many years past an extensive distribution of alms had been made at the Church at an early hour every Sunday morning. This was soon imitated by the Parsees, who hold alms-giving to be highly meritorious, and distribute large sums in this manner. On Sunday mornings a numerous body of paupers go the round of most of the wealthy Parsees' houses, where they receive copper money, rice, and other things.

Although this, and one or two other instances of attention to the claims of humanity, do not appear to have contributed toward the propagation of Christianity, yet the amount of human wretchedness was reduced thereby; while every proof of the charitable disposition of European Christians must, at least, have made a favourable impression on the Native mind, and tended, as far as it went, to counteract the sad influence of their immoralities. In those dark times, when iniquity so generally abounded in Bombay, as well as other parts of India, one hails every circumstance which encourages the hope, that all who bore the Christian name had not quite forgotten their God and their religious duties.

Arrival

and exer

tions of

Arch

deacon

19. But a brighter day now dawned on Western India. In 1814 the Rev. Dr. Barnes arrived, as first Archdeacon of Bombay, and soon set about remedying the deplorable evils which prevailed. Of the Barnes. five Chaplains attached to this Presidency, he found only one at Bombay equal to the full discharge of his functions, a deficiency which threw upon himself the duties of a Chaplain, in assisting at the

(2) This practice was afterwards modified, and an organized system adopted for the application of the sacramental collections to a District-Visiting Society and a Native Poor Asylum. But these institutions are comparatively of recent date.

(3) There must have been one vacancy at the time, as the number ought to have been six. Le Bas' Life of Bishop Middleton. Vol. i. p. 82.

I.

Bombay

Society's

Presidency Church, and in attending the European regiments quartered in Bombay and its vicinity. Throughout the provinces subject to this Government there was but a single Church; and in consequence of this paucity of Ministers and Places of Worship, the Out-stations, military cantonments, and civil residences, were left destitute of the public ordinances and private ministrations of religion. In the absence of clergymen, marriages had been usually celebrated by military officers and civil servants; and under the plea of necessity, arising from the same cause, the sacrament of Baptism had also been administered by the hands of laymen. The Archdeacon was encouraged when he found that the English residents themselves lamented these irregularities, and that the Governor was anxious to see them remedied. He lost no time in representing them to the Bishop of Calcutta, who soon adopted the measures necessary to obtain a more efficient establishment of Chaplains and an increase of Churches-with what success will be shown in the sequel.

20. Mention has been made above of the Charity Education School established by Mr. Cobbe in connexion with Report. the Church. This Institution now merged in a more extensive Society, established on the 29th of January 1815, entitled "THE BOMBAY SOCIETY FOR THE EDUCATION OF THE POOR." In its First Annual Report, at the commencement of the year 1816, it was stated that the attention of the Settlement was "called to this interesting subject by the Bombay Bible Society."1

(1) The following list of its officers will show how generally this important Institution was patronized. The President-Sir Evan Nepean, Governor of Bombay. Patron-the Bishop of Calcutta. Vice-Presidents-Lieutenant-General Sir Miles Nightingale, Commander-in-Chief, and Second Member of Council; George Brown, Esq. and John Elphinston, Esq., Third and Fourth Members

of

At the first meeting a sum exceeding six thousand rupees was contributed; which was increased, by the First Anniversary, held January 15th, to twenty-two thousand five hundred rupees Benefactions, and six thousand and twenty rupees 4 Annual Subscriptions.

The following extracts from the Report will show how much these exertions of Christian Benevolence were needed in India, and with what force its claims were urged on the European residents—

3

"It is a remarkable circumstance, as indicative of the good which may be expected from the exertions of the Society, that, of the boys admitted into the School, it found that eleven, though the immediate children of Europeans, had never been baptized in any way some were wandering through the streets as beggars; and one was actually supported by the charity of a Mussulman."

Then, after describing the various classes of children, families of European soldiers by Native women, and others born in the country, who were similar to those in the Asylums at the other Presidencies, the Report proceeds to show that they were, from various causes, often left to the entire management of their mothers, and thus describes the consequences:

"In many cases the children disappear altogether, and are associated among the Mussulmans, outcast Hindoos, or Portuguese, losing entirely the religion of their fathers; and few only, whose parents have

of Council; Sir Alexander Anstruther; The Recorder (i. e. Judge of H. M. Court in Bombay). Vice-Patron-Archdeacon Barnes. Twelve lay gentlemen, with all clergymen, were Directors of the Institution. The Female Branch was governed by a Patroness, Mrs. Brown (wife of Geo. Brown, Esq.), and nine ladies, Directresses. Superintendent-Rev. N. Wade, Senior Chaplain; Secretary-Rev. Henry Davies, Chaplain. (4) About 7521.

(2) About 7501. (3) About 28002.

CHAP.

I.

State of the

Schools.

been married to European women, or to Native Protestants (a class very few in number), or whose godfathers have happened to take a more friendly charge of them than usual, ever enter the walls of a Protestant Church ;-a circumstance but little calculated to impress the Natives with a belief of the sincerity of the English in their religious obser

vances.

"The Directors congratulate themselves, that, even in the course of one year, they have already, in some instances, rescued children who were on the point of sinking into the Mahomedan religion and Hindoo superstitions.

"The numerous applications from many quarters, in which the existence of children of European parents was not previously known, convince the Committee that the want of the means of instructing these children in the principles of Christianity, and of bringing them up to useful industry, has influenced the unhappy persons alluded to, in the neglect of their children's interests, fully as much as a guilty indifference."

Though the School laboured under many disadvantages, yet the Directors, in conclusion, thus congratulated the Subscribers on the success which appeared to have already attended the designs of the Society

"Many poor children have not only been fed and clothed, but have been rescued from idleness, and the brink of vice and idolatry, and placed in a situation in which they have every prospect of being educated in industrious, sober, and religious habits. "The progress of the children in their education is as satisfactory as the Committee could expect."1 21. This able Report puts on record the state of

(') Missionary Register, 1816, pp. 289-291. Le Bas' Life of Bishop Middleton. Vol. i. pp. 113, 114. 243, 244.

that class of society at Bombay at this period for whom the Schools were established, described by the parties best acquainted with it. The Schools were subsequently placed under efficient teachers from England; and in a few years the establishment maintained and educated more than one hundred boys, and a still greater number of girls. Considering the destitute state of this class of children, especially the girls, the benefit of these Charity Schools cannot be too highly appreciated. The scriptural instruction imparted, and the improvement wrought in the moral character of the children generally, among whom were sometimes to be observed decided instances of youthful piety, produced a reflex influence on their friends, and tended to raise the condition and character of those classes of society with which they formed connexions. Nothing in Bombay has done more, under the blessing of Almighty God, than this Institution, to raise the Christian name among the Natives, both by its direct measures, and also by its improvement of the conduct and habits of those with whom the inhabitants of the country come most in contact. But these results were the growth of some years later than the period at which we have arrived.

Report of

Society.

22. The formation of the District Committee of Second the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge was the Bomfor the present postponed; but supplies of Bibles bay Bible and Testaments, of which there was a great dearth, were obtained from the Bombay Bible Society. The Second Report of this Society, published in 1816, contains much important information, and very judicious remarks respecting the moral and religious state of Western India, and the means of meliorating its condition. It is a document of great interest, and fully corroborates the description of the Europeans and other inhabitants of Western India which we have already given. The means