*$ ^ wiif *^ li^r^ uir^ s Mr p *iUir ^iuli^^lliu J'l ^i f2 f vi >\/^ r4 ' t"i i'C/^ t^ ! id ii^A f4 f t-i A'A hJ t ti ;.' H^^^BM^^^^m^^PI ' ! '*'""'' * M** ' ' ' . . : i -, ' - %r*&&*&*te<>^^ i UniueFgitu 1 GLANCE BACKWARD AT FIFTEEN YEARS OF MISSIONARY LIFE IN NORTH INDIA. BY THE REV. JOSEPH WARREN, D. tatf PHILADELPHIA : PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, No. 265 CUESTHUT STREET. 1856. Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by JAMES DUNLAP, TEEAS. In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 6V 32. VJ3/3 NOTE. SOUNDS OP LETTERS IN HINDUSTANI WORDS. A, a, sounds like in butter. A' Ch, E, e, 0, o a in father. cJi in church, at in pam. y in good. i in jn'n. ee in seen. o in note. Q, q, has the sound of k thrown back in the throat. U, u, sounds like u in pull. U', u, " " oo in fool. Ai, " " t in tome. Au, " " oto in now. N. B. Some consonants have peculiar sounds, which cannot be imitated by mere readers, and it has not been thought worth while to mention them. Names of places, which have obtained a current orthography in English, have been written accord- ingly here, however incorrect. For instance Benares, correctly written, would be Banaras, in three syllables. ERRATA. Page 47, line 12, for swarz read swarff. Page 59, line 3 from bottom, for found read formed. Page 60, line 4, &c., for kcmda read kanda. Page 71, line 18, for might had, read might have had. Page 78, line 5 from bottom, for Bet read Beg. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. Time of sailing. The party of missionaries. Notice of Mrs. Scott and Mrs. Freeman. Plan and object of this work. . . . 13 15 CHAPTER II. HOUSE-KEEPING AND LEARNING THE LANGUAGES. Commencement of house-keeping. Description of a Bungalow: floors, ceiling, walls. Kitchen. Servants, why so many. The water-carrier. Ignorance of the language. Our new house and furniture. The carpets. The carpenter: his tools and his caste. Another carpenter, and Brahmanical extortion. The theft. The charge of burglary. First lessons in Hindustani. History of Patthras. My Munshis and studies. Hinderances. The marriage of missionaries 16 43 CHAPTER m. THE PRINTING-HOUSE. Reasons of my accepting and leaving it. Proposed Press at Benares taken over. Increase of printing. Language and dia- lects. The alphabets used. Native characters unfit for printing. A specimen of spelling. The Roman alphabet. Comparative expense of alphabets. Commencement of the establishment. The first thing printed. The Persian compositor. The first job-work. Difficulties. Some Mohammedans turn Christian in order to drink. Another bad professed convert. History of Dillu. Native evasion. Building a printing-house. How lime is made and cheating done. The room for preaching. The depository. White ants. Additions to the establishment. Early works printed. The type-foundry. Effect of the Press. Orphan asylum and bindery. The new print- ing house. Job-work. Reasons for doing it 43 72 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. CATECHISTS: THEIR TRAINING, CHARACTER AND USEFULNESS. Importance of native helpers. Limited choice of them. Common mode of training. System adopted by the Synod. Success only partial. A Seminary necessary. Usefulness of Catechists. Their difficulties. Catechists as literary assistants. Their location at sub-stations. Account of a fall and recovery. The young Afgan. Another Catechist. Singular history of another. Hari Das: the murder of a lord ; the effect of long habit. A sad and a pleasant history connected. Remarks on what we ought to expect... 72 96 CHAPTER V. CHURCH BUILDINGS, AND PREACHING AT THE STATIONS. Necessity of places of worship. Purchase of mission-house, and settlement of orphan asylums. The old mint. The English congre- gation, and their church edifice. Their removal to Agra. Building of the mission church. The chapel near the printing-house. The Chauk and its chapel. The Musalmani convert, and the chapel at Kyd Ganj. English services. Hindustani services. Christian musicians. Preaching to the heathen: hinderances and helps; street preaching ; interruptions ; specimens of disputes ; the lying objector; Sunni and Shia differences; insults; two villages near Allahabad; preaching at ghats; to women; bathing; preaching at the Chauk chapel ; preaching in surrounding villages ; preaching on horseback; the woman carrying her husband's ashes; preaching at fairs; that of 1847 at Allahabad; services; visitors; the swing- ing faqir; the Sanyari dinner party; inquirers; a trick; fair of 1860; hidden ones; scientific inquiries; decline of fairs; convert at Jubbulpore ; Hardwar fair in 1853 ; the blessed foot-print near Agra; singular objection and dispute; another foot-print at Alla- habad. Preaching to oriental Christians at Agra. Distant influence of Nestorian missions. Visitors at our houses 97 146 CHAPTER VI. ITINERATIONS. The cool season. Accommodations for travellers in India: few hotels; dak bungalows; the Sara. One effect of caste. Mode of using tents. Preaching in rural villages. Various incidents of travel: the converted gentleman; the Brihman at the bathing- place; the worn out pilgrim; the Hindti cupid; the flooded tent; CONTENTS. XI the naked faqfr; sad news; the Mohammedan saint on a tamarind stump; Hindus regard Sunday; a Musalman disputant; the city of Moses; a new goddess; taste as to the fine arts; levity of the Hindus ; worship of the cow ; a burnt village. Journey in the Him- malaya; a dishonest man; temples and worship; covetousness ; desecration of a god ; Tatar architecture ; the Rana of Balsan and his territory. More itinerating necessary. The field and the work 147177 CHAPTER VII. THK PREPARATION OP BOOKS FOR THE PRESS. Time that may be spent in writing. The Scriptures. Necessity of literary labour. Destitution of good literature. Erroneous and corrupt books. Want of reliable history. Missionaries must aid in supplying the want. A Hindu theory of winds and storms. Mo- hammedan conceit and vanity. Mohammedan objections to New Testament. A strange map of the world. Character of their poetry and fiction. Works produced by Allahabad mission. The Lodiana mission. My own works. Difficulties in translating. The kind of men needed in India. Thoughts for the Church.. 