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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—Deciphering the Treasonable Letters of the Natives—The
Massacre of Missionaries at Sialkot—Lord Elphinstone’s correspondence
with Dr. Wilson—Loyalty of Bombay City—Dr. Wilson’s Humiliation and
Thanksgiving Lectures—The Government of India constitutionally
Christian—United Presbyterian Mission to Rajpootana—Dr. 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 Benefactors when laying
Foundation-stone of University Hall.
Whether it hereafter
proves true that the history of the British Empire of India began only
with the Mutiny campaigns 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 1857 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
TJnited Presbyterian Church amid the eighteen principalities of
Kajpootana. 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 improvement 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 Indus, found and left the
great Western Province peaceable and loyal. In none of the eloquent
generalisations which he called “history,” has the late Sir John Kaye
been more unfortunate 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 prose-lytism of 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 Yindhyas, or to two 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 he lionised in London,
and to see the weakness of England in the early stages of the Crimean
War, so the Satara agent, Rungo 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 and south of India. In
reply to a missive from the 75 th Bengal Native Infantry a sepoy wrote
from Bombay 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 running.” 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 hundred 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 Rajpootana, of the
Yindhyas, and of Nagpore and Hyderabad, the mutineers of the north
vainly tried to reach Maharashtra under Tathya Topya and Bala Rao.
Instead of their succeeding it was from Bombay that the first help was
sent to Lord Canning in the despatch of the troops of the Persian
expedition; and from Bombay that Sir Hugh Rose, 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 cantonments. 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 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 ministrants. 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, while
he made all proper military arrangements.
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 instruments of intrigue. Accordingly, all the authorities
received instructions to intercept native or vernacular letters, and to
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 beleaguered 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 ringleaders 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 “Religious 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 comparison of
copperplate inscriptions in the hands of Vishnoo Shastree, 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 agreement 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
Sanskrit and other languages, most creditable to the ingenuity of the
Indians, or those by whom they were adapted to those languages.”
Thus the whole miserable tragedy of the Mutiny on its 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 beginning
to be checked. Many of our countrymen—men, women, and children—have been
treacherously butchered by them. Five or six missionaries 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 the
mercy of God always followed the movements of our troops. The Bombay
armies, both in Rajpootana 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 plau 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 Kolhapore nobles are of
three or four years’ standing, and have had no connection 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.”
LORD ELPHINSTONE TO DR. 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 Evangelisation 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 aboriginal 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 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 propriety 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 Government, under which the city had risen in wealth and
importance. 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 Muhammadans 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 Wa-habee 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 arrangements 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, 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
deprecated “ 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
Europeans in India and at home ; against Caste, the great evil; against
“ hedging up any bodies of our servants or subjects in India from
general enlightenment and Christian instruction; ”against“ shortcomings
in the supervision, discipline, and employment of our 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 European 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 suppression of anarchy ; the safety of Western
India ; the steadfastness 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. Fraser 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
Government 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 vindicate 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 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
Episcopalian, 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
visiting and examining our mission schools, or of late years for
speaking on religious subjects, or distributing bibles, books, or
tracts. An unnecessary 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 appliances, 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
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. R. N. Cust, 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. Rut 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 Ben-tinck’s time, was near its
close, and such an association as that proposed 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 Rev. Dr. Somerville, foreign secretary of the
United Presbyterian Church—which represents the earlier seceders from
the Established Kirk, as the Free Church consists of the later—along
with Mr. Cooper, his old colleague in the Konkan, who had become
minister of Eala, 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 gratitude to God that this
work was to be done at last. With Rajpootana 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 Rajpootana 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-operations, 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.
Then follow, in this and the subsequent correspondence, exhaustive
details, topographical, political, historical, and ethnological,
regarding the Rajpoots 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
incorporated the wild States and warlike princes of the deserts, hills,
and small cities of Rajastan, in one now civilised territory. Dr.
Wilson’s letters remain a proof of his unconquerable 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 Rev. Messrs. W. Shoolbred, D.D., 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 Rajpootana, 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 succeeded his lamented brother
Sir Henry. We leave Dr. Shoolbred to describe his intercourse with Dr.
and Mrs. Wilson 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. Kerr 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 brilliant 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 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 buoyancy, 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 sympathising
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, laughingly 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
dessert, 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 V 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, 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 eagerness
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-forgetfulness he would have exposed himself and me, unprotected, to
the fierce sunshine, had not Mrs. Wilson, with her ever-watchful care,
furnished 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 unexhausted.
“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 exhaustless
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 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 opportunity of speaking a word for
Christ. And I was ever and again constrained 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.
“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 sympathies 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 confined 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.
“In his whole character and conduct indeed, he seemed to me the beau
ideal 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 ministered 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 Rajpootana 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
headquarters:—“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 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 with the respectful attention of Dr.
