INDIA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 129, 15 April 1862, Page 5

INDIA.

( (From the Bombay Times.) Mr Laino.—lllness has again deprived the Supreme Government ofthe services of the Hon. S. Laing,.who j has been obliged to proceed up-country; and was therefore, absent from tiie first meeting ofthe new Legis-, lative Council. ' _. , , „ .. £ The Madras Army.—The official order for the j reduction of the Madras Army has been published, under, which eight regiments of the Native Infantry ( are to be disbanded and broken up from the 31st ot £ MNATiVB rtTHOUBLi:B.—The Kbassias, hill tribes in Eastern Bengal, have become very troublesome near Svlhet. On the 17th ultimo, a police guard was attacked by a body of 600 men, forty of whom were; armed with guns. The avowed intention of the rebels is to take Sylhet. i Lo-rd Cashing.—We regret to learn from the Poona Observer, that the health of His Excellency tie Governor is such as to cause some alarm to his friends. There are various romouis, says the Observer,' as to the nature of his sickness. His Excellency is at Sungum. -.. ... , A Goldfield.—Mr. Le Souefs mission bas we' learn, been crowned with success,- a rich jgoldfield having been discovered by him in the Carnatic. The company which Mr. Le Souef represents is likely to create no small stir in the Bombay Share Market. The shares, we believe, are monopolised by less than a score of gentlemen.(From the Madras Times.) A Royal Forger.—One of the Mysore princes, tbe third in descent from Tippoo Sultan, has been sentenced to seven years' imprisonment with hard labor for. turning a. bank .of Bengal ten rupee note into one for a thousand rupees. The Legislative Council.—On Wednesday, the 22nd of January, came. off an event which has been looked forward to with' much interest forsome time past. On that day the Madras Legislative Council held its first sitting. The Governor, Sir William Denison, presided, -and all the members, official and noh-officiai, took their seats. ."•■'; " .'- (From the Calcutta Englishman.) Lord Elgin.—Lord Elgin will arrive in Calcutta ibout the 25th. of February,.andwill hold a durbar on the assumption of his rule on the Ist ef March.