178 188 CHAPTER VIII. RELATIONS WITH EUROPEANS AND EAST INDIANS, AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON OUR WORE. What constitutes a gentleman. An Anglo-Indian custom. Social standing of Missionary families. Ignorance of some parties. Con- sequent unfairness. Devout persons; their kindness to missiona- ries. Missionary influence on society. Chaplains. Church of England dignitaries. State of religion amongst the English. Pres- byterian church at Agra; its singular relations and their conse- quences: its new house of worship. English aid to the Christian press. The Tract and Book Society. Agra Bible Society. The Papists at Agra. Female day-schools at Allahabad and Agra. Schools for the East Indians at Agra: necessity felt; foundation and failure of the Protestant Academy ; history of the founding of our Boys' School aid received; a similar history of the Girls' School aid received the leadings of Providence. The course of lectures. European soldiers. Influence of low East Indians. Evil influence of some officers. The Musalmin convert. Other evils. Good predominates 189 219 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. SUCCESS. Necessary lapse of time. Difficulties : caste ; philosophical sys- tems. Amount of success in numbers. Nature of it. Some cases : Poor Blind Sally; Mr. Wilson's catechist; Jatni. General impres- sion in favour of Christianity. Improved position of converts. In- fluence upon caste. The town of Kara and an inquirer. The pleasing inquirer and his mysterious disappearance. The old Mo- hammedan gentleman. The lawyer. The orphan asylums. Works of controversy against us. The effect of schools. Appeal for India 219253 CONCLUSION 254 MISSIONARY LIFE IN NORTH INDIA. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. /f IN October, 1838, the reinforcement to our North India Mission, of which my family constituted a part, sailed from Philadelphia. At this distance from that time it is instructive to turn back and recall our feel- ings for a moment. Any one, who has left his native land for a prolonged residence abroad, if he were at all accustomed to reflection and feeling, must have ielt vividly the uncertainty of his ever again mingling with the associates who had made the scenes of his early days dear to him. A missionary feels that it is highly probable that he will not live to see his friends again. The wrench given to his affections is most exquisite. Even if he be sure of a future visit to his country, he cannot but feel that he is to be separated from relatives, churches, fellow-students, society all dear to uim ; and just when his social affections are warmest, and when he most feels the need of the aid to be derived from their proper indul- gence. And if he has any proper sense of the mag- nitude and difficulty of the work to which he is going, his soul will be filled with trembling. The surviving members of our party will never forget the melting of 2 14 MISSIONARY LIFE heart that \ve felt. Never did we feel so cut adrift from the world; nor did we ever so really feel that Christ was all to us. The first few days of our voy- age were full of the contests of natural yearnings with the workings of those higher feelings, motives and principles that lay at the foundation of our going forth. Never did Christ seem so precious to us as when we had given all that we cared for to him. When we do most for him, then we can most appro- priate him; not from the idea that we deserve more, but because we then come to feel more that we have nothing but him. Our party consisted of the Rev. James L. Scott and Mrs. Scott, the Rev. John E. Freeman and Mrs. Freeman, with Mrs. Warren and myself. Of this party, Mrs. Scott and Mrs. Freeman, after several years of great usefulness, are gone to a higher and a better sphere. I will not refrain from the pleasure of paying a deserved tribute to their worth. The leading characteristic of Mrs. Scott was an energetic, untiring spirit of enterprise. She was always ready cheerfully to undertake any work by which she could benefit the people, and promote the object of our mis- sion. Mrs. Freeman was more known for great and quiet gentleness a gentleness that did not make her influence less than that of the other lamented woman. The females of the Allahabad mission church were influenced by her to such an extent, that we may look for the fruit of her labours to be reproduced, again and again, in the future history of our Church in India. Both of them were our dear friends; and both left blanks in our circle that will not be filled in this world. A list of friends may be lengthened blanks are rarely filled. It would be useless to give an account of our voy- age after such a lapse of time. The public is suf- ficiently acquainted both with such subjects, and with the general impressions of missionaries on reaching IN NORTH INDIA. 15 the country of their destination. The journey up the Ganges has also been described by others, so that it is not necessary to refer further to that. We will, therefore, pass over all these matters, and proceed, in the next chapter, to look at missionary experience in the field of actual operations. The plan of this work is simple. It is to give specimens of all kinds of experience, both happy and sad; and to display all our ordinary modes of work- ing, the reasons for them, and their results. * The people and the circumstances, that affect our work, must be taken into view. The mode of doing this, which has been chosen, is to give a personal narrative of my own experience not chronologically, but as to different subjects. My object is, to keep the indi- vidual out of sight, as far as the nature of the plan will permit; and on the thin thread of personal narra- tive to string anecdotes, sketches, and specimens, until the reader shall be able to gather an intelligible notion of our life and labours in India. An attempt is made to keep the reader from being wearied by the mere clanking of machinery, by interrupting and illustrating the narrative with all sorts of fac-ts related to it. An additional chapter contains a brief sketch of the government of that country, and of different classes of persons, who are mentioned in the course of the work, so far as is necessary for the understand- ing of the narrative. The object of the book is, to help the friends of missions to a full knowledge of the work, so that they may form just expectations, and be led to go forward with more interest in the matter, more earnestness of desire and purpose, and more hope, patience, and prayer. 16 MISSIONARY LIFB CHAPTER II. HOUSE-KEEPING AND LEARNING THE LANGUAGES. AFTER reaching Allahabad we found that the Mis- sion families were not in a position to keep us in their houses with any convenience to themselves or to us. A large bungalow had been taken for us and Mr. and Mrs. Freeman jointly. As Mrs. Freeman was ill, they could not join us in house-keeping immediately; and we therefore began by ourselves at once. While we had been tarrying at Benares, our boats had come on, and were unloaded the same day that we arrived. We spent the next day after our arrival, which was the Sabbath, at the house of one of our friends, and on Monday began our house-keep- ing. As bungalows in Upper India differ considerably from descriptions of them in the Madras Presidency and Ceylon, which I have seen in books published in America, a description of the one in which we first lived, and of that which was afterwards bought for us, may be interesting. The one that was hired for our temporary use was much larger than missionaries need, or ever use in ordinary circumstances. It was situated nearly in the centre of a square lot of about six acres. A lane passing between two fields led to it from a retired road, so that the place was quiet and free from dust. In front of the house was a small parterre of flowering shrubs. The western part of the ground was a garden nearly filled with fruit trees. Along the north wall of the yard was a range of buildings clay walls and tiled roofs which con- tained the kitchen, stable, carriage- house, and about a dozen rooms intended as tenements for servants. The house faced the south. The entrance was a deep verandah, running the whole length of the IN NORTH INDIA. 