. 
 
 Falconer, Dr., 420. 
 Falkland, Viscount, 432. 
 Family Life in India, 264, 559. 
 Fane, Sir H., 266. 
 Farish, Hon. Mr., 76, 125, 236. 
 Farrar, Canon, 142. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 643 
 
 Farrar, Rev. Mr., 142. 
 
 Female Education in India, 32, 69, 148, 
 
 213, 249, 264, 449, 452, 600. 
 Fergusson, Mr. J., 192, 465. 
 Finances of India, 609, 619. 
 Finn, Consul, 369. 
 Fitzgerald, Sir S., 595, 602. 
 Fleming, Professor, 410. 
 Forbes, Rev. Dr., 389. 
 
 Sir Charles, 46, 237, 315. 
 
 James, 53. 
 
 Forjett, Mr., 232, 506. 
 
 Forster, G., 413. 
 
 Framjee Aspandiarjee, 223, 227. 
 
 Bomanjee, 229, 236, 238. 
 
 Franciscans in Goa, 171. 
 
 Free Church of Scotland, 377, 383, 386, 
 
 390, 403, 621. 
 French, Bishop, 128, 456, 516. 
 
 scholarship, 218. 
 
 Frere, Sir Bartle, 250, 303, 305, 599, 
 . 619, 630. 
 
 John Hookham, 354. 
 
 Friend of India, 474, 493. 
 Frumentius, 358. 
 Fryer, Dr., 216. 
 Futh Khan, 287. 
 Fyvie, Rev. Mr., 183, 460. 
 
 GABARS of Persia, 370. See also Parsees. 
 Gaelic Schools, 260. 
 
 Gaikwars of Baroda, 187, 191, 523, 633. 
 Gairsoppa Falls, 276. 
 Gandagnoli, Philip, 113. 
 Ganesh, 340. 
 Gardner, Rev. W., 458. 
 Gautama, 545. 
 Gawan Douglas, 4. 
 Gazetteer of India, 314. 
 Geographical Society, 412, 414. 
 General Assembly's Meetings, 89, 96, 
 377, 388, 401, 416. 
 
 Institution, 78, 87, 380. 
 
 Pastoral, 268. 
 
 Geology of Aden, 358. 
 
 Lebanon, 419. 
 
 Perim, 420. 
 
 Sindh, 442. 
 
 German Oriental Society, 425. 
 
 Germany, 390. 
 
 Ghauts, Western, 142. 
 
 Ghuznee, Muhammad of, 205. 
 
 Gibbon, 224. 
 
 Gibbs, Hon. Mr., 626. 
 
 Gilbert, General, 431. 
 
 Gillespie, 389. 
 
 Girnar, 204, 320, 327. 
 
 Glasgow, Dr., 294. 
 
 Missionary Society, 399. 
 
 Glasgow University, 161. 
 
 Glenelg, Lord, 131, 237. 
 
 Goa, 162, 273. 
 
 Godavery, 142. 
 
 Goethe, 312. 
 
 Gogo, 192, 296. 
 
 Goldstiicker, Th., 496, 581. 
 
 Gonds, 395, 399. 
 
 Goojarat, 286, 638. 
 
 Goojaratee, 50, 345, 357, 460, 491. 
 
 Gordon, Rev. Dr. R., 11, 387. 
 
 Gossner, Pastor, 395. 
 
 Governors of Bombay, 45. 
 
 Graham, Rev. Dr., 364. 
 
 Dr. A., 383 
 
 Grant-in-aid System, 260, 530. 
 Grant, Sir A., 577. 
 
 Charles, 131. 
 
 Sir J. P., 44. 
 
 Sir Robert, 131, 257, 402. 
 
 Medical College, 402. 
 
 Granth, The, 444. 
 
 Graves, Rev. Mr., 64. 
 
 Gray, Rev. J., 197, 444. 
 
 Greece and India, 329. 
 
 Grey, Rev. Dr. H., 11. 
 
 Groves, Anthony, 127. 
 
 Gumpert Rao, Gaikwar, 191. 
 
 Gunputrao, Navalkar, Rev., 617. 
 
 Gurney, W. B., 401. 
 
 Guthrie, James, the Covenanter, 5. 
 
 the traveller, 413. 
 
 Guzerat, battle, 431. 
 Gypsies, 373. 
 
 HABEAS CORPUS Writs, 233, 617. 
 Hadjee Muhammad Hashim, 113. 
 Haidarabad, Sindh, 444. 
 Haider Khan, 266. 
 Haileybury, 314. 
 Haines, Captain, 358. 
 Hakluyt, 410. 
 Halhed's Grammar, 228. 
 Hall, Rev. Mr., 51. 
 
 Robert, 314. 
 
 Hamadan, 214. 
 Hamilton, Rev. Dr. J., 400. 
 Sir William, 16. 
 
 Hamiltonian System, 59. 
 Hammer, Baron, 315. 
 Hanna, Rev. Dr., 579. 
 Hanuman Idol, 146, 156. 
 Hardinge, Lord, 415, 427, 466. 
 Harkness, Dr., 466, 579. 
 Hasbaryah, 369. 
 Hassan Effendi, 360. 
 Hastings, Lord, 14, 42, 433, 623. 
 
 - Warren, 313. 
 Haug, Professor, 214, 610. 
 
644 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Havelock, Sir H., 397, 454. 
 
 Hay, Rev. J., 267. 
 
 Heber, Bishop, 185, 188, 285. 
 
 Hebrew, 367. 
 
 Hedjaz of Arabia, 287. 
 
 Helena, St., 15. 
 
 Henderson, Professor, 435. 
 
 Dr. J., 413. 
 
 Henry, Prince, 274. 
 Herat, 431. 
 Herbad, 222. 
 Herbert, George, 408. 
 
 Sir T., 216. 
 
 High School of Edinburgh, 16, 197, 465. 
 
 Hill, Sir W., 302, 395. 
 
 Hill Stations in India, 178. 
 
 Himalayas, 276. 
 