Robbery of Mails.—We have received another notification from the Postmaster-General oi tho plunder of a banghy dak. On the present occasion the robbery committed was on the banghy dak torwarded from Patna on the 2oth ult. It contained, among others, ten parcels posted at Patna, for native merchants at Cntwah, and was robbed within a tew miles of the former place. Of lato robberies ot the dak banghy despatch have become uf such frequent occurrence that it is exceedingly doubtful whether tbey are not perpetrated by persons fully cognisant of the conteuts of certain parcels either from their connection with the fordwarding parties, or the Post Oflice people, who, having themselves obtained tho requisite information, have organised the robbery. The Teak Trade.—Sir Charles Wood has just sent out an orderto the Indian Government, directing the establishment of two timber agencies foi- the British Government, one at Rangoon and one at Moulmein, for the primary purchase of the teak wood .produced in the eastern forests, and which is all brought to those ports or markets. The state oi' Hyderabad.—Advices just received from Hyderabad give but gloomy prospects of the harvest; and so great are the fears entertained of a famine by the Nizam's Government, that a prohibition has been put on the export of grain from the Hyderabad territory. (From the Ilarliaru.) Naka Sahib's Jewels. —A good deal of surprise has been manifested in certain quarters at the unaccountable determination of the Government not to dispose of the jewels, &c, belonging to the miscreant Dhoondoo Pont Nana Sahib, which were, seized at Bithoor, and which are valued at several lacs of rupees. They have been lying in the Treasury godowns for the last few. years. We have been told that the pearls in particular are being ruined by the damp, and that the costly silks and shawls are being tatally destroyed by white ants. Delhi Prize Money.—The Delhi prize money lias arrived at^Calcutta. It consists of jewels, gold and silver plate and other utensils, valued atonecrore and twenty lacs of rupees. Fourteen lacs areiu silver. The jewels are to be sold. If the prize jewels would fetch the estimated price of a crore of rupees, which, of course is doubtful, a captain's share would, according to all probable calculations, amount to 20,000 rupees. Amongst the jewels tliere is a large quantity of pure China gold, kept in the shape of small bricks, weighing about 36,000 sicca weights, besides gold plate and other utensils, wliich together weigh about 95,000 sicca weights. Shipment op Saltpetre Stopped.—The American ship Daring, which was clearing out for Boston with a general cargo, was stopped on the 3rd January, under provisions of the amended ordinance, passed by the Governor-General of India, prohibiting absolutely the exportation of saltpetre from India: The Daring had a considerable quantity of saltpetre on board, the whole of which must be re-landed. Finance.—lt is understood that the cash balances have attained a higher figure at this moment than at any previous period, - amounting, as it is said tbey do, to something like eighteen millions sterling. —ii in luutaau,l, l^nl"'J^l■^lm^itx^HCT^^TT-g^Tt^m^aJ^-^JUllaJMu^fu^ .n-rra The Supernatural.—lt is upon a natural belief in the supernatural, on the innate instinct of the supernatural, that all religion is founded. Ido not say all idea of religion, but all positivn, practical, powerful, durable, and popular religion. In all places, under all climates, in all epochs of history, under all degrees of civilization, man carries within • himself this sentiment, I should rather say this presentiment, that the world he looks upon, the order in the bosom of which he lives, the facts wliich succeed each other regularly and constantly around liim do not comprise, within themselves, everything; in vain does he make from day to dayr, in this vast whole, discoveries and conquests; in vain does he observe and learnedly verify the permanent laws which preside there; his imagination docs not confine itself within this universe submitted to liis science; the spectacle fails to satisfy his soul, wliich plunges beyond it; it seeks aud obtains a glimpse of something else; it desires, both for the universe and itself, other destinies and another master. Voltaire has said that " beyond all these heavens the God of the heavens dwells ;" and the God who is beyond all the heavens is not nature personified, he is the supernatural in person. It is to him that religions are addressed ; it is to place man in relation with him that they are founded. Without the instinctive faith of men in the supernatural without their spontaneous and invincible impulse towards the supernatural, religion could not not exist. Man is the only being in this lower world that prays. Amongst his moral instincts, there is none more natural, muversal, and unconquerable than that of prayer. The child inclines to it with eager docility. The old man returns to it as to a refuge from decay and loneliness. Prayer ascends spontaneously from the inlant mouth which can scarcely murmur the name of God, and from the dying lips which no longer retain strength to utter it. Amongst all nations, wl-ether eminent or obscure, civilized or barbarous, we meet, at every steps, acts and forms of invocation. Wherever human beings exists, under particular cir. cumstances, at specified hours, under the empire of certainimpressionsof the soul, eyes are raised, hands are joined together, knees are bent, to supplicate or to return thanks,- to adore or to appease, with ectasy or apprehension, publicly or in the recesses ofthe heart; man ever turns to prayer as a last relief, to fill up the voids in his soul, or to enable him to bear the burdens of his destiny ; when all resources fail he seeks in prayer a support for his weakness, consolation for his distress, and hope for his enduring constancy. No one denies the moral and innate value of prayer, independently of its efficacy in its immediate object. From the act of praying- alone, the soul derives relief tranquility, and strength^ it experiences, in turning towards God, that feeling of a rctnrn to health and repose which expands over the body when it passes fi-om a heavy and stormy air to a serene and pure atmosphere. God comes in aid of those who emplore Him before they can know, and without their knowing- that he has listened to their supplication. ,Will He listen to them ? What is the external and conclusive efficacy of prayer 1 Herein lies the mystery, the impenetrable mystery, of the designs and actions of God on all liis creatures. We know that whether in reference to our external or internal life, it is not we alone who regulate it according to ' our own thoughts and wishes. All the names that we apply to that portion of our destiny which comes 1 not fi-om ourselves,—chance, fortune, star, nature, : fatality,—are nothing more than veils thrown over our ignorant impiety. When we speak thus, we refuse to see God where he ts. Beyond the narrow sphere withiu which the power and actions of man are restrained, it is Qod who reigns and acts. There is in the natural and universal action of prayer a natural and universal faith in this permanent and ever free action of God over man and his destiny. "We are laborers with God," says St. Paul, laborers with God, both in the work of the general destinies ofthe human race and in thatofourindividualdestiny, present and future. This is what prayer reveals to us on the tie which unites man to God; but here our light pauses; "God's ways are not our ways;" we walk in them without knowing them; to believe without beholding, and to pray without foreknowing, is the condition which God has prescribed to man in .this world, with respect to all that exceeds its limits. Faith and a religious life consist in the conviction and acceptance of this supernatural arrangement — The Christian Church and Society in 1861. By Humane" Adventure.—The following singular occurrence was -witnessed on Saturday sennight in the neighbourhood of Colchester:—A solitary man, m a lamentable state of drunkenness, driving himself m his market-cart, was met by in the Mersea-road by a weU-known gallant Major of the Colchester garrison. The keen eye of the officer perceiving smoke issuing from the driver's clothes, he turned his horse's head, and clapping spurs to its sides, gave chase to the man on fire. As the pursuer neared the fugitive the drunken man could not understand that he was to be so easily beaten, and applying his whip to his horse, away he flew. The Major put on steam also, but the Eace was too great and the road too narrow to enable im to pass the smoking man, who, from the draught caused by his flight, was unaware of liis being on fire ahd leaving a broad trail of smoke behind : so away they went, the wondering villagers turning out too late to stop the infuriated man. At length they reahed a wide part of the road, of which the Mpjor dexterously took advantage, shot past the drunken man, and actually, by dint of pulling directly m front of the driver's horEe, stopped the cart. Not a moment tott soon, however, for the man's waiscoat was completely burnt, through, as well as his under I shooting-coat. So helplessly intoxicated was he that he had to be dragged out of the cart head foremost, his coat torn off, and the' fire extinguished. It m most fortunate for the luckless wigbt that he fell in with so good a Samaritan, for, had he succeeded m distancing his pursuer, most probably he would have met a shocking dcath.-CTc/7«5/orrfC7ir o 7«c^ American History—The school-books of the boy have been formed on this rule of exaggeration. Poor old George the Third is pamted as a devouring tyrant; the German troops as demons m human foim; every petty skirmish is exalted into a battle; every battle into a victory ; even defeats so unquestionable as that of Bunker's Hill are made to wear the colour of triumph; the part of France is made is made as small as ours was described in laying the Atlantic cable; every citizen but Arnold shines out a pure patriot; every general a hero—the whole is a triumphal procession, andends in ablaze of glory:—2 he Airiencan Union. By James Spcrice.. -. ■ v ■■ . A Farmer was asked why he did not take in a newspaper. " Because," said he, "my father, when he did, left me a good many newspapers, and I hay* na read them through." u^. „,