17 house, except that a small room was inclosed in each end of it, used as lumber rooms, or places in which the servants cleaned the lamps and performed similar work for the house. The largest room of the house was about thirty-five feet long, and twenty-two wide, stretching along the front. At the ends of this room were two smaller ones, serving as servants' hall, or pantry, or for any temporary use; though in truth their main office was to serve as passages to other rooms, and to keep the heated outer walls as far as pos- sible from the principal apartments. Behind this range of rooms was another of three, of which the middle one was largest. This room had no door opening into the verandah on any side, but was entirely sur- rounded by other rooms. The light in it was conse- quently scanty, and the room gloomy, so that it would be very rarely used, except in the very hottest weather, when its distance from the external walls would make it more cool than any other place in the house. Back of these three rooms were two large bed-rooms. The ends and back part of the house were protected by verandahs ; but the one in the rear was enclosed and cut up into small rooms, to serve as bathing rooms, &c. The house was of but one story, and covered an enormous quantity of ground for the amount of accommodation it afforded, compared with houses in America. But it was intended to accommodate but one ordinary family, and to keep out the heat as much as possible. The roof was pointed in the centre, very steep, and ran down low, projecting out from the verandahs, so that the lower edge of it was not more than nine feet from the ground. It was of grass, and about nine inches thick. The house presented scarcely anything but roof to the view at a little distance: it suggested the idea of a short stout person hidden by an enormous and ungainly sun-bonnet. The house that was bought for us shortly after, 2* 18 MISSIONARY LIFE was much smaller, but in other respects very similar to the other. The roof was of the same form and material; the verandah completely surrounded the house, and bathing-rooms were formed in it at three corners. The rooms that it contained were one of twenty-two feet by sixteen ; at the end of this a pan- try ; and, back of these, two rooms of fifteen by six- teen feet each. This was too small to keep out the heat; and it not only afforded no accommodation for visitors, but was not sufficient for our family. After living in it some years, however, we were kindly allowed to add a sitting-room and study to this, which, with some minor alterations, made it a sufficiently good house. The floors of bungalows are made of lime. The foundation of the house is first filled up with clay, which is well rammed down ; then a course of broken bricks or kanJcar [limestone nodules] is laid over the clay and beaten down ; then coarse lime mixed with small kankar is put on and very well beaten ; then a plaster of finer lime is laid over all, and beaten lightly by a crowd of boys and girls for a long time, till, from being like a puddle of water, it becomes al- most dry; and then it is finished off with a thin coat- ing of pure white lime, not laid on like whitewash, but rubbed into the surface of the plaster, and carefully smoothed. Sugar, and various other arti- cles, are incorporated with the two upper strata of this formation, to make the floor hard. The ceiling of the rooms is cloth, tied to hooks over a cornice round the sides of the room, and sup- ported by bamboos that run across the room. The cloth is white-washed ; so that, when well put up, it closely resembles the plain lath and plaster ceilings in American houses. This cloth keeps scorpions, centipedes, and many other inconvenient things, from falling into the rooms, and upon whatever they con- tain. IN NORTH INDIA. 19 The walls of these houses are made either of hurnt bricks, or of those which are only sun-dried, or of clay in successive courses. All of them are plastered and whitened or coloured. The plaster is usually a pre- paration of lime, hut is sometimes only clay and chopped straw. The walls, though clay, or laid up with clay mortar, stand well as long as protected from the rain ; but if the white ants go up through the walls, and eat the thatch over them, as they often do, the first rain sends down a stream of water, which gutters the wall, and brings with it a load of clay into the rooms. The first rain that we saw in India caused us this awkward accident, in the hired house spoken of above. We sent for the agent of the house-owner, and showed him our trouble; but as we had nothing in that room to be spoiled, he laughed at us for con- sidering the matter so sad and serious as we evidently did. A little straw thrust into the roof, and a little clay plaster applied to the wall, made all right for that season. We lived about six weeks in the hired house, till our own was purchased. During this time we were struggling to learn how to speak to the people, and to understand the ways of house-keeping in that strange country. We could not have the kitchen in the house; the heat absolutely forbade that. Even the poorest natives do not kindle their fires for cook- ing inside their houses in the hot weather, but out of doors. We were, therefore obliged to keep servants. Many people in America may be astonished that we, who could have got on very well with one servant in America, should in India keep several. A long detail of circumstances, to justify ourselves, will not be entered upon here; it is, or ought to be, sufficient to state simply that we were obliged to do so. We, having a fixed allowance, had quite as many inducements to lay up money as any clergyman's family in America; and missionaries, us a class, are 20 MISSIONARY LIFE no more likely to waste an income on servants for show than any other people. We should have been glad to live with fewer servants, and to have received a smaller fixed allowance from the Board of Foreign Missions, had it been practicable. But the exhaust- ing climate, the necessary distance of the kitchen, the day-by-day mode of living there, the inveterate inef- ficiency of the servants, and the institution of caste, all combined to force us to have several servants, and still to be as badly served as a family in America is with one poor servant in their house. As to the last particular mentioned caste it operated in this way : the cook would not dust the furniture or sweep the house it was against his caste. By this is not meant that there was any religious reason why he should not do these things he could not be counted unclean for doing them; but the people of his caste had agreed that these things were low, and that they would not do them; they are usually done by men of lower caste, and therefore they would persecute one of their own men if he did them. Again, the man that dusted the furniture would not sweep it was beneath him ; and the sweeper would not dust the furniture he had never learned, and felt no need to learn, because he could get a living as a scavenger. Neither of them would bring water, for it was not their trade; and if we did not employ a regular water-carrier, every man about the place cried out, How are we to get water? Some years after our first settlement at Allahabad we had a boy from the orphan asylum to provide for. He was not a good boy, and could not be trusted in the printing-house, where there were opportunities to pilfer; but he was a nominal Christian, and it was our duty to give him employment and keep him under the means of grace if we could. We therefore made him water-carrier. We put a bucket and windlass to the well, and procured a yoke and pair of buckets for him. This made it easier for him to draw and carry IN NORTH INDIA. 