another missionary, named Ramney, on board a French vessel bound for the Isle of Bourbon. The outset of the voyage was very rough, and this produced such an increase of illness, that his life closed on the 12th of April, 1850, only a fortnight after parting from his wife, though it was not for four months that she could be informed of his loss. During this time she had given birth to a dead babe, and had suffered fearfully from sorrow and suspense.
She had become valuable enough to the mission for there to be much anxiety to retain her, and at first she thought of remaining; but her health was too much broken, and in a few months she carried home her little girl and her two step-sons. She collected the family together, and spent her time in the care of them, and in contributing materials for the Life of her husband; but the hereditary disease of her family had already laid its grasp on her, and she died on the 1st of June, 1854, the last of a truly devoted group of workers, as remarkable for their cheerfulness as for their heroism.
CHAPTER VII. THE BISHOPRIC OF CALCUTTA: THOMAS MIDDLETON, REGINALD HEBER, DANIEL WILSON.
Perhaps dying in a cause is the surest way of leading to its success. Henry Martyn was sinking on his homeward journey, while in England the renewal of the Charter of the East India Company was leading to the renewal of those discussions on the promotion of religion in Hindostan which had been so entirely quashed twenty years before, in 1793. Claudius Buchanan had published his “Christian Researches,” the Life of Schwartz had become known, the labours of Marshman and Carey were reported, and the Legislature at length attended to the representations, made through Archbishop Manners Sutton, by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and consented to sanction the establishment of a branch of the Church, with a Bishop to govern it at Calcutta, and an Archdeacon there
and also at Madras and Bombay; the Bishop to have 5,000l. a year but no house, and each Archdeacon 2,000l. Such was all that the efforts of Wilberforce could wring from the East India Company for a diocese, in length twenty degrees, in breadth ten, and where the inconvenience of distances was infinitely increased by the difficulties and dangers of travelling.
One excuse for the insufficiency of this provision had more weight with the supporters of the Church than we can understand. England had for more than a thousand years been accustomed to connect temporal grandeur with the Episcopacy; a Bishop not in the House of Lords seemed an anomaly, and it was imagined that to create chief pastors without a considerable endowment would serve to bring them into contempt; whereas to many minds, that very wealth and station was an absolute stumbling-block. However, a beginning was made, and a year after Henry Martyn’s death, in 1814, the first of the Colonial Bishops of England was appointed, namely, Thomas Fanshaw Middleton, the son of a Derbyshire clergyman, who had been educated at Christ’s Hospital, and Pembroke College, Cambridge, and had since been known as an excellent Greek scholar, and an active clergyman in the diocese of Lincoln. Thence he removed to the rectory of St. Pancras, London, where he strove hard to accomplish the building of a new church, but could not succeed, such was the dead indifference of the period. He was also Archdeacon of Huntingdon, and one of a firmly compacted body of friends who were doing much in a resolute though quiet way for the awakening of the nation from its apathy towards religion. Joshua Watson, a merchant, might be regarded as the lay-manager and leader, as having more leisure, and more habit of business than the clergy, with and for whom he worked. This is no place for detailing their home labours, but it may be well to mention that to their exertions we owe the National Society for the education of the poor, and likewise that edition of the Holy Scriptures, with notes, which is commonly known as Mant’s Bible. They were the chief managers at that time of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; and when, in 1813, a Danish missionary was sent out by that Society to take charge of the congregations left by Schwartz and his colleagues, it was Archdeacon Middleton who was selected to deliver a charge to him. It was a very powerful and impressive speech, and perhaps
occasioned Dr. Tomline, Bishop of Lincoln, to recommend the speaker to the Earl of Buckinghamshire for the bishopric created the next year.
The office would be, humanly speaking, most trying, laborious and perplexing, and neither Archdeacon Middleton’s age (forty-five) nor his habits inclined to enthusiasm. He shrank from it at first, then “suspected,” as he says, “that I had yielded to some unmanly considerations,” and decided that it was his duty to accept the charge as a call from his Master. He was consecrated in the chapel at Lambeth, by Archbishop Manners Sutton, with the Bishops of London, Lincoln, and Salisbury assisting. The sermon was preached by Dr. Rennell, Dean of Winchester, but was withheld from publication for the strange reason that there was so strong an aversion to the establishment of episcopacy in India, that it was thought better not to attract attention to the fact that had just been accomplished.
Bishop Middleton, his wife, and two of his Archdeacons (the third was already in India) sailed on the 8th of June, 1814, and they landed at Calcutta on the 28th of November. There was no public reception, for fear of alarming the natives, though, on the other hand, they were found to entertain a better opinion of the English on finding they respected their own religion. The difficulties of the Bishop’s arrival were increased by the absence of Lord Moira, the Governor-General, who was engaged in the Nepaulese war; and as no house had been provided for the Bishop, he had to be the guest of Mr. Seton, a member of the Council, till a house could be procured, at a high rent.
One of the first visitors was a Hindoo gentleman, who told him, “Sir William Jones was a great man and understood our books, but he attended only to our law. Your lordship will study our religion; your people mistake our religion; it is not in our books. The Brahminee religion and your lordship’s are the same; we mean the same thing.”