 Himyarite dynasty, 124, 359, 416. 
 
 Hindoo comedy, 157. 
 
 Hindooism, 159, 187, 545, 619. 
 
 Hindostanee, 14. 
 
 Hislop, Stephen, 395, 565. 
 
 Hiuen, Thsang, 192. 
 
 Hiwara, 149. 
 
 Hodgson, Brian, 332. 
 
 Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, 4, 198. 
 
 Holkar, Maharaja, 191, 526, 618. 
 
 Holms, Mr., M.P., 390. 
 
 Hor, Mount, 363. 
 
 Hormasdjee Pestonjee, Rev., 227, 232, 
 
 242, 427. 
 
 Hormuzd, 215, 224. 
 Hornby, Governor, 224. 
 Horndean, 12. 
 
 Horrors of India removed, 619. 
 Hospital, Sir J. Jeejeebhoy's, 350. 
 Hot Winds, 516. 
 Huchi'a Case, 230. 
 Hugel, Baron, 324, 410, 413. 
 Hughes, Rev. Josiah, 84. 
 Huleh, Lake, 368. 
 Human Sacrifices, 620. 
 Hungary, 373. 
 Hunter, Rev. R., 433, 565. 
 Hurnee, 52, 60, 273. 
 Hyde, Dr., 228. 
 Hymns, 132, 606. 
 
 IDOL Endowments, 447. 
 
 Idolatry and East India Company, 151, 
 
 160, 183, 229, 268, 280, 339, 513, 620. 
 Incarnation of Christ, 107. 
 India, Border Men in, 5. 
 
 European life in, 206. 
 
 as it is, 569. 
 
 Indus, 263. 
 
 Infanticide, 15, 67, 184, 197, 427, 488, 
 
 620. See also Education. 
 Inglis, Rev. Dr., 378. 
 
 Inquisition in India, 162, 167, 274. 
 Inscriptions, 205, 321, 324, 330, 345, 
 
 359, 416, 466. 
 Jrish Administrators, 613. 
 
 Mission, 294. 
 
 Politics, 185. 
 
 - Presbyterian Church, 256, 402. 
 Irrigation, 145. 
 Irving, Edward, 12. 
 
 General, 610. 
 Isenberg, Rev. Mr., 251. 
 Italy, 390. 
 
 JACOB, General Le Grand, 296, 327. 
 
 Jacob's Well, 367. 
 
 Jacquemont, V., 413. 
 
 Jacquet, M., 322. 
 
 Jadao Rana, 215. 
 
 Jains, 148, 192, 295. 
 
 Jalua, 154, 157. 
 
 Jam of Jokees, 440. 
 
 Jameson, Major, 264. 
 
 Professor, 276. 
 Sir George, 383. 
 
 Jamkhundee Chief, 446, 622. 
 
 Jats, 442. 
 
 Jebel el Nur, 362. 
 
 Jebel Musa, 362. 
 
 Jeddah, 359. 
 
 Jeejeebhoy Dadabhoy, 227. 
 
 Sir Jamsetjee, 280, 350, 555. 
 
 Jeffrey, Francis, 376, 621. 
 
 Jeffreys, Archdeacon, 516. 
 
 Jenkins, Sir R., 394. 
 
 Jennings, Rev. Mr., 440. 
 
 Jerusalem, 366, 369. 
 
 Jervis, Colonel, 47, 50, 409, 412. 
 
 Jews, 123, 262, 355, 364, 371, 426. 
 
 Jeypore, 293. 
 
 Jhadeja Rajpoots, 196, 489. 
 
 Jilgaum, 153. 
 
 Joanna, Princes of, 253, 561. 
 
 Jodhpore, 287, 619. 
 
 Maharaja, 517. 
 Johannes, King, 596. 
 John Knox in Portuguese, 170. See Knox 
 Johnston of Madras, 255. 
 Jokees, 440. 
 Jones, Sir William, 99, 111, 218, 313, 
 
 331. 
 
 Joonagurh, 204, 307, 321. 
 Jordan, 369. 
 
 Joseph Mikhail, 579, 596. 
 Josephus a Doloribus, 162. 
 Joynt, Dr., 624. 
 Juan de Castro, 401. 
 Judoonath, Maharaj, 550. 
 Judson, Dr., 51, 460. 
 Jugganath, 186, 202, 547. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 645 
 
 Jugganath Sunkersett, 451, 510. 
 Junar, 156, 336. 
 Jung Bahadoor, 451. 
 
 KABEEB, 547. 
 Kadmees, 223. 
 Kadseah, battle, 214. 
 Kaffraria, 134, 399. 
 Kailas of Elora, 152. 
 Kalidasa's Raghuvansa, 36. 
 
 Sakoont'ala, 312. 
 
 Kalliana. See Callian. 
 Kamptee, 395, 433. 
 Kandahar, 266. 
 Karens, 460. 
 Karli, 330, 474. 
 Kashmere, 410, 413. 
 Kathiawar, 15, 256. 
 Katkarees, the, 142. 
 Katodes, 346. 
 Kaye, Sir John, 304. 
 Kazan, 398. 
 Keith, Dr., 357, 372. 
 Kelly's Hymns, 624. 
 Kennedy, Dr., 347. 
 
 Colonel Vans, 315. 
 
 Kerman, 338. 
 
 Kern, Professor, 312, 328. 
 
 Keroda's Case, 230. 
 
 Kerr, Rev. J., 294. 
 
 Kerridge, 215. 
 
 Keshub, Chunder Sen, 356, 601. 
 
 Khandesh, 293. 
 
 Khandoba, 299. 
 
 Khonds, 620. 
 
 Khorassan, 214. 
 
 Khurda Avasta, 423. 
 
 Kingussie, 13. 
 
 Kinnaird, Lord, 513. 
 
 Kirk, Dr., 250, 619. 
 
 Kirkland, Mr., 184. 
 
 Kisundas, Joguldas, 104. 
 
 Kitto, Dr., 127. 
 
 Kittoe, Major, 466. 
 