21 water than the Asiatic method, where it is usually drawn in a little, leaky, leathern bucket, by a small line drawn hand over hand, and carried in a goat-skin over the back. It also made it practicable for each person to draw for himself. But the complaints were loud and long. Nearly all our people, in the house and printing-house, refused to drink the water brought by a Christian it was unholy; and to touch the bucket in the well, for the same reason. They re- presented to me, most pathetically, that I was putting them all to great inconvenience and expense. The native Christians did not join in these objections; but they had never seen or heard of such a thing before, and could not believe that it would work : they doubted the windlass, the buckets and the yoke ; but above all they could not see how a Christian could be made a water-carrier; it was perfectly unprecedented. The support, therefore, that we obtained from them was small indeed; and even the lad employed looked on himself as put to a very strange use. He .could not say that the employment was not respectable; for it has always been considered highly so. He could not plead that it was hard or unprofitable ; but he knew that it was unusual, and that was enough to keep him from feeling easy in it. The experiment was con- tinued, however, and worked pretty well, till the boy abandoned my place to try his fortune in Calcutta. One more thing may be said : as far as an opportu- nity to learn their feelings has been afforded to me, I am led to believe that our wives would prefer doing their own house-work in America to living as they do in India, were there not far higher and holier motives than personal ease to keep them there. But to return from this digression. We had every thing to learn language, facilities, customs, how to avoid being cheated, and how to escape doing wrong ourselves. Mrs. Warren, being still weak from her recent illness, required much of my assistance ; and 22 MISSIONARY LIFE the necessity of giving it was rather an advantage to me at that time: a certain part of the language was learned from necessity. Much of the time was spent in turning over an English and Hindustani dictionary, to find out the names of things, and how to frame certain phrases. The dictionary was a most miserable affair, often provokingly giving definitions out of which nothing could be made, and often misleading me by not properly distinguishing what are usually called synonyms; but still we were led sometimes, as well as misled, by it. Our perplexities, with a cook who did not know twenty words of English, and who talked to us just as if we knew Hindustani, were often most ludicrous. We shall never forget the way in which we learned the word bhul (mistake) ; and will tell it as a specimen of that which was occurring every hour. We had bought a piece of mutton for dinner, and handed it over to the cook. After a time he came running, with trouble in his countenance, and said he had made a bhul; adding a great deal more which I did not at all understand. The word bhul completely puzzled me; and, as it appeared that this must be the key to his talk, I went into a diligent search of it in the Hindustani dictionary, but lacked knowledge to find the word from his pronunciation. At last, after long labour, I began to listen for other words, to serve as starting points; and soon made out the words kuttd (dog), gosht (meat), and le gayd (carried away), which I knew before. Thus it became apparent that he had made the bhul (blunder) of leaving the meat in the kitchen unguarded, and a dog had carried away our dinner. The struggles which we constantly made to get work done in the way in which we had been accus- tomed to have it done at home, were sometimes amus- ing, and sometimes distressing; and our success was very small. The little and numberless ways in which the servants sought to cheat us, the dirty habits and IN NORTH INDIA. 23 practices in which we detected them, and their child- ish helplessness in many things, all made us think, for a time, that we should never be able to endure them. But experience taught, and use reconciled, us at last. After our own house was purchased we went into it as soon as possible. The number and size of the rooms I have already mentioned, as well as the gene- ral character of the house. This had one peculiarity. Glass doors are generally considered a necessity. To these Venetians are added; or mats or quilted curtains are hung up against the doors; and occasionally the verandah is supplied with screens made from the stems of a very thick grass, or split bamboos. The pecu- liarity of our house was, that it had the Venetians, and no glass doors: we could not have light without wind, and its accompaniment of dust and heat. We carried our little furniture into this house; and perhaps it was better that the house was small. We had a tottering teak-wood dining table; twelve Indian chairs of thn, a wood resembling cherry; a rocking chair, and two painted chairs from Boston; a dressing-table a.nd a study table, which were the halves of an old round table that I bought (too dear) for three dollars; a cheap set of camp-drawers, wash-stand and boxes. When furnishing ourselves with a bed in Calcutta we had also bought a spare bed. We were told not to do so; but our American notions of propriety were sadly shocked at the idea of having no bed to offer a friend, and we would buy it; but when we went into our house we found that we had no place in which to put the spare bed, and were obliged to sell it. We im- proved this furniture, and added to the number of ar- ticles, in the course of years, till we made our house tolerably pleasant. We had few places to visit, and our house was an important matter to us: we thought it our duty to each other to do all we could to make it a pleasant place to live in ; and that our children ought not to be brought up in unnecessary rus- 24 MISSIONARY LIFE ticity. This remark, however, is not intended as an apology for anything like luxury: at no time while we were in India would all