[38] In this Circular of Bishop Wilson's, it is surprising to observe the contradictions that exist. At one part of the Circular we are told that the apostle's language is conclusive: and "Seeing ye have put off the old man, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all, and in all," is quoted as evidence of the Divine wishes. "So overwhelming," continues the bishop, "is the flood by which all petty distinctions of nation, caste, privilege, rank, climate, position in civilization are effaced, and one grand distinction substituted." And yet, at another part of the Circular, we are told that the distinctions in civil society are acknowledged by the Gospel, when they are "the natural result of difference of talents, industry, piety, station, and success." Another decision of the apostle is quoted in the same Circular, and it is this—"There is neither Jew or Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus;" and so, of course, we are all equal in his sight. And yet this is quoted as being a decision in favour of doing away with the civil institutions of caste, which are undoubtedly the marks of that "station" which the bishop tells us is acknowledged by the Gospel, and in no way different from the station that a member of the House of Lords inherits from his predecessors. And here, though I do not think that it is advisable to cling to isolated texts as evidence of the general conduct of the apostles regarding the prejudices of their converts, I may mention that Peter, in his first Epistle, says, "Submit yourself to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake." And if we take Dean Alford's interpretation of this, and consider it as equivalent to a command, extending to every human institution (and I can see no reason why we should not), it is plain that our missionaries in India, if they wish to follow the examples of the apostles, should yield to the prejudices of caste as long as they do not involve idolatrous rites. But it is in the general action of the apostles, as illustrated in Acts xv. 19, that the safest guide may, I apprehend, be found; and when, with reference to difficulties as regarding the customs of their converts, St. James said (Dean Alford's edition), "Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them which from the Gentiles are turned to God; but that we write to them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood;" and again: "For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than [these] necessary things; that ye abstain from meats offered unto idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication; from which, if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well;"—when the apostle said thus, I think we ought to feel little doubt as to the course we ought to pursue regarding the social customs of the peoples of India.

[39] "The name 'Laws of Manu,' somewhat resembles a pious fraud, for the 'laws' are merely the laws or customs of a school or association of Hindoos, called the Mânavas, who lived in the country rendered holy by the divine river Saraswati. In this district the Hindoos first felt themselves a settled people, and in this neighbourhood they established colleges and hermitages, or âsramas, from some of which we may suppose Brâhmanas, Upanishads, and other religious compositions may have issued; and under such influences we may imagine the Code of Manu to have been composed.

"The Mânavas were undoubtedly an active, energetic people, who governed themselves, paid taxes to the kins, established internal and external trade, and drew up an extensive system of laws and customs, to which they appended real and imaginary awards. This system appears to have worked so well, that it was adopted by other communities, and then the organizers announced it as laws given to them by their divine progenitor, the great Mana. They added passages, moreover, which assert the divine claims of Brâhmans and the inferiority of the rest of mankind. Such assertions are little more than rhetorical flourishes, for Brâhmans never were either so omnipotent or so unamiable as the Code would represent them; nor were the Sûdras ever so degraded. In Sanskrit plays and poems, weak and indigent Brâhmans are by no means unfrequent; and, on the other hand, we meet with Sûdras who had political rights, and even in the Code find the pedigrees of great men traced up to Sûdra ancestors."—MRS. MANNING'S Ancient and Mediæval India, v. i., p. 276.

[40] As an instance that a man can abandon all religious rites whatever, and retain his caste unimpaired and unaltered, I may mention that my native clerk told me that he had done nothing in the way of religion at all for years; but that, of course, made no difference to him in the eyes of his neighbours, who didn't care what he did, as long as he did not depart from the social customs of his caste. I once said to a native shopkeeper in Bangalore, "What religion are you of?" "Oh!" he answered with a smile, "no religion at all, sir." But I need not trouble the reader with further evidence to show that a man may drop his religion altogether without dropping his caste, and that therefore religion and caste have no necessary connection with one another whatever.

[41] "Caste, though distinctly denounced by their sacred hooks, and ostensibly disavowed by the Singhalese themselves, still exists in their veneration for rank, whether hereditary or adventitious. Thus every district and every village has its little leader, a preeminence accorded to birth rather than property; and, by a descending scale, certain members of the community, in right of relationship or connection, assume an undefined superiority, and are tacitly admitted to the exercise of what is technically called an 'influence.' In the hamlets, so universal is this feeling amongst the natives, so habitual the impulse to classify themselves and to look up to some one as their superior in the scale of society, that the custom descends through every gradation of life and its occupations, and in some of the villages the missionaries found it necessary to appoint two schoolmasters, even where there was less than occupation for one—'influence,' as well as ability to teach, being an essential qualification; and if the individual did not possess the former, it was most indispensable to associate with him some other who did.[[A]] Again, if a village could not furnish a master competent to teach, it was in vain to procure one from a distance; his 'influence' did not extend to that locality, and no pupils could he got to attend. Nor was caste itself without the open avowal of its force, the children of a Vellala or high-caste family being on no account permitted to enter the school-house of a lower-caste master. These are obstacles which prevail in all their original force even at the present day; and in the purely Singhalese districts, such as Matura, the prestige of caste is so despotic, that no amount of qualification in all other particulars can overcome the repugnance to intercourse with those who are deficient in the paramount requisite of rank."—SIR J. E. TENNENT's Christianity in Ceylon, p. 286.

[42] In the large towns this remark might not, perhaps, be justifiable.

[43] Since this chapter was written, I have received well authenticated information of a Pariah, who had acquired both wealth and position, having been adopted into a superior caste. The caste was not a rich one, and he no doubt paid heavily for his admission into it.

[44] The farmers in Manjarabad invariably tack on the word "Gouda" to their names, and it seems to answer for our Mr.

[45] The natives imagine that every man's fate is written in invisible characters on his forehead.

[46] Abbé Dubois.