 Knox, John, 389. 
 
 Koeppen, 312. 
 
 Kolhapore, Raja of, 173, 505. 
 
 Konig, Mr., 425. 
 
 Koran, 120, 122. 
 
 Korigaum, 145. 
 
 Korose, Csoma Sandor, 373. 
 
 Krija, 342. 
 
 Krishna river, 299. 
 
 worship, 107, 186, 202, 308, 546. 
 
 Kurachee, 439. 
 
 Kursundass Mooljee, 550. 
 
 Kntch, 15, 197, 455. 
 
 Kutchee, 198, 200, 444. 
 
 LADIES' Female Education Society, 264 
 
 Laing, Mr. S., 615. : 
 
 Lammermoors, 3. 
 
 Lands of the Bible', The, 363, 411. 
 
 Lang, Colonel, 292, 321. 
 
 Languages of India, 57. 
 
 Lassen, Prof., 323, 344, 425, 476, 494. 
 
 Lauder, 3, 5, 400, 609. 
 
 Lauderdale, 3. 
 
 Laurie, Rev. J., 34, 63. 
 
 Law, Hindoo and Muhammadan, 133. 
 
 Parsee, 343. 
 
 Law, Mr., 91. 
 
 Lawrence, Lord, 109, 133, 240, 397, 
 513, 578, 601. 
 
 Sir George, 303, 517. 
 
 Sir Henry, 293, 427. 
 
 Leader, 4, 609. 
 
 Leang, Afa, 136. 
 
 Learning and Missionaries, 27, 319, 521, 
 
 687. 
 
 Lebanon, 369, 419, 454. 
 Lee, Principal, 22, 268. 
 
 Dr., 113. 
 
 Leith, Dr., 437. 
 Leon de Laborde, 360. 
 Lepsius, 360. 
 Leslie, Rev. A., 397. 
 
 Sir John, 16. 
 
 Lewis, Dr. J., 400. 
 Leyden, Dr., 5, 198. 
 
 University, 534. 
 
 Library, Bombay, 315. 
 
 Free Church Mission, 422. 
 
 Dr. Wilson's, 626. 
 
 Lieder, Mr., 359, 426. 
 Linant de Bellefonds, 359. 
 Linga, the, 306, 464. 
 Lions Abyssinian, 449. 
 
 of Kutch, 201. 
 
 Literary Society of Bombay, 315. 
 
 Lithography in India, 415. 
 
 Livingstone, Dr., 30, 250, 583, 589, 591. 
 
 Livingstonia, 399, 589. 
 
 Local Army, 569. 
 
 London Missionary Society, 84. 
 
 Londonderry, Marquis of, 411. 
 
 Lord, Chaplain, 315. 
 
 Lorimer, Dr., 425. 
 
 Louis Napoleon, 589. 
 
 Lovedale, 134, 399. 
 
 Low, General, 516. 
 
 Lowjee, 216. 
 
 Lubbock, Sir J., 414. 
 
 Lukshmun, Gunput, 356. 
 
 Lumsden, Sir H., 266. 
 
 Lusiads, The, 138. 
 
 Luther, 98, 169. 
 
 Lyall, Mr. A. C., 109. 
 
 Lynch, Captain, 466. 
 
646 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 M'CHEYNE, Rev. Mr., 357. 
 M'Gown, Dr., 454. 
 M'Leod, Sir D., 318, 395. 
 Macaulay, Lord, 77, 79, 206, 244. 
 Macdonakl, Dr., 623. 
 
 Dr., of Ferintosh, 401. 
 
 Mackay, Dr. W. S., 17, 85, 403. 
 Mackenzie, Colonel, 322. 
 
 General Colin, 303, 460. 
 
 Mrs., 456. 
 
 Captain R., 626. 
 
 Mackintosh, Sir J., 221, 313. 
 Maclagan, Mr. D., 406, 608. 
 Macleod, Dr. Norman, 32, 520, 586, 
 
 598, 626. 
 
 Macnaghten, Sir W. H., 45, 304. 
 Madhava Rao, Sir, 618. 
 Madras Government, 257. 
 
 Mission, 254, 381, 402. 
 
 Magas, 329. 
 
 Maghadee, 325. 
 
 Magi, 210. 
 
 Magyars, 373. 
 
 Mahableshwar, 175, 178, 298, 623. 
 
 Maharaj Priests, 549. 
 
 Libel Case, 551. 
 
 Mahawanso, 335. 
 
 Maheekanta, 293. 
 
 Mahmood Begoda, 215. 
 
 Maine, Sir Henry, 109, 133, 393, 600. 
 
 Maitland, E., 416. 
 
 Maitlands of Lauderdale, 3. 
 
 Makellar, Dr., 268. 
 
 Makulla, 358. 
 
 Malabar Hill, 294. 
 
 Malacca, 136. 
 
 Malcolm, Sir John, 5, 14, 44, 129, 221, 
 
 306, 315, 474, 616. 
 Malcolm- Peth, 175. 
 Malcolmson, Dr., 347. 
 Manbhava Sect, 155. 
 Mandalik, N., 553. 
 Mandavee, 201. 
 
 Manockjee Cursetjee, 332, 560, 604. 
 Manson, Mr., 505. 
 
 Manuscripts, Oriental, 318, 334, 483. 
 Marathee, 50, 444, 490. 
 Marine. See Navy. 
 Marriage Laws,*601. 
 Marshman, Dr., 246, 447. 
 
 J. C., 136, 529. 
 
 Martin, Rev. Mr., 528. 
 Martyn, Henry, 18, 43, 113, 398. 
 Marwar, 524. 
 Marwarees, 148. 
 Masson, Mr., 325. 
 Mather, Cotton, 28. 
 Matthews, General, 276. 
 Maule, Fox, 388. 
 
 Mayo, Lord, 613. 
 Mecca, 359. 
 