our furniture, together with horse and buggy, have been estimated at so much as would have furnished some single chambers in this country. The floors were covered with coarse coloured cotton cloth, printed in imitation of a carpet. This cloth, when first put down, looks rather gay, and in a hot cli- mate is a good substitute for a carpet. But it is soon spoiled. The day that we removed from the hired house into our own, it rained violently for a short time, and the wind drove the water across the veran- dah, and through the Venetians, till it stood in pud- dles on Mrs. Warren's gayest new floor-cloth, which cost $3.50 for the whole room. A rustic candidate for baptism, whom we had made watchman to give him the means of living, was assisting us in moving our goods, and Mrs. Warren found him churning the colours out of the carpet in one of these puddles with his naked feet. The poor fellow stood trampling away, and saying, in a tone of sorrow, " see the water ! we never can live here without glass doors ! The Mission thought so too; and accordingly we began to make glass doors for the house. For this purpose we hired a carpenter, who worked in our back verandah. His mode of working, and some anecdotes respecting his caste, will be interesting to my readers, as specimens of the state of things in that country. His tools were very scanty, and of the poorest quality. Two small saws, two or three chisels, a few bits, and a rod and string to turn them, a small plane, and a kind of adze, which had to do nearly all the work, with a few minor articles, are the usual kit of a Hindustani carpenter and cabinet-, maker. There are differences in workmen, but the one I am describing was by no means the worst. With his tools he spent more time in sawing out IN NORTH INDIA. 25 one bit of timber than twenty similar ones would have taken up in America. His plane was so small and poor that nothing was made either quite smooth or straight. As much of his work as could possibly be done so, was done with the adze : he held a rough stick slanting before himself by resting it in a notch made in a block that lay on the ground ; and he then hewed slowly, taking off mere bits of shavings, till he had brought it to the shape required. All his work was done sitting on the ground, except when it had to do with the door-frames already fixed in the wall. Pieces of wood, on which he was at work with both hands, were steadied by his toes. It was a great trial of patience to see him at work : he did nothing well; and yet he did exceedingly well when we consider his tools and education. He could not do in a month more than a carpenter with us does in three days: but then his pay for the month was not more than a good American carpenter gets for three days. He never made two things alike : our doors were of such peculiar sizes, though all nomi- nally the same, that no one would fit another's frame; and no corner was a right angle, except by the merest accident. The rows of glass were far from running straight across the door, but were set up and down in anything but a fanciful manner. But after all, the doors kept out nearly all the wind they were intended to keep out. This man (and he is but a specimen of his class) had a great propensity to sleeping, and a small amount of faithfulness. If he fancied that I was busy, he would lie down beside his work and sleep, when he ought to have been at work, and had already been absent more than the usual time. I did almost every imaginable thing to break him of the habit: threatened him with his discharge and with fines ; threw blocks of wood at him, taking care not to hit him, but wishing that he might think he had had 3 26 MISSIONARY LIFE great escapes; and reasoned with him, so far as a very scanty knowledge of his language permitted. At last, in an evil hour, I thought I had discovered an unexceptionable mode of awakening him, and making him cautious for the future, at the same time doing him no injury. He worked with only two pieces of cloth on him a dirty white piece wrapped round his loins and tucked between his legs, and a red piece wrapped round his head for a turban. The weather was warm, and he was always bathing: so I thought he could not be injured by water. Accordingly the next time he was caught napping, I went into the bathing-room, a door of which opened into the verandah where he was lying, and threw a wash-bowl full of water over him. He got up and went about his work, after bathing at the well, and I heard nothing of it for three or four days. Then he came to me, saying, that he was in great trouble, as his people had suspended him from caste privi- leges, and would neither eat nor drink with him. The Hindustanis express these ideas by the phrase, "To stop his pipe and water." A friend of his, a great man of the caste, came to me to confirm the story. They said that the caste, having heard of the circumstance, presumed that the water had been used, or at least touched by me, and was therefore unholy ; and that some of it had gone into his mouth ; though this he denied. They explained that, if the unholy water only fell on his body, he would only have to bathe in the river to be holy again; but if it went into his mouth, he would have to fee the Brah- mans and feast the caste before he could be restored to communion ; and that this would cost about a hun- dred dollars, which I should have to pay. I learned that it really was both law and usage, that if one by any violence, or even by accident, injured any per- son's standing in his caste by producing ceremonial pollution, he should pay all the expenses of his IN NORTH INDIA. 27 restoration. They at first showed some signs of a pur- pose to insist that the water went into the man's mouth, in order to make me pay for a feast for them ; and the man himself would have been willing that this should be the end of the business, had he not said before witnesses, in the first place, that his mouth had escaped the deluge, and thus furnished me with a ground of defence in a civil suit for damages. I stood out, of course, that I would not pay the money. At last the caste agreed to refer it to my honour; if I would say that I did not think the water went into his mouth, they would restore the man. As I fully believed the mouth had escaped, I said so; and that was the end of the business. This taught me to deal carefully with caste for all time to come. Some years after this, when I had another carpen- ter, of another sub-division of the same caste, at work for the printing-house, he assisted me in making a bargain with some Brahmans, who lived a few miles from the city of Allahabad, for some thatching grass for the bungalow. The price was settled at so much a thousand bundles, and eight or ten bundles were given by the Brahmans. as specimens both of the thickness of bundle and length of grass which they were to give. These specimen bundles were carefully locked up in a store-room till they brought the grass. When they brought it, we found that not more than, half of it was at all up to the specimens. These were produced, and