Page images
PDF
EPUB

embraced his own promotion. He was not the first to cry aloud for the appointment of an Anglo-Indian Bishop. More than a century before, Dean Prideaux had contended for the expediency of such a measure. Long before Buchanan lifted up his voice in behalf of the East, some of our Western settlements had been endowed with Episcopal establishments. The first Bishop of Nova Scotia was appointed in 1787; and, in 1793, Quebec was erected into an Episcopal See. Buchanan's grand ideas of a fitting Church establishment for India were regarded forty years ago as the exaggerations of an enthusiast; but we are not now very far from the realisation of his splendid dreams. "One observation I would make," he wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, "on the proposed Ecclesiastical establishment. A partial or half measure will have no useful effect. An Archbishop is wanted for India; a sacred and exalted character, surrounded by his Bishops, of ample revenue and extensive sway; a venerable personage whose name 'shall be greater than the transitory governors of the land; and whose fame, for piety, and for the will and power to do good, may pass throughout every region." It is not wholly impossible that the next Charter may contain provisions for "an Archbishop, surrounded by his Bishops." We are not very far removed from such a consummation.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

What was thought by Claudius Buchanan of the selection, that was made from among the clergy of Great Britain to fill the Episcopal chair, now first planted on Indian soil, his biographer has not informed us. The state of Buchanan's health was a sufficient bar to his promotion, had no other impediments existed. But there is no reason to believe otherwise than that, had his constitution been unimpaired, his claims would equally have been passed over. He was not in good odour in high places. His zeal and ability were admitted; but, rightly or wrongly, he was supposed to be wanting in judgment and discretion. He was not a safe man. A safe man was wanted; and one was found in the parish of St. Pancras.

Thomas Fanshawe Middleton, the only son of a country clergyman, was born in January 1769, at his father's Rectory, in the village of Kedleston, Derbyshire. At the age of ten, he was sent to Christ's Hospital (the "Blue Coat School"), whence he emerged in due course to commence, at Pembroke College, Cambridge, his university career. In January 1792, he took his bachelor's degree-standing forth in the list of senior optimes. In the following March, he was ordained Deacon by Dr. Pretyman, Bishop of Lincoln, and entered upon his duties, as a minister of the Gospel, in the quiet curacy of Gainsborough.

Bishop Middleton was one of many eminent men, who have owed their elevation in life merely to their connexion with the Press. At Gainsborough, having sufficient leisure for literary pursuits, he edited a small periodical, entitled the "Country Spectator," which, short-lived as it was, endured sufficiently long to recommend the writer of the principal papers to the good offices of Dr. Pretyman, brother of the Bishop, who took the trouble to lift the anonymous veil, and, having lifted it, was sufficiently well pleased with the result to secure Mr. Middleton's services for the domestic education of his sons. The Pretyman interest seems to have been the making of the young clergyman. It introduced him not merely to ordinary church preferment, but to such scholarly society, as, under other circumstances, would not have been within his reach; and, from this attrition of erudite classical minds emanated that work on the Greek article, which laid the broad foundation-stone of his reputation and his success. In those days, a treatise on the Greek article was the surest stepping stone to a Bishopric. Such at least was the received opinion. How far it may have assisted in the elevation of Middleton, we do not undertake to determine; but his advancement, after that great feat of scholarship, was sufficiently rapid to warrant a conjecture that the Greek article was, to some extent, a motive power. The Pretymans, as we have said, were his great patrons. Through them he obtained the livings of Tansor and Bythams, a prebendal stall at Lincoln, the Archdeaconry of Huntingdon, the Rectory of Puttenham, in Hertfordshire, and the great parish of St. Pancras, London. In the last of these, Dr. Middleton exerted himself to compass the erection of a new parish church. It was deplorably wanted; —but, some how or other, he failed. The good work, which he could not achieve, was left to his successor to accomplish ;* and St. Pancras now rejoices in one of the most capacious religious edifices in the metropolis of England.

His removal to London, which took place in 1811, enabled him to take an active part in the proceedings of the Christian Knowledge Society, to form many valuable clerical acquaintances, and to undertake the editorship of the British Critic-at that time a periodical of some repute in the literary and religious worlds. He was in a fair way now to the highest honours of the Church, and would, not improbably, have risen to the episcopal dignity in his own country, if the establishment of the Indian Bishopric had not opened the road to more speedy preferment. The nomination of the new Bishop was entrusted to the President

* Dr. Moore succeeded Dr. Middleton, and held the living for nearly five and thirty years. It is now held by Mr. Dale.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

66

of the Board of Controul-then the Earl of Buckinghamshire; and the choice, upon the recommendation (it would seem) of Dr. Tomline, Bishop of Lincoln, fell upon Dr. Middleton, who held a prebendal stall in that diocese. Overpowered 'by the vast magnitude and appalling novelty of such a charge, 'he was at first tempted to decline the offer. His maturer thoughts, however, condemned this determination as unworthy of a Christian Minister; and he found no peace of mind, until he had recalled his first decision, and had formed a resolution to brave the difficulties of the office, and the dangers of a tropical climate, in the service of his Saviour."