 Medical Missions, 30, 402. 
 Meeanee, 445. 
 Menezes, 274. 
 Meriah sacrifices, 620. 
 Merv, 214, 431. 
 Meshed, 431. 
 Methodists, 291, 401. 
 Mezzofanti, 58. 
 Middleton, Bishop, 158. 
 Mill, Dr., 323. 
 
 James, 50. 
 
 Miller, Principal, 381, 615. 
 
 - Dr. H., 301, 427, 527, 564. 
 
 Hugh, 419. 
 
 Milne of China, 402. 
 
 Minto, Lord, 5. 
 
 Missionary Survey, 181. 
 
 Missionary's life, 71. 
 
 Missionaries need learning, 27. 319, 521. 
 
 607. 
 
 Jewish, 371. 
 
 from Scotland, 389, 517. 
 
 Native, 404, 457, 621. 
 
 murdered, 505, 508, 524. 
 
 Missions, 27, 50, 72, 94, 101, 130, 172, 
 204, 225, 245, 254, 288, 295, 379, 
 434, 437, 450, 460, 562, 606, 615, 
 617. 
 
 in Kaffraria, 134. 
 
 See Roman Catholic. 
 
 Mitchell, Rev. Donald, 52. 
 
 Rev. J., 52. 
 
 Rev. Dr. M., 52, 265, 301, 380. 
 
 Dr., of Carwood, 422. 
 
 Moderator of General Assembly, 605. 
 
 Mohl, 317. 
 
 Molesworth's Dictionary, 59, 487, 490. 
 
 Moncreiff, Lord, 96. 
 
 Sir H. W., 605. 
 
 Money, Mr. R. C., 64, 129, 337, 339. 
 
 Money Orders, 415. 
 
 Montalembert, Countess of, 53. 
 
 Moor, Dr., 315. 
 
 Moorcroft, 413. 
 
 Morality v. Religion, 109, 549. 
 
 Moravians, 249. 
 
 Morehead, Dr., 347. 
 
 Morley, H., 244. 
 
 Moroji, 446. 
 
 Moropant, 491. 
 
 Morrison, Dr., 135. 
 
 Morvi, 324. 
 
 Mozley, Canon, 545. 
 
 Mudra Rakshasha, 331. 
 
 Muhammad Ali, of Egypt, 359. 
 
 Dost, 266. 
 
 of Ghuznee, 206, 304. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 647 
 
 Muhammad the Prophet, 119. 
 Muhammadan converts, '230. 
 Muhammadanism, 112, 445, 613, 624. 
 Muir, Dr. John, 493, 579. 
 
 Sir William, 114, 488. 
 
 Mulhar Rao, Gaikwar, 191, 635. 
 
 Mullagatawny, 44. 
 
 Muncherjee Seth, 215. 
 
 Munro, Sir T., 14. 
 
 Murchison, Sir R., 414. 
 
 Murdoch, Dr., 614. 
 
 Mutiny of 1857, 432, 503, 512, 569. 
 
 Mutiny in Sindh, 434. 
 
 Muzhee Sikhs, 515. 
 
 Mylne, Rev. Dr., 135. 
 
 Mysore, 230. 
 
 NABLUS, 366. 
 
 Nagpore Mission, 302, 382, 394, 433, 
 
 615. 
 
 Nahavand, 214. 
 Namdeva, 444. 
 Nana Dhoondopunt, 504. 
 Nanuk, Gooroo, 7, 445, 547. 
 Napier, Lord, 251, 594. 
 
 Sir Charles, 433, 440. 
 
 and Ettrick, Lord, 370. 
 
 Nasik, 101, 142, 603. 
 
 Caves, 144. 
 
 Native Christians, 69, 92, 102, 123, 
 
 230, 300, 356, 402, 561, 601, 630. 
 
 Church, 81, 290, 404, 455, 563. 
 
 Entertainment, 285. 
 
 Press, 618, 638. 
 
 Princes, 198, 284, 292, 294, 299. 
 
 Scholars, 317, 444. 
 
 Natives of India, 146. 
 
 Educated, 355, 537, 637. 
 
 Natural History, 317, 442. 
 
 Naumahal, 440. 
 
 Navy, Indian, 46, 358, 626. 
 
 Neemuch, 526. 
 
 Negoos of Ethiopia, 596. 
 
 Nepean, Sir Evau, 43, 51. 
 
 Nesbit, Rev. Robert, 21, 52, 58, 110, 
 
 242, 246, 382, 415, 457. 
 Neumann, K. F., 221. 
 Newman, F. W., 127. 
 
 John Henry, 127, 612. 
 
 New Orleans, 572. 
 
 Newspapers, English, 233. 
 
 Goojaratee, 221, 224, 248, 349, 
 
 454, 550. 
 
 Native, 504. 
 
 Nicholls, Sir Jasper, 304. 
 Niebuhr, C., 465. 
 Nineveh, 428. 
 Norris, Mr., 417. 
 
 North British Review, 410. 
 Northbrook, Lord, 191, 530, 614, 638. 
 Northern Society of Antiquaries, 423. 
 Nott, Rev. Mr., 51. 
 
 General, 304. 
 
 Nowrozjee, Mobed Darabjee, 222. 
 Nowsaree, 182, 215. 
 Nurgoond, 505. 
 Nyassa, 399, 589. 
 
 O'BRIEN, Mr., 358. 
 
 Ogilvie, Rev. Dr., 267. 
 
 Ornar, Kaliph, 214. 
 
 Onion, The, 425. 
 
 Oomajee, Naik, 142. 
 
 Opium, 445, 608. 
 
 Oriental Christian Spectator, 64, 76. 
 
 Translation Fund, 315. 
 
 Orientalism, 49. 
 
 Orientalist Controversy, 326. 
 
 Origen, 449. 
 
 Orlebar, Mr., 467. 
 
 Ormuz, 214. 
 
 Orsova, 371. 
 
 Oswalds of Auchencruive, 620. 
 
 Outram, Sir James, 293, 433. 
 
 Ovans, Colonel, 299, 609. 
 
 Owen, Dr., 394. 
 
 Oxenden, 39, 41. 
 