I said that I could not pay the full price. I called some Hindus, who were engaged in the work of thatching the house, and were well ac- quainted with such matters, and asked them what was to be done. The Brahmans agreed to leave the mat- ter to them. They decided that I ought to pay about nine dollars less than the whole lot would amount to at the full price. This sum I deducted from the price, and paid the remainder. I was sure that I was doing them uo wrong, but rather was paying them too 28 MISSIONARY LIFE much. They murmured, and said they would have the remainder the full price agreed on at first. I asked them why they brought me such grass why they gave such specimens if they did not intend to bring grass to answer to them. They said bluntly, that they had brought the specimens to induce me to make the bargain; and then had given as good grass as they could ; that I must be foolish to expect to get anything as good as the specimens given ; and that they had unloaded the grass in my yard, and must have the money. I then told them they might go to the civil court with the case, and I would pay what- ever was decreed. They said no more to me. In a short time the carpenter came to me, and said that the Brahmans were demanding the nine dollars from him, on the ground that he had introduced them to me, and assisted in making the bargain. I sent a servant to order them out; but all the Hindus about me joined in imploring that I would do no such thing something dreadful would happen after it. The Brahmans, they said, had agreed that if the carpenter did not pay the money, one of them should rip him- self up with a knife, and die on the carpenter's ac- count. There were three of the Brahmans, and they had been overheard laying their plan behind a wall: the youngest said that it belonged to him to die ; but the oldest said that he had lived a greater number of years, and had eaten a great deal, and therefore he ought to be the one. And so it was finally settled: they were to make a formal demand, and use entrea- ties, threats, and all other means short of a lawsuit; and if the carpenter should hold out, the old man was to kill himself on the spot, and the carpenter would have to bear the guilt. No guilt so terrifies a Hindti as causing the death of a Brahman; and so confused are the ideas of the uneducated Hindis as to different kinds of causes, that they esteem the killing of them- selves out of spite to another as the most exquisite IN NORTH INDIA. 29 kind of revenge; because they fancy that all the guilt of their death is, in this case, transferred to the person on whom they may thus choose to lay it. The carpenter was thoroughly frightened. He begged me to give the money. I refused ; and explained to him and the Brahmans, that if they chose to kill them- selves in an attempt to extort money unjustly, they alone would suffer for it. He then prayed that I would lend him the amount. I refused again, be- cause I thought it right to combat such mingled knavery and superstition. But all this did not, as I hoped it would, prevent the Brahmans from carrying out their purpose : they made a last solemn appeal to the carpenter, with adjurations and curses, telling him that they chose to practise upon him, because he be- lieved in their power and doctrines, and I did not. He broke down, borrowed the money, and paid them the last farthing. He lost it: for I never would pay it. I will only add some anecdotes, that will do some- thing to illustrate the matter of housekeeping in India, and also the character of some classes of the people. Shortly after we were settled at Allahabad, we had a cook, a Musalman, and a low caste Hindu bearer, as our house-servants. From time to time we missed various articles of clothing, but supposed they might have been mislaid during Mrs. Warren's illness, and postponed the search for them till she should be stronger. At length, when I had five hundred ru- pees, as treasurer of the Mission, in the house, and was quite aware how much had been paid out of it, I found the bag evidently too light; and on counting the money, found that one hundred and thirty rupees were wanting. The cook had no business in that part of the house, and had never been seen there. The bearer was the only person we could suspect. Being entirely puzzled as to how to proceed, I called 3* 30 MISSIONARY LIFE in the Thdnadar. This is the head policeman of a small district. The man, in whose district I lived, appeared to be very shrewd. I thought, when he winked at me, and told me he would find some clue to the truth by his examination of the bearer, that his shrewdness, and tact, and experience would certainly be sufficient to find the money. On further examina- tion of our goods it was found that half of my shirts and many of our best articles of clothing were gone. This was a sad loss, and we never recovered anything. The Thanadar took away the bearer, and detained him three days, but was obliged to discharge him, as he could discover nothing on which to found a charge before the magistrate. I afterwards learned, to my great disgust and sorrow, that the Thanadar, during this time, had miserably vexed and tortured the poor man, in every mode that would not leave palpable marks, in order to compel him to confess. The bearer was turned out of our service, as we still be- lieved him guilty, though we could not convict him. In a week or two after this the cook asked for his dis- charge. I have forgotten the pretext, but that does not signify he left us. Immediately after this he married a wife, though he already had one; and laid out at least a hundred rupees on an enlargement of his house, beside being known to live rather luxuri- ously, though before he entered our service he was in debt. Thus it became manifest to every one that he was the thief; but still we could get no legal evidence against him. On this occasion my Munshi greatly regretted the prevalence of English law and customs. He said that under any native government the circumstances, which were open to all, would be considered sufficient for a conviction; and that it was perfectly ridiculous to screen a manifest rogue because no one saw him take the money. He asked, with much pertinence, Ought the law to expect that a thief will take witnesses with IN NORTH INDIA. 