Appx. No. 6) to consist of three bishops, three archdeacons, (who are also chaplains), and 122 chaplains and assistantchaplains, who (with the exception of one in each Presidency, selected by the Bishop for his domestic chaplain) officiate at the different civil and military stations.

The archdeacons are appointed by the bishops, receiving an additional allowance of 300l. a-year, but retaining the duties as well as the emoluments of their respective chaplaincies. The bishoprics are in the patronage of the President of the Board of Control, and the assistant chaplaincies in that of the Directors, the assistants' rising to be 'chaplains' by seniority.

The salaries are nearly as follows:

Bishop of Calcutta (Metropolitan) per annum £5,000

Madras
Bombay

دو

وو

Senior Presidency Chaplain

Junior

Chaplains (in Bengal)

دو

in Madras and Bombay

Assistant-Chaplains

2,500

2,500

1,200

980

960

840

600

Additional allowances on a liberal scale are made to the bishops to cover the expenses of their Visitations, and also to the chaplains when travelling on duty. Retiring pensions are provided, for the Bishop of Calcutta after ten years' service in India, and for the Bishops of Madras and Bombay after fifteen; previous service as archdeacon being reckoned in the period. The chaplains also enjoy retiring pensions after fifteen years' Indian service, with proportionate allowances while on furlough or sick leave, and half-pay if compelled by a failure of health to retire before the period of pension.

The origin of this Establishment is coeval with the Company itself; the following being extracted from the Charter of Incorporation, dated 22d July, 1702.

'And Her Majesty's further will and pleasure is, and she doth hereby direct and appoint, that the said English Company and their successors according to the provision made in that behalf in their said Charter of 5th September, in the tenth year of his said late Majesty's reign, shall constantly maintain... one Protestant minister in every garrison and superior factory which the same Company or their successors shall have in the East Indies, or other parts within the limits aforesaid; and shall also in such garrisons and factories respectively provide, or set apart, a decent and convenient place for Divine Service only; . . . and, moreover, that no such minister shall be sent by the same Company to the said East Indies, or other the parts within the limits aforesaid, until he shall have been first approved of by the Archbishop of Canterbury or Bishop of London for the time being; and Her Majesty doth hereby further will and appoint that all such ministers as shall be sent as aforesaid to reside in India, or other the

parts within the limits aforesaid, be obliged to learn, within one year after their arrival, the Portuguese language; and shall apply themselves to learn the native language of the country where they shall reside, the better to enable them to instruct the Gentoos, that shall be servants or slaves of the same Company or of their agents, in the Protestant religion; and, further, that the said English Company, and their successors, shall, from time to time, provide schoolmasters in all the said garrisons and superior factories where they shall be found necessary.'

At the time this Charter was granted the Company possessed in India only a few commercial factories, and not a single British soldier had as yet set foot upon its soil. Their chaplains were therefore plainly intended for the spiritual instruction of the Natives, and we believe that the regiments first sent out by the Crown took their own military chaplains with them. This practice, however, was speedily discontinued. The care of the soldiery was thrown upon the Company's chaplains, who in consequence came to be considered as appointed exclusively for that purpose. All interference with the religion of the Natives,' that is, all attempts at the propagation of Christianity, were vehemently condemned by a Government which took the Pagodas under their immediate patronage, and made a very good thing of the management of Church Lands,' formerly wasted by unprincipled Brahmins.

At present the Court of Directors, as we learn from their secretary,1

Con

'have laid it down as a principle, that the religious benefit of the servants of Government is the only ground upon which an ecclesiastical establishment can be maintained at the charge of the Indian revenue. version, they think, should not be carried on through Government agency; any attempt of the kind, it is believed, would retard the progress of Christianity; in which their opinion coincides with that of Bishop Heber.'Analysis, p. 121.

We must not here stay to remark on the ingenuity which would cover the Company's former undisguised resistance-and its present too-evident disinclination to Missionary operations,2 with the cloak of a righteous zeal for the purity of the Gospel. We remember the opposition to the erection of the See of Calcutta, and the predictions then made of the disorder and rebellion to be introduced among the gentle Hindoos' by the fanatical' attempts to convert them to Christianity. We cannot quite forget that Bishop Middleton was smuggled on shore without the usual marks of respect, for fear of exciting the Natives; and there is an ugly story somewhere, of a

1 The Company's 'Charter' has been twice carried through Parliament by this distinguished officer, the most able of a remarkably able family. The civil riband of K.C.B. attests rather than rewards his labours on the late occasion.

2 If I were not afraid of having my expression misunderstood, I should say there is more than indifference; the Government rather lean against the missionaries.'-Rev. W. Keane, Lords' Second Report, Qu. 7,892.

chaplain being warmly reprimanded for baptizing a sepoy. But let bygones be bygones. The principle laid down by Sir J. C. Melvill is now undoubtedly generally accepted; though we must be allowed to remark that the obligation laid upon the Company in its original charter having been no way abrogated in any of the subsequent renewals of its political or commercial privileges, cannot be repudiated so easily as they seem to think.

In the disposal of their chaplains

it has been the principle of the Government to provide, in the first place, for those stations where there are regular European troops; after these are supplied, the Presidency towns (Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay), where large numbers of Protestants in the service of Government are congregated, are considered to have the first claim in the allotment of Chaplains, and those which then remain1 are placed at the discretion of Government, in communication with the bishop, at those stations where there may be the greatest number of civil and military officers.'-Commons' Sixth Report, 1853, Qu. 10,012.