missions tcTtiik iieaYiTen. i (From the Saturday Rcvieir.) 1 The consecration of a Bisb'op for Tahiti, under the title of Bishop of Honolulu, suggests some ; «:onsiderations beyond the above the immediate; interest of an attempt to bring a.people once at least remarkable for sensuality under the influences of a high and pure morality. What ha^ : been the result'of Missions of late years, especially those of the Church of England ? And , further, how conies it that neither under , the auspices of the Latin Church, the j Church of England, nor of Protestant < Dissent, the same results attend the, preaching of Christianity wliich distinguished apostolic times ? Is it not the fact that the ; triumphs ofthe Gospel have been confined to its early youth, and that, with the exception of such doubtful successes as those which were gained in South America soon after the discovery of tb.e New World, and or' such an evanescent blaze of conversion as shot up for an instant in the further East under Jesuit teaching, the Christian faith' has not extended its empire ? 'The philosophic enquirer is perhaps disposed to exaggerate the fact, and to suggest that Christianity has had its place and discharged its functions in the education ofthe world, but that more than its past achievements is not to be expected from it. This view assigns to Mahometanism, or Mormonism, or the improved rcligionsof Mr. Theodore Parker, or M. Comte, their station, not only of historic sequence. lint of courteous comprehension in a series—perhaps to be indefinitely prolonged—of dissolving views of human faith or human toleration. Speculation of a less confident tone will point to the extant divisions of Christendom us the root of its recent failures, and in a system compact as the theoretical Papacy, or in a doctrine as iinelastic as that which is said, but not proved, to have been the life-spring of the Primitive Church, will seek that power which can alone convert the world -Whether we look forward to a Christianity of the future, or backwards ton Christianity of the past. it is only at tlie Boards of Missionary Societies .that the Christianity of the present is relied upon for successes which are always beginning, but never begun. Except, perhaps, in New Zealand —where missionary work has been undertaken , in a larger spirit, with the use of better instruments, and in connexion with a broader civilization, addressed at the same time to a native mind of unusual capacities—it must be admitted that the Church of England has but little to show for its outlay of men, Bibles, and preaching for : the last sixty years. Ancl yet India can offer no greater obstacles to the faith oi Christ than did the old scepticism of the Athenian mind. The rude tribes of the North, who in the morning of the Gospel bowed their fierce necks to the yoke of Christ, were as coarse as Caffirs and Zulus ; and it can scarcely be doubted that the Churches which rose in Abyssinia and Arabia fourteen or fifteen centuries ago, rooted themselves amid superstitions as grovelling, and in intelligence as base, as those which are the present inheritance of Malay or Tahitian.