31 him when he goes to steal? He said, (and the natives often talk in this way,) that English pro- cedure and customs as to evidence, are totally unsuited to Hindustan, and serve to screen offenders oftener than to punish them ; and are precisely fitted to make a nefarious conspiracy against an innocent man completely successful. As an example of this evil, I may cite a case which occurred under my own observation. A man was accused of having committed a bur- glary, aided by two friends, by breaking into a house and carrying off various articles, on Sunday, in broad day. The charge was proved by twenty-five wit- nesses, who all testified that they saw it, as they were sitting with the owner of the house. The assistant magistrate, a young man of very little experience, thought no case could be more clear; and he sentenced_the supposed criminal to imprisonment with labour. The matter was brought before the judge by appeal ; and he directed the discharge of the man on the simple ground that the mor eye- witnesses there were pretended to be of such an act, the more improbable it became that he could not believe the accuser, with twenty-five able-bodied men with him, would see his house broken open by any three men and not resist it ; and neither would any three men perform such an act in such circumstances. The natives all praised this decision, and said this was all the weight that ought to be allowed to direct evidence, when circumstances were against its proba- bility. Had the jud^e, as many would have done, considered every man's oath good who could not be convicted of perjury, the poor victim of a stupid con- spiracy must have served out his time in prison. The accuser, the accused, and all the witnesses in this case were Mohammedans. I ought to state, for my own good name, that after circumstances hud shown that our bearer was not 32 MISSIONARY LIFE the thief that I had supposed him to be, I exerted myself to get him another place, and succeeded. One of my principal employments during this first summer was studying the language. The first teacher proposed to me was Patthras, [Peter] a native Cate- chist. He came to me two or three days after my arrival, introduced by one of the mission, and began to talk to me in Hindustani, as if I knew it already. I tried my very few words of his language, but we got on badly. At length I managed to ask him how he intended to make me understand him, as we had no language in common. He answered in Hindus- tani, " by the dictionary." I did not understand the word that meant dictionary ; and after he had repeated it many times, with many contortions and increasing loudness of voice, as if emphasis would make me understand, he mustered up his English and said, " dissenherry." I was so stupid that this was unintel- ligible too, till he laid hold of the book, and told me this was the dissenherry . I commenced reading the gospel of Matthew with him ; but we could not go on together. His education had not been such as to exercise his mind at all, and he could not explain any- thing; he was fat and gross, and a little labour or heat put him almost out of his senses; and he was never punctual, but always disappointing me and making lame excuses. Beside this, I soon found that it would not answer to lay myself under any obliga- tion to him : he had already tried to borrow money from me, and to get me to do various things for him, which showed his greed most disagreeably. After making an unsatisfactory beginning with him, it was determined that I must have a better teacher ; and it was fortunate that this change was made so soon: for I afterward discovered that he had allowed me to give wrong sounds to certain peculiar letters, and wrong accents, without correcting me ; and in a short time IN NORTH INDIA. 33 longer bad habits would have been formed, which it would have been very difficult to get rid of. Patthras was by birth a Musalmdn, of Lucknow. He had been a soldier, and held some inferior mili- tary office, in the service of the King of Oude, at Lucknow the splendid and corrupt the Paris of India. Perhaps a worse school for the education of a man could not be found in the world than employ- ment about the court of Lucknow. The government is Mohammedan of the worst stamp ; the people effeminate and vicious beyond all European imagina- tion ; offices are always bought, and the best part of their income is made up of bribes and the fruits of oppression. Every man in office preys upon those below him. The office that Patthras held under this government had a nominal pay of about fourteen dollars a month attached to it, which was often long in arrears; while he was married to two wives, and accustomed to some luxury and show. He had there- fore become accustomed to cunning and rapacity, but was no worse than his fellows : probably was n fair average man for that place. Though I would not dare to say that he never was a Christian by convic- tion, yet it was evident that the leaven of his educa- tion remained, and continually fermented. As there is an English resident at Lucknow, to look after the interests of the East India Company's Government, and some assistants, besides some English and East India people in business, the Company keeps a chap- lain and surgeon there. Patthras became acquainted with some of these, ajid was led to examine Chris- tianity. The chaplain took him under instruction; and, after he had separated from one of his wives, settling some little landed property on her, he bap- tized him. Thus he stripped himself of his little hereditary estate, parted with a wife of whom he always professed to be fond, and lost his commission. in the army. He was looked upon at the time as 34 MISSIONARY LIFE quite a martyr ; and far be it from me to say that it was all rascality : he may have been sincere. But his latter course laid him open to the shafts of suspi- cion : it could be said that he had experienced the evils of bigamy, and was willing to give up one wife in order to live in peace with the other; that his land was not sufficient to support his family, and brought him little or nothing when he could not personally superintend it, and so was no sacrifice when given up ; and that he hoped to be petted and made great by the English, which would more than compensate for the loss of his office. It could also be supposed that he was one who sincerely took up with the truth, but when called to suffer for it, was offended. His old corrupt education and habits, at any rate, resumed their influence. He became first luxurious again, and got in debt ; then, when dunned by his creditors, he made rapacious demands of his employers ; then cun- ning and falsehood, those invariable resorts of the weak and slavish, were taken up .again ; then rage against us, for not satisfying his cupidity came on ; and finally apostasy, or playing fast and loose with both Christianity and Isldm, was the last scene of his history with which I became acquainted. But it must not be supposed that Patthras was suffered to go to ruin in this way without the most strenuous efforts on our part to preserve him from a fall. He had been taken up by two gentlemen at Allahabad, who paid his whole wages, and set him to work under our Mission, and in the especial charge of Mr. Morrison. These gentlemen gave him an income that secured him and his family a better living than nine out of ten families of the same rank in Hindus- tdn have; and they looked after him diligently, gave him advice and encouragement, and befriended him in every possible way. They once paid his debts, and cleared him of all his difficulties, on his promise to live within his income for the future, and to ask no IN NORTH INDIA. 