Shoolbred 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 and Gwalior are still without
missionaries, although the Rev. Narayan Sheshadri has a prosperous
mission at Jalna, in the Nizam’s country, and Dr. Valentine has, like
Dr. Bough ton at the court of the Emperor Shah Jahan, used the
physician’s art for still nobler ends in the court of Jeypore.
How baseless were even the lurking relics of apprehension in the
Lieutenant-Governor’s letter was soon proved by the princes of
Rajpootana 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. At Baroda the Gaikwar, Khunde Bao, 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 missionary had written, which his Highness pronounced as
“works of 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.
“On Sabbath the 22d January, after preaching in Hindostanee 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 accompanied 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 Rev. 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 convert
who had accompanied them thither, and assisted in reconducting him to
Bombay, where he (Chinturam) was very anxious to make my personal
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
profession 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, 15th February.—This Mar war 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 obscene character at Palee, its commercial
capital, and here at its political capital I find matters in a most
extraordinary position both religiously and socially. The Maharaja Tukht
Singh (whom we saw at Ahmed-nuggur in 1840) is giving me a most kind
reception, and has appointed a grand durbar on my account this evening,
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, in which a Charan 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 I spent many
hours with the learned men of the durbar. The chief Brahman is
positively like another Sayana Acharya, interpreting the Yedas by the
ancient helps to their understanding. The chief Charan has mastered the
Mahabliarata and all the local chronicles of the Rajpoots, 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
investigation 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 Kajpoot 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, 11th 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 a change 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 hours in the
middle of the day under some trees, for a little rest and refreshment,
quite in gipsy 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 on 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 16th 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 Richmond 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, hut 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. 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 Sanskrit
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 discomfiture. 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.
“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 church 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 handsome 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 the sweeps with
soot in chimneys in my young days. Yet we had some pleasant interludes
by the way, as at Cliittor, Neemucli, 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 Kajas. 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 disappointed 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, ‘ 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 Sanskrit language. The best word for man
in it is manushya, which means, ‘ he 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 Yedas 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.”
But the new or extended agencies of the Churches of Great Britain, the
United States, and Germany, fell short in far-reaching consequences of
the catholic system of public instruction 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
cooperation between the Government or secular State and all
non-government 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, however, 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 1857, 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 Muhammadanism 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
Government and the independent systems of public instruction 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 maintained 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 existing 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
time, 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 Arts, Law, Medical, and
Engineering Faculties of the Senate, regulated the whole education of
the country by fixing standards and text-books, and selecting the
examiners for degrees. Theoretically the scheme was perfect.
Practically the new policy worked well for a time, 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 Company’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, 8th 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 voluntarily received. It promises
certain grants in aid of secular instruction, for certain definite
objects, to all private scholastic institutions permitting government
inspection and exacting a fee, however small, from the pupils. It
proposes the foundation of Universities at the Presidencies, 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
reference 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 combination 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 considered 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 directly encourages. It
will do more than this. It will aid the missionary institutions in that
department of their labours which embraces secular knowledge. But
missionaries and their supporters must vow before God and man not to
dilute or diminish their religious instruction 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 Evangelisation of India. The
advanced pupils generally aid us in instructing the lower classes,
partly in compensation for the instruction which they themselves 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 establishment 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 ride, 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.”
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 concerted 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 ?
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. Dr. Wilson
wrote with the experience not only of one of the founders of the
University, but as a member of the Syndicate, Dean of the Faculty of
Arts, and an examiner in Sanskrit, 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 1861
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 any interruption of our mission
work.”
“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 missionaries.
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 Sanskrit 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 formidable sophist Shankaracharya. The whole
Sanskrit 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 cultured catholicity of spirit. When the
Government appointed the zealous Christian missionary and uncompromising
pro-selytiser, Vice-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 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 Bombay, 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 Jehangliier Readymoney 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 Roychund 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.
Mnnguldass Nathoobhoy, for establishing a travelling fellowship ; 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. Bugwandass Purshotumdass, for a Sanskrit 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 Sanskrit scholarships (three of Rs. 25 each, and three
of Rs. 20 each per mensem), amounting altogether to Rs. 30,000, by Mr.
Vinayekrao Jugonnathjee Sunkersett, in memory of his late father, the
Hon. Jugonnath Sunkersett, one of the greatest supporters of education
in the Bombay Presidency ; Rs. 45,000 by His Highness the Jam of
Nowa-nuggur, for an English scholarship to be held by a native of
Kathiawar ; Rs. 5000 in four per cent notes, by Mr. Cowasjee Jehangliier
Readymoney, for founding a Latin Scholarship ; 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 commemoration of the accomplishments
and worth of the Hon. Alexander 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 exemplary.
“Our University, thus auspiciously begun, will, it is confidently
believed, continue to Mourisli. 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 demonstration
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 himself 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 on 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.
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 prevail 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 toleration 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. |