A curious discussion, or controversy, whicli is going on in South Africa suggests the questions whether the Christianity of our'present missionaries is sufficiently elastic to cope with the differences of climate, race, tradition, and life with which it has under strange skies and in new difficulties to deal, and whether much of the success of early Christianity was not due to its accommodating spirit. The Bishop of Natal, Dr. Colenso, has published a remarkable pamphlet—" A Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury upon the Question of the Proper Treatment of Polygamy as found already Existing in Converts from Heathenism." (Davis : Pietermaritzburg) — which suggests a text for" our own doubts and queries. The Bishop deals with a single case of difficulty ; and it is one of discipline only, or at least one which only affects doctrine in an indirect way. It is whether a polygamist, on embracing Christianity, is bound, or is permitted, hy the precepts of the Gospel, to divorce all his wives but one. And, curiously enough, it is a case which the Church docs not seem to have settled. All that it is attempted on either side to prove, either for or against the permission for a polygamist to remain such after embracing Christianity, is by inference and parity of reason Bishop Colenso is very strongly and decidedly against what seems to be the consensus of the Protestant missionaries. They say that jiotyganiy is forbidden by the Gospel, and that consequently, on becoming a Christian, a man must take the Christian morality in its highest aspect, and be come a monogamist. The Bishop fully admits that polygamy is forbidden by the Christian law, and says that no man who is a Christian can be permitted to contract a polygamic alliance ; but, at the same time, he argues that polygamy does not disqualify a Zulu or Caflir from embracing the Gospel, and that the law of nature and his duties as husband and father do not permit him rudely to sever ties contracted and duties undertaken in his days ot darkness. The question, then, is not about the lawfulness of Christian polygamy, but whether, in admitting converts, some abatement is not to be made— whether Christianity js to be imported whole, and with all its sanctions and the growth of centuries of religion and morality, into those rude, wretched African kraals, or whether it is to be accommodated to days of darkness and fitted to the stumbling steps and tottering weakness of heathenism? Is South African Christianity to be in all respects the English Christianity?