35 more similar favours. When he again got into the same kind of difficulties, and to a greater extent, Mr. Morrison fully relieved him, after pitying him, instructing him, and doing everything that the largest interpretation of Christian obligation could demand. Patthras, as before, promised everything, but went on in the same course worse and worse. His creditors at length pressed him again. He promised falsely, and equivocated. He thought us severe, and told several persons of his troubles. The Episcopal chap- lain of the station, a good but weak man, thought he could manage him, and we consented that he should try. His two friends agreed to pay his salary into the chaplain's hands, and he agreed rigidly to see that Patthras's necessities were cared for, and to pay all that could be saved monthly to his creditors. Patthras consented to this arrangement ; but before a week was over declared, quite falsely, that the chaplain was literally starving him. He told me such a pitiful story that I gave him some money; and when the chaplain heard of it, he was much offended at me for believing any part of the story. Patthras then quarrelled with the chaplain ; and about the same time came to me again, apparently labouring under all the excitement of a madman. He showed me the passage in the Acts of the Apostles about the community of goods ; he accused me of not obeying the command of Christ, in that I did not share my goods with him ; he said that I saw him having need, and shut up my bowels against him. I treated his fanatical notions with all the forbearance that was possible, and calmly taught him what was right. When I explained to him that I did not think he had need, according to the sense of those words as used by the Apostle John, he became so thorougly enraged that the foam gathered on his lips. He said he could listen to a man no more, who could give such a selfish interpretation to Scripture ; and when asked if his 36 MISSIONARY LIFE own interpretation was not as liable to be considered selfish, he took a sudden and angry leave of me. A few days afterward he pretended some business at Lucknow, and got a fortnight's leave of absence from his employers, and never returned. This circumstance, coming as it did in the early part of my missionary life, distressed me greatly. And even now I cannot think of the case without sin- cere grief. The poor man must have been a most des- perate hypocrite all the time ; or have fallen into snares of the \\icked one, that ought to excite our deepest pity. Whatever view we take of his case, it is one that causes sorrow. After Patthras ceased to be my Munshi, as^ a teacher of languages is usually called there, I en- gaged an elderly man, who had been the Munshi of many gentlemen. He was a Musalman, learned in Persian and Hindustani, and thought himself learned in many other things. He had various quips of logic, that he thought most profound and valuable; and fer- vently believed many most monstrous fables about natural history and science, that were vastly amusing. He was pliable, affable, polite, quick, shrewd, and very conversable. With his private character I had, of course, nothing to do, even though it could not be considered a matter of indifference to me; but there was no reason to suppose it very estimable. All that I know about it with any certainty is, that he was an opium-eater, and showed in his conversation a great deal of unscrupulousness as to morals, while vaunting highly his honourable principles. With this man I continued the reading of the gospel, and began that of some native works of fiction, which are thought most useful for teaching one the idiom of the lan- guage; but the greatest advantage was derived from talking with him. I undertook to teach him Chris- tianity, and our conversations on this subject were long and interesting. He helped me to words. He IN NORTH INDIA. 37 had acquired a perfectly wonderful faculty of seeing what word his pupil wanted, and would turn it up in. the dictionary, and tell how to fit it into the sentence that was being framed, without at all interrupting the train of the conversation. Then he made me tell him long stories about railroads, telegraphs, electricity, chemistry, governments and customs in Europe and America, and "Nupaloon Boniparty," whom he thought almost a greater man than Alexander the Great a decided stretch of belief for an oriental; for Alexander is the only person in Ancient History, having a connection with Europe, of whom the orien- tals now know anything, save as such knowledge ia newly introduced along with English education. The Munshi sometimes told me tales, watching my coun- tenance to see where he needed to explain more fully. He set me right about the pronunciation of difficult letters, and advised me to walk up and down the ve- randah practising. Accordingly hours on hours were spent in this peculiar exercise an excellent mode, amongst others, of acquiring a correct enunciation and intonation. After a few months passed in this way, I was obliged to discharge this man, in order to unite with Mr. Freeman in hiring one man between us both, from motives of economy. This man was a good teacher also ; and, after ceasing to be Mr. Free- man's teacher, for many years was attached to the printing-house as Munshi and proof-reader; and, of course, he continued to give rne occasional assistance in the language. This was a considerable advantage. We may well doubt whether there is not often an un- wise economy practised as to the expense of language teachers for missionaries. It is customary to dis- charge them as soon as they can be dispensed with, when it would be much better, in many cases, to re- tain their services for several years: the missionary's preaching and writing would often be incalculably the better for it, if he have a talent for language worth 4 38 MISSIONARY LIFE cultivating at all. A man has not learned to spoak a foreign language when he can tell in English the meaning of what he reads and hears, and can be un- derstood when he speaks: there is something beyond all this. To speak effectively he must gain the power of speaking like a fluent native. A great deal of practice, and a scholarly companion to guide him, are both necessary to the missionary for this end. The Munshi last referred to was a much more se- date man than the former one; he was even severely formal in his outward manner. He was very devout and religious, and expressed so much concern to ar- rive at all that was true, that I often had great hope that he would be converted to Christianity. This hope was, for a long time, encouraged by his whole manner. He was mild and reasonable in discussions of religious points, and seemed deeply impressed with a conviction of certain deficiencies in the Mohamme- dan system. He often shed tears in our conversations when the love of Christ was set forth; and once told me that the Christian scheme of salvation was beau- tiful, perfect, and entirely worthy of God. But I at last discovered, with intense pain, that two things hindered his conversion. The first was spiritual pride: he could not be persuaded that he was not quite pious and righteous already. His zeal, devotion, and religious reputation were as great