Smaller stations are visited periodically by the Chaplains from the principal station most conveniently situated for the purpose. This 'convenience' may be appreciated when we state that the District' assigned to a friend of our own consisted of a Native State as large as Ireland, containing five out stations,' the nearest of which was 30 miles from his residence, and the furthest 120. Archdeacon Shortland speaks of districts still larger, but as a general rule 100 miles is considered the furthest limit at which a Chaplain should be called upon to extend his ministrations. In making his annual circuit our friend travelled considerably above a thousand miles, in a country which has neither railways nor turnpike roads, but mere tracks, over most of which the horse or the palanquin forms the only means of conveyance. During his absence the principal station was left to the other Chaplain (when it had another), or else was unserved. Yet that the district duty could not be neglected is evident, from the fact that as many Communicants at the Holy Eucharist were mustered among these scattered companies as in the large station itself.

Such is the Government Establishment, so far as the Church of England is concerned. Two chaplains of the Kirk of Scotland are maintained at each Presidency, on exactly the same footing, and four Bishops of the Church of Rome receive each a stipend of 2401. a-year, for superintending' the clergy officiating to the Roman Catholic soldiery. In the appointment of these Romish chaplains,' (as they are self-styled,) the Govern

1

6

This is hardly correct; the churches at the Presidencies are supplied before any others. A friend of ours was kept officiating in one for some time, while two military stations to which he was successively appointed remained unsupplied,

ment does not interfere, but certain small allowances are made to them through their bishops.'

These establishments are regarded as forming the Ecclesiastical department of the Government Service. Rank and precedence in the Service' are allotted to the Bishops, Archdeacons, and Chaplains. Not only the erection and repairs of their churches, but every expense of Divine Service, down to washing the surplices, and even paying for the Sacramental elements, are furnished at the public charge, on the same principle as hospitals and medicines are provided to the Company's servants free of expense.

Hence a whole system of Ecclesiastical Orders of Government comes into existence. The Government corresponds with the chaplains through the Bishop as the head of their department, and this bureaucratic relation entirely eclipses the spiritual. The Bishop in his episcopal character licenses the chaplains, he visits and delivers a Charge, (which, by the way, used to reach his clergy first in the columns of a London Paper;) but the chaplains are appointed and removed from church to church by the Government: their emoluments and duties are all controlled by Government regulations: and the Bishop's power practically depends upon his personal influence with the clergy, or upon the amount of pressure which his private acquaintance with the Governor enables him to apply. An Ecclesiastical Court has been provided by law; but it has never been opened and Bishop Heber's attempt to constitute his Consistory proved a failure. There is no power, it seems, of enforcing the attendance of witnesses or the execution of the decree. Bishop Spencer says:

The Bishops have sufficient authority over the subordinate Clergy, when they are on good terms with the Government of the day; but if the Government and the Bishop happen to disagree, then the Bishop, I am bound to say, is not so much supported as he ought to be.'-Lords' Committee Second Report, 1853, Qu. 8,418.

The episcopal licence possesses no greater value in the eyes of an Indian Governor than of a Foreign Secretary of State. We remember a chaplain removed from his station by the Governor in opposition to the Bishop, as a punishment for some alleged neglect of duty at a funeral. He was appointed to a less eligible station at a considerable distance (thus mulcting him in

1 Some of these bishops occasionally receive a further allowance as chaplains themselves; and there is a proposal to raise the three bishops at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay to about 500l. a-year, and give increased official recognition to them and their clergy. The government favour has been strongly marked towards them, but it is checked by the frequent ebullitions of the Irish Priests. On more than one occasion the troops have been marched out of Chapel to avoid their seditious sermons; and the Brigadier at Secunderabad was compelled to expel a bishop by force from the cantonment!

the costs of removal), and another chaplain was nominated to succeed him. The Bishop refused to alter the licences of either; but on the appearance of the exchange in the Government Orders, the salaries of both clergymen ceased till they had reported their arrival at the stations to which they were appointed. Of course they were obliged to officiate in their new churches without licences. Indeed it has been questioned whether by their appointments under the Royal Charter with the approval of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Company's chaplains are not legally qualified to officiate within the British territories without further ecclesiastical sanction. A still more summary proceeding was resolved on by one of the Madras Governors. Finding he could not prevail on the Clergy to sanction the admission of Dissenting Missionaries to officiate at funerals in the consecrated burying-grounds, he directed a portion of the adjoining ground (unconsecrated) to be annexed to every government grave-yard: and then, to abolish invidious distinctions, actually ordered the wall of the consecrated portion to be thrown down, so as to unite the two within one enclosure, and the funerals of Dissenters to be admitted at the original gate, and so pass over the consecrated ground to their own.

With such Governors it is manifestly unsafe for the Bishop to apply the argumentum ad crumenam to a chaplain. It may often recoil with an unpleasant force upon himself. After all, too, bishop, archdeacon, and chaplain, being every one stipendiaries on the public treasury, and all their incidental expenses charged in addition on the same quarter, it is perfectly natural that Government should expect the work it pays for-and pays with great liberality-to be executed under its own orders and to the taste of the employer.

In short, this establishment is a pure Erastianism; and the effects are sometimes curious. On one occasion when it was proposed to build a new church at our friend's station, the engineer officer received instructions from the Military Board to prepare the plans, just as would be done for a barrack or other public building. Being well acquainted with the officer, the chaplain carried him his rough design, and proposed to consult on the plans to be submitted. He was little prepared for the good-natured merriment with which the other enjoyed the idea of the Padré stepping out of his own department to meddle with brick and chunam he might as well have proposed to assist in breaching a fortress. It was the soldier's business to build the church, the clergyman's to preach in it. But as church architecture forms no part of the Addiscombe curriculum, there is of course little ecclesiastical propriety in our Indian churches. Another result is that these churches, even after consecration, are still