On the 8th of May, 1814, in the Chapel attached to that venerable pile of buildings, which imparts something of interest to the dreary tract of river-bank, that lies between Westminster and Vauxhall—the archi-episcopal palace of Lambeth-the first Indian Bishop was formally consecrated. The Consecration Sermon was preached by Dr. Rennell, Dean of Winchester. The subject was a suggestive one; but what it suggested it is not permitted us to write. There is no exhumation of the discourse practicable, search, as we may, in public libraries or old book-shops. It is customary to publish these things; but good Dr. Rennel's Consecration Sermon was not published. Christianity had triumphed; but still, in spite of its triumph, Christianity was compelled to walk with discretion. There were thorns and briars, and broken glass and sharp flint-stones, to be avoided with cautious tread. The Bishopric had been wrung from Parliament; but it was dangerous to make a noise about it. The least said, the soonest mended. The enemy had been beaten, but not annihilated; and it was deemed prudent not to invite any new attacks. So the Sermon was left to languish in the obscurity of manuscript, secure from the stolid assaults of the Warings, the Twinings, and other ingenious members of the same college of alarmists, who saw a massacre in every thread of the lawn-sleeves, which were now about, for the first time, to form an item of an Indian outfit.

Having been elected a fellow of the Royal Society-having been complimented by the Christian Knowledge Society, who placed £1,000 at his disposal for the promotion of their views in India—and having received from his friends a parting memorial in the shape of a superb silver inkstand, Bishop Middleton embarked for Calcutta. Among the passengers in the Warren Hastings were two of the new Archdeacons. It might be

thought, and not unreasonably, that a selection for these subordinate offices might have been made from among those ministers, who had long been bearing, in India, "the burden and

heat of the day:" but, except in the case of the Madras Archdeaconry, which was bestowed upon Mr. Mousley, a resident chaplain, the appointments fell to the lot of new men-fellows of Oxford. The Simeonites were not much in favor in those days. Among the passengers, too, was Dr. Bryce, who had been appointed, under the new charter, Scotch Chaplain, and who was destined afterwards to fill no inconsiderable part in the annals of Indian controversial literature.

During the voyage, Bishop Middleton devoted himself to the study of the Persian and Hebrew languages; and drew up a table of rules for his future observance, which are so characteristic of the man, that we cannot refrain from quoting them :

[ocr errors]

"Invoke divine aid. Preach frequently, and as one having authority.' Promote schools, charities, literature, and good taste: nothing great can be accomplished without policy. Persevere against discouragement. Keep your temper. Employ leisure in study, and always have some work in hand. Be punctual and methodical in business, and never procrastinate. Keep up a close connection with friends at home. Attend to forms. Never be in a hurry. Preserve self-possession, and do not be talked out of conviction. Rise early, and be an economist of time. Maintain dignity without the appearance of pride manner is something with every body, and every thing with some. Be guarded in discourse, attentive, and slow to speak. Never acquiesce in immoral or pernicious opinions. Beware of concessions and pledges. Be not forward to assign reasons to those who have no right to demand them. Be not subservient nor timid in manner, but manly and independent, firm and decided. Think nothing in conduct unimportant and indifferent. Be of no party. Be popular, if possible; but, at any rate, be respected. Remonstrate against abuses, where there is any chance of correcting them. Advise and encourage youth. Rather set than follow example. Observe a grave economy in domestic affairs. Practise strict temperance. Remember what is expected in England: and, lastly, remember the final account." Middleton's Biographer speaks of these, as "golden maxims," and it appears to us that they are so, in one sense,

For gold and grace did never yet agree,

as good old George Herbert phrases it. They are rather worldly, and very like the man. It is something that the rules, such as they were, were not lightly departed from; but there is the formalist in every line of them. They might have been written by a respectable Pagan.

66

The voyage out was a prosperous and a pleasant one. Middleton fitted up a library in his cabin, furnished with more than a hundred volumes, Hebrew, Greek, Persian, Latin, French and English-theological, classical, mathematical, historical and poetical;" he preached, on Sundays, to an orderly and attentive congregation, and was well-pleased with his fellow-passengers and the Captain. Stopping at Madeira, he was induced to preach to the Factory there; but, as there was no regularly con

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

secrated Church, the mind of the formalist misgave him. "I rather hesitated at first about preaching in such a place; but I recollected that the Bishops in England preach in proprietary chapels, which are not a whit better, and have less excuse; for the Portuguese Government will not allow anything, having the interior of a church, to be built by Protes6 tants." Why, under such circumstances, he should have hesitated to preach in a room, with seats for the ladies, and a sort of desk for the clergyman," more than in the cuddy, or on the quarter deck, of the Warren Hastings, with the dinner table, or the capstan, for a pulpit, it is not very easy to discern. And it is still less easy to understand how one, claiming to be a successor of the apostles, can have hesitated at all, about doing what the apostles did of old, and a greater than the apostles did before them.

66

On the 28th of November, 1814, the first Indian Bishop ascended the steps of one of the gháts of Calcutta. His landing, in his own words, was without any éclat, for fear of alarming the prejudices of the natives." On Christmas day, he preached his first sermon, before a congregation of 1,300 persons, and administered the sacrament to 160 communicants, including the judges and the members of council. "The day," he wrote to his friends in England, "will long be remembered in Calcutta."

And so commenced the episcopal period of Christianity in India. There was no commotion-no excitement at its dawn. Offended Hinduism did not start up in arms; nor indignant Muhammedanism raise a war-cry of death to the infidel. English gentlemen asked each other, on the course, or at the dinner table, if they had seen the Bishop; and officious native sircars pressed their services upon the "Lord Padre Sahib." But the heart of Hindu Society beat calmly as was its wont. Brahmanism stood not aghast at the sight of the lawn sleeves of the Bishop; he preached in the Christian temple on the Christian's bara din; and that night the Europeans in Calcutta slept securely in their beds: securely next morning they went forth to their accustomed work. There was not a massacre; there was not a rebellion. Chowringhee was not in a blaze ; the waters of the Lall Diggy did not run crimson with Christian blood. The merchant took his place at his desk; the public servant entered his office; and the native underlings salámed meekly and reverentially as ever. In the Fort, the English captain faced his native company; and the sepoy, whatever his caste, responded to the well-known word of command,

E

« PreviousContinue »