 Oxford, 400. 
 
 Oxydracise, 444. 
 
 PAHLAVI, 218, 417. 
 Paithan, 155. 
 
 Palaeography of India, 330. 
 Palestine Map, 416. 
 Pali, 294, 324, 325. 
 Palitana, 192. 
 Pandavas, 331, 464. 
 Pandurang Atmaram, 356. 
 
 Baba, 433. 
 
 Dadoba, 449. 
 
 Pangim (Goa), 164. 
 Pantsenus, 449. 
 Pantheism, 187. 
 Parell, 314. 
 Parsee Baronet, 350, 622. 
 
 Christians, 229, 231, 436, 453, 
 
 459, 616. 
 
 Education, 213. 
 
 Literature, 182, 220, 223. 
 
 Parsees, Census of, 216. 
 
 History of, 214. 
 
 Punchayat, 224, 341, 453. 
 
 Par si Religion, The, 226, 227, 344, 412. 
 
 Parvatee, 280. 
 
 Pascal, 397. 
 
 Passports, last of the E. I. Co.'s, 33. 
 
 Paterson, Mr. A., teacher, 98, 400. 
 
648 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Pattala, 444. 
 
 Patterson, John Brown, 16. 
 
 Paul, St., 100, 348. 
 
 Paulinus, Frater. See Werdin. 
 
 Pavie, M., 335. 
 
 Pawar, House of, 146. 
 
 Pazand, 218, 423. 
 
 Pegu, 431. 
 
 Pehlevi. See Pahlavi. 
 
 Peltier, 314. 
 
 Peninsular and Oriental Co., 356, 482. 
 
 Pentateuch, 367. 
 
 Perim, 324, 420. 
 
 Perron, Anquetil du, 217, 223, 333. 
 
 Perry, Sir E., 392, 394, 458. 
 
 Persia, 129. 
 
 Peshwa, 191. 
 
 Pesth, 371. 
 
 Peterson, Professor, 623. 
 
 Petra, 363. 
 
 Pfander, Dr., 113, 270. 
 
 Phases of Faith, 128. 
 
 Phayre, Colonel, 595, 635. 
 
 Philipps, J. L., 347. 
 
 Philopsychy, 322. 
 
 Pilfold, Lieutenant, 285. 
 
 Pillans, Professor, 16. 
 
 Pinjarapoors, or, Brute Hospitals, 322. 
 
 Pitcairn, Dr. T., 25. 
 
 Plutarch, 444. 
 
 Plymouthism, 438, 487. 
 
 Poe, Edgar, 462. 
 
 Police, 232. 
 
 Pollock, General, 304. 
 
 Polycarp, 369. 
 
 Polygamy, 114, 174. 
 
 Poona, 48, 52, 142, 238, 280, 403. 
 
 Pooree inscriptions, 325. 
 
 Raja, 547. 
 
 Porebunder, 204, 296. 
 Port Canning Co., 576. 
 Portuguese India, 38, 89, 182, 274, 589, 
 
 619. 
 
 Porus, 444. 
 
 Possessed by a spirit, 276. 
 Postans, Captain, 325. 
 Poynder, Mr., 237, 340. 
 Pratt, Archdeacon, 114, 615. 
 Preaching, 615. 
 Preedy, Major, 439. 
 Pre-Millennarianism, 438. 
 Prem Sagur, 549. 
 Prendergast, Bishop, 276. 
 Presburg, 373. 
 
 Presbyterian Church of England, 402. 
 Presbytery, 81, 564. 
 Press in Bombay, 269, 618, 638. 
 Pressense, M. de, 542. 
 Price, 315. 
 
 Prices, rise of, 573. 
 
 Prince of Wales, 624, 629. 
 
 Princeton Students, 25. 
 
 Pringle, Lady E., 609. 
 
 Prinsep, James, 320. 
 
 Proclamation of Somnath Gates, 304. 
 
 Propaganda, 217. 
 
 Psamniitichus, 360. 
 
 Ptolemy, 329. 
 
 Pudmanjee Baba, 457. 
 
 Punchnuddee, 61. 
 
 Pundits, 269, 493. 
 
 Punjab conquered, 431. 
 
 men, 513. 
 
 Punjabee Pali, 325. 
 Purans and Science, 248. 
 Puritan Missions in America, 27. 
 Purves, Revs. J. and P., 9. 
 Pusey, Dr., 430. 
 Puttun in Goojarat, 286. 
 
 Somnath, 304. 
 
 Pufcwurdhans, 637. 
 
 QUEEN VICTORIA, 310, 358, 416. 
 Quetta, 431. 
 
 RACHOL, 275. 
 
 Rada Kishn, Pundit, 493. 
 
 Raghoba Peshwa, 42. 
 
 Railways, 293, 482. 
 
 Rajaram Raja of Kolhapore, 173. 
 
 Rajkote, 196, 296. 
 
 Rajpoots, 15, 517. 
 
 Rama, 186. 
 
 Rameses, 426. 
 
 Rammohun Roy, 112. 
 
 Ramoshee robbers, 147. 
 
 Ranade, M. G., 553. 
 
 Ranchod, 202. 
 
 Rao Daisul, 198. 
 
 Ras Lila, 549. 
 
 Mandalis, 549. 
 
 Rasamees, 226. 
 Rask, 219, 336. 
 Rastias, 637. 
 JRauzat-as-Safa, 306. 
 Rawlinson, Sir H., 44, 428, 500. 
 Religion v. Morality, 109, 549. 
 Re-marriage Act, 601. 
 Renan, M., 606. 
 Rescissory Acts, 377. 
 Revolution Settlement, 379. 
 Richthofen, Baron Von, 413. 
 Rig Veda, 333. 
 Ritchie, Dr. W., 22. 
 Ritualism in India, 67. 
 Robert de Nobili, 164. 
 Robinson, Dr., 362. 
 Robson, Rev. Dr., 114, 528. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 649 
 
 Kock-cut Temples, 365. 
 Rodiger, 418. 
 
 Roman Catholic Missions, 51, 70, 165, 
 401, 445. 
 
 scholarship, 217. 
 
 Romanes, W., 9. 
 
 Rome, 437. 
 
 Romer, Mr., 218. 
 
 Roses of Kilravock, 13. 
 
 Rosetta Stone, 331. 
 
 Roth, Professor, 479. 
 
 Roxburgh, 3. 
 
 Royal Asiatic Society, 313, 320. 
 
 Society, 412. 
 
 Runciman, J. and D., 9, 25. 
 Runjeet Singh, 125, 231, 413. 
 Russia, 266, 364, 398, 402, 417. 
 Rustchuk, 370. 
 
 SABBATH OBSERVANCE, 197, 305. 
 
 Sabeanism, 417. 
 
 Saburmuttee, 293. 
 
 Sachs, Mr., 422. 
 
 Safed, 368. 
 
 Sailors in Bombay, 67. 
 
 SaTcoontala, 312. 
 
 Salsette, 282, 324, 465. 
 
 Salt, Mr., 315, 465. 
 
 Samaritans, 366, 454. 
 
 Sambhur, Lake, 293. 
 
 Sandracottus, 331. 
 
 Sanjan, 214. 
 
 Sanscrit, 322, 326, 615. 
 
 Saphir, Mr., 372. 
 
 Sartor Resartus, 12. 
 
 Sasanides, 417. 
 
 Sassoon Family, 261, 602. 
 
 Satanic influence, 277. 
 
 Satara, 173, 299, 432. 
 
 Satpoora Hills, 293. 
 
 Saugur and Nerbudda, 397. 
 
 Sausse, Sir M., 551. 
 
 Scala, A. von, 412. 
 
 Schmidt, Rev. B., 427. 
 
 Schwartz, 102, 198. 
 
 Science and Hindooism, 248. 
 
 Scotland, Church of, 263, 376, 390, 605, 
 
 621. 
 Scott, Sir Gilbert, 537. 
 
 Sir Walter, 5, 129. 
 
 Scottish Missionary Society, 21, 52, 61, 
 
 83. 
 
 Sebaste, 368. 
 Secret Christians, 288. 
 Seedee pirates, 216. 
 Seel, Moodoosoodun, 440. 
 Sehwan, 443. 
 
 Selborne, Lord, 132. 
 Selkirk, 4, 610. 
 
 Seonee, 397. 
 
 Sepoys, 433, 507, 515. 
 
 Serampore Mission, 51, 246, 447, 485. 
 
 Serapeum, the, 449. 
 
 Servia, 370. 
 
 Shah Shoojah, 265. 
 
 Shapoorjee Babha, 616, 624. 
 
 Eduljee, 460. 
 
 Sharanpoor, 144. 
 
 Shatrunji Hill, 193. 
 
 Shea, 317. 
 
 Shepherd, Mr. R. G., 594. 
 
 Sher Ali, Ameer, 267. 
 
 Sherlock, Rev. H., 361. 
 
 Sheshadri, Rev. N., 392, 621. 
 
 Shet Khandans, 216. 
 
 Shia sect, 156. 
 
 Shiva, 306. 
 
 Shoolbred, Rev. W., 517. 
 
 Shorapoor, 470. 
 
 Shortrede, Colonel, 276. 
 
 Shravaks, 192. 
 
 Shripat's case, 392. 
 
 Shunkar, Acharya, 172. 
 
 Shunkeswar, 172. 
 
 Sickness in India, 438. 
 
 Siddhantas, 248. 
 
 Sidhpore, 519. 
 
 Sikhs, 7, 68, 231, 255, 263, 397, 410. 
 
 Simplicianus, 430, 448, 546. 
 
 Sinai, 362. 
 
 Sinclair, Sir George, 237. 
 
 Sindh conquest, 353, 433, 446. 
 
 Siudia, 191. 
 
 Sivajee, 173. 
 
 Slave-trade, 122, 249, 253, 358, 619. 
 
 Slavery, 198, 250, 427, 620. 
 
 Smith, Rev. Mr., 371. 
 
 Mr. John, 357. 
 
 Professor Robertson, 606. 
 
 Vernon, 310. 
 
 Dr. Walter C., 376. 
 
 Smyrna, 369. 
 
 Smyttan, Dr., 76, 189, 207. 
 
 Snow on Sinai, 363. 
 
 Soldiers in India, 70, 387, 569. 
 
 Somalees, 358. 
 
 Somerville, Dr. A. N., 622. 
 
 Somnath, 205, 305. 
 
 Gates, 302. 
 
 Sompada Brahmans, 308. 
 Southey, 75, 180, 502. 
 Sovereignty, British, in India, 132. 
 Sowaheli language, 253. 
 Spenser, Edmund, 256. 
 Spiegel, Professor, 214, 418. 
 Sprenger, Dr., 114, 484. 
 St. George's Church, 406. 
 St. Sophia, 370. 
 U 
 
650 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Stack, Major, 439. 
 
 Statistical Account of Bengal, 325. 
 
 Statistics of India, 314, 317. 
 
 of Dr. Wilson's Mission, 617. 
 
 Steam Navigation, 481. 
 
 Stephen, Sir F., 393, 601. 
 
 Stephens, 164. 
 
 Sterling, 39. 
 
 Stevenson, Kev. Dr., 52, 318, 330. 
 
 Stewart, Dr., of Lovedale, 590. 
 
 Dr. R., 436. 
 
 Stier, Dr., 460. 
 
 Stocqueler's Memoirs, 54. 
 
 Stone, Kev. Mr., 64. 
 
 Stothert, Rev. R., 571, 623. 
 
 Stow, 3, 13. 
 
 Strachan, Mr. J. M., 254, 340. 
 
 Streynsliam, Master, 39. 
 
 Students' Missionary Association, 24, 
 
 100, 255, 607. 
 Sufsafah, 362. 
 
 Sultan Mahmoud Begoda, 215, 307. 
 Sun-worship, 273. 
 Supreme Courts, 229, 233. 
 Surashtra, 321. 
 Surat, 38, 183. 
 
 Surveyor-General of India, 409. 
 Surveys of India, 467. 
 Sustentation Fund, 405. 
 Sutherland, Mr., 283. 
 Suttee suppressed, 65, 619. 
 in Native States, 200, 283, 299, 
 
 427. 
 
 Syajee Rao, Gaikwar, 187, 428. 
 Sykes, Colonel, 315, 374. 
 Syud Ahmed, 114. 
 Syud Hussan Medinyeh, 460. 
 
 TABAT AKBARI, 307. 
 
 Taj Mahal, 276. 
 
 Takulghat Stones, 566. 
 
 Tanjore Raja, 198. 
 
 Tanna, 38. 
 
 Tantia Topee, 510. 
 
 Taracol, 162. 
 
 Taptee, 184. 
 
 Tasner Antal, 373. 
 
 Tassy, Garcin de, 343. 
 
 Tatta, 444. 
 
 Taxila, 444. 
 
 Taylor, Rev. Mr., of Belgaum, 60. 
 
 Isaac, 410. 
 
 James, 602. 
 
 Dr. John, 315, 319. 
 
 Meadows, 275, 467, 470. 
 
 Miss, 588, 600. 
 
 Temperance, 134, 608. 
 Temple, Sir R., 144, 183, 566. 
 Templeton, Dr., 622. 
 
 Tennent, Sir J. E., 338. 
 Tennyson, 598, 612. 
 Teviot, 3. 
 
 Tharpe, Lady H., 609. 
 Theodorus, 593. 
 
 his Son, 596. 
 
 Theology in Edinburgh University, 17 
 
 23. 
 
 Thirlestane, 4. 
 Thomas, E., 325. 
 Thomason, Mr., 530. 
 Thompson, George, 300. 
 Thomson, Dr. Andrew, 11. 
 Thorburn, Rev. D., 25, 400. 
 Thornton, Henry, 161. 
 Thuggee, 397, 620. 
 Tiberias, 368. 
 Tiger story, 177. 
 Tigre, 251, 596. 
 Times The, 574. 
 Tippoo, 390. 
 Tirmal Rao, 556, 624. 
 Tirthankars, 196. 
 Tod, Colonel, 192, 321, 525. 
 Toka, 150. 
 Tours of Dr. Wilson, 141, 158, 179, 271, 
 
 429, 523. 
 
 Town Hall of Bombay, 316. 
 Townsend, Mr., 245. 
 Tract and Book Society, 270. 
 Traga, 524, 620. 
 Transactions of Bombay Asiatic Society 
 
 315, 398. 
 
 Translations, 315, 460. 
 Trebeck, 413. 
 Trent, 610. 
 
 Trevelyan, Sir C., 144. 
 Trevor, Colonel, 303. 
 Trimbeck, 144. 
 Trimoorti, 105. 
 Trollope, A., 134, 399. 
 Trumpp, Dr., 547. 
 Tucker, Mr. Justice, 604. 
 
 H. C., 397. 
 
 Tukaram, 491, 547. 
 
 Turks, 370, 402. 
 
 Turanians, 450. 
 
 Turner, Bishop, 151. 
 
 Tumour, Mr., 333, 419. 
 
 Tweed, 3. 
 
 Tweedie, Dr., 434. 
 
 Types, Zand and Pahlavi, 228. 
 
 Tyre, 37. 
 
 Tytler, C. Eraser, 538. 
 
 UJJENEE, 325. 
 Ulster, Synod of, 255. 
 Ultramontanism, 390, 438. 
 Umarasaree, 182. 
 
 
INDEX. 
 
 651 
 
 Union, Missionary, 61. 
 
 of Scottish Churches, 605. 
 
 United Presbyterian Mission, 294, 515. 
 
 - States, 394, 572. 
 University of Aberdeen, 211. 
 
 of Bombay, 536, 603, 626. 
 
 of Edinburgh, 12, 15, 159, 211, 
 
 607. 
 
 of Glasgow, 161. 
 
 of Leyden, 534. 
 
 of St. Andrews, 25, 607/ 
 
 System of India, 260, 529, 615. 
 
 Urbino, Dukes of, 480. 
 
 VAISHNAVAS, 547. 
 
 Valentia, Lord, 315, 343. 
 
 Valentine, Dr., 522, 625. 
 
 Vallabh, 549. 
 
 Vallabhacharyas, 549. 
 
 Vandidad, 223, 224, 228, 341. 
 
 Vartan, 221. 
 
 Vasco de Gama, 161, 167. 
 
 Veda, forged, 164. 
 
 Venkut, Eao Bahadur, 259. 
 
 Verawul, 206. 
 
 Vernaculars of India, 57, 79, 261, 269. 
 
 Preaching, 68, 616. 
 
 Education, 74, 259, 273, 398, 447. 
 
 Education in Ceylon, 260. 
 
 Viceroys of Portuguese India, 170. 
 
 Victoria Museum, 510. 
 
 Victorinus, 448. 
 
 Vienna Oriental Museum, 413. 
 
 Vigne, Mr., 413. 
 
 Vingorla, 165. 
 
 Virgil's JEneid, 36. 
 
 Vishnoo Avatars, 106, 109. 
 
 Shastree, 322, 466, 495. 
 
 Vishvanath, R. S., 553. 
 Vispard, 347. 
 Vithabai, 617. 
 Voltaire, 164. 
 Vyse, Colonel, 362. 
 
 WAGHURS, 588. 
 
 Wahab, Captain, 154. 
 
 Wai, 175. 
 
 Waite, Sir N., 215. 
 
 Walker, General, 15, 19, 67. 
 
 Wambooree, 137. 
 
 Waralees, 346. 
 
 Ward of Serampore, 105. 
 
 Warren, Rev. J., 394. 
 
 Wasanda, 215. 
 
 Waterloo, echoes of, 8, 10. 
 
 Wathen, Mr., 319, 322, 330. 
 
 Waugh, Rev. Dr., 11. 
 
 Webb, Mr., 61, 76, 339, 437. 
 
 Weber, Professor, 325, 497. 
 
 Wedderburn, Mr., 604. 
 
 Wellesley, Marquis, 431, 614. 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, 43, 279, 310. 
 
 Welsh, Dr., 269, 410, 415. 
 
 Werdin, J. P., 217, 219. 
 
 Wesleyan Missionary Society, 401. 
 
 West, Dr. Ed., 349, 610. 
 
 Westergaard, Professor, 220, 306, 336, 
 370, 416, 419, 479. 
 
 Westminster Confession, 606. 
 
 White, Rev. A., 457. 
 
 C. M., 262. 
 
 Whitefield, 161, 172. 
 
 Wife, a Missionary's, 207, 463. 
 
 Wilkes, Colonel, 315. 
 
 Wilkie, Dr., 261. 
 
 Wilkins, C., 228. 
 
 Wilkinson, Mr., 398. 
 
 Williams, Professor M., 105, 164, 622. 
 Mr., 185, 189. 
 
 Willoughby, Sir J. P., 177, 196, 295, 304, 
 432. 
 
 Wilson, Bishop, 158. 
 
 Professor, 16, 212. 
 
 Andrew, 207. 
 
 Horace Hayman, 318, 323, 413, 
 
 417, 476, 548. 
 
 Mrs. Isabella, 421, 463, 599, 622. 
 
 James, the Economist, 5. 
 
 J. Jordan, 90, 211. 
 
 WILSON, JOHN, D.D., Birth, 5 ; Child- 
 hood, 7 ; Conversion, 8 ; Schooldays, 
 9 ; College life, 12 ; Spiritual expe- 
 rience, 17 ; founds Students' Mis- 
 sionary Association, 24 ; ordained 
 and married, 31 ; first impressions of 
 Bombay, 54 ; on Suttee, 65 ; early 
 work in Bombay, 67 ; transferred to 
 Church of Scotland, 85 ; policy, 100 ; 
 discussions with Brahmans, 103 ; 
 Muhammadan controversy, 112; tours, 
 141 ; at Goa, 162 ; at Baroda, 185 ; 
 degree of D.D., 211 ; Parsee contro- 
 versy, 221 ; on toleration, 240 ; on 
 mission questions, 254 ; on educa- 
 tion, 257 ; fresh tours, 273 ; ill- 
 ness, 296 ; political views, 299 ; on 
 Somnath Gates, 305 ; President of 
 Asiatic Society, 317 ; on Girnar and 
 Karli Inscriptions, 330 ; on Govern- 
 ment connection with idolatry, 340 ; 
 on Parsee law, 341 ; Honorary Presi- 
 dent of Asiatic Society, 348 ; leaves 
 for Syria, 353 ; in the Lands of the 
 Bible, 364 ; joins Free Church of 
 Scotland, 383 ; address at Glasgow 
 Assembly, 391 ; starts Nagpore Mis- 
 sion, 395 ; on ordination of Natives, 
 402 ; literary work at home, 411 ; 
 
652 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 second marriage, 420 ; returns to 
 India, 430 ; tour in Sindh, 439 ; 
 on rock-out temples, 463 ; declines 
 Government translatorship, 486 ; 
 on Marathee, 490 ; book on Caste,. 
 492 ; on the Mutiny, 506 ; estab- 
 lishes United Presbyterian Mission, 
 516 ; Mr. Shoolbred on, 517 ; on 
 University system, 531 ; on Mount- 
 stuart Elphinstone, 539 ; on the Maharaj 
 Libel Case, 552 ; Address to Native 
 Church, 562 ; on the cotton crisis, 
 575 ; social influence, 582 ; helps 
 Dr. Livingstone, 588 ; helps in Abys- 
 sinian expedition, 592 ; death of 
 second wife, 600 ; testimonial, 602 ; 
 Philological lectureship, 603 ; Asiatic 
 Society's second address, 604 ; Mode- 
 rator of General Assembly, 605 ; por- 
 trait, 608 ; evidence before Com- 
 mons' Committee, 608 ; returns to 
 Bombay, 609 ; on Lord Mayo, 613 ; 
 to Lord Northbrook, 614 ; at Alla- 
 habad Conference, 615 ; last mission 
 fruit, 617 ; on Baroda trial, 618 ; 
 catalogue of crimes prevented by 
 Government, 619 ; on the Kirk, 621 ; 
 with Mr. Grant Duff, 623 ; illness, 
 death, and burial, 624 ; Mrs. Ballard 
 on Dr. Wilson, 627 ; correspondence 
 with Lord Northbrook, 631. 
 
 Wilson, Mrs. Margaret, 32, 80, 95, 185, 
 207. 
 
 Wingate, Rev. Mr., 371. 
 
 Wiseman, Cardinal, 217, 401. 
 Wodrow, R, 262. 
 Wolff, Joseph, 124, 251, 413. 
 Wordsworth, 2, 197. 
 Wykatane, 590. 
 
 XAVIEB, Francis, 163, 170. 
 
 Hieronymo, 113, 413. 
 
 the Protestant, 125. 
 
 YACNA, 226, 333, 347. 
 Yatis of Palitana, 195. 
 Yavans, 177. 
 Yemen, 124, 263. 
 Yena, 299. 
 Yezd, 338. 
 Yezdijird III., 214. 
 Yohan Prem, 457. 
 Young Bengal, 548. 
 
 Bombay, 548, 637. 
 
 Young, Mr. H. N., 590. 
 Yule, Dr., 610. 
 Sir George, 593. 
 
 ZANANAS, 399. 
 
 Zand, 213, 218, 337, 416, 423. 
 Zanzibar Treaty, 250, 619. 
 Zartusht. See Zoroaster. 
 
 Behram, 225. 
 
 Zend. See Zaud. 
 Ziegenbalgen, 99, 102. 
 Zoroaster, 210, 220, 225. 
 Zortalabi, 309 
 
 I 
 
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