Now, it is certainly an unquestionable fact that the Gospel did develope very different forms of Christianity. Judaic Christianity and Gentile Christianity, even in the Apostolic times, and while the canon of the New Testament was in • course of formation, presented different aspects and allowed a diversity of rite ancl discipline. Tht Christianity of the North has always been different from the Christianity of the South. The great schism between East and West was but the calumination of diverging lines of thought, speculation, and life. Even the Pope who despatched Augustine on his mission to our Anglo-SaxoD forefathers allowed, in the case of the rude converts a license in this very matter of marriage ] which would not have been permitted in the case i of Christians of a second generation. The Bishop of Natal, wo think, makes out a strong case both ' from analogy and the principle of the thing." It is curious that, as far as we know, the early Church has not decided the question, which has arisen at the Cape. Polygamy was forbidden by the Roman law, and,theref jre, the parallel case could not have arisen among I early Gentile converts. Monogamy was the settled habis of the North ; and while polygamy was permitted among the Jews, the silence of the \ New Testament as to its prohibition tinder the new law is adduced as a probable argument that a i polygamist would not have been excluded from | Christian baptism. Ancl the case actually ruled by St. Paul, which permitted, or rather enjoined, a Gentile convert to retain his or her heathen husband or wife, is fairly enough adduced to show ' that, though Christians were bound in marrying. as Christians, to restrict themselves to the Christian idea of marriage, yet heathens on becoming Christians are not required, are not even allowed, by Scripture to divest themselves of natural ties contracted before and apart from their new pro fession. And this is in obedience to that law of nature to which St. Paul himself on occasions appeals. Besides all whioh, as the Bishop points out, the question is not merely one of indulgence against self-denial. It is not whether iTmau should have five wives or one ; but, weather, his duties to each one of his wives being equal,' the Gospel requires him to abandon four-fifths of them and to consign to misery four out of five of those whom he has undertaken to love and cherish, Ii it were merely a man's question, and if the husband were only called upon to dispense with two 01 three wives, as he ought to be called upon to give up the gratification of cutting human flesh or 01 devouring bulls alive, there could be no doubt that he ought to accept the self-denial with the profession of the cross. But it is also a matter of the poor wife's rights. She, being a human creature, is not to be sacrificed in her affections and rights to the man's superior light. Christianity does not ask this surrender of the first of natural duties and claims. Polygamy, whatever its imperfections 01 its dangers, is at any rate a condition

* life in which the patriarchs and the man ifter God's own heart lived, and won the especial lavour of heavan ; and though it is opposed to the Christian idea of marriage, and to the law Ivhich was given in the days of man's innocence. | Jmay, so the Bishop argues, be permitted in the ingle case of a convert who has already two oi

more wives, though it is not to be contracted aftei ihe Christian profession.

Such is a very general sketch of Dr. Colenso'.argument in its main features, for we cannot ;iere dwell on the practical consequence of tin harsh prohibitions imposed by those missionaiic.who require of tlieir converts the divorce, any consequent depredation and misery, of all but on;

.if the wives whom tho polygamist if unnaturally forced to abandon. The reflections whicli this enquiry suggests have, however, more general bearings, and ihey seem to point to the question whether our extant Christianity is not too still' aud inflexible. The religion which was to deal with man under every aspect must treat man as hepresents himself! If tbe Gospel was to be all things to all men, its discipline must be suited to man under man's various stages of moral and intellectual development. It must make allowances iccept facts, and accommodate itself to various exigencies. It requires no modification of doctrine, no sacrifice of principle, but a plastic freedom of discipline. The Christianity of the tropics and the Christianity of Hackney are of course to be the same in essentials; but, dealing with a various subject-matter, applied to new conditions of life and civilisation, that which suits a settled polity, living on traditions and administering an education more than a thousand years old, must be unsuitable to those who,! six months ago, knelt to a bundle of rags or a crooked stick. " Dearly beloved brethren," may be admirably suited to Islington, but the banks of the Ganges may require another exhibition of the food forthe soul. As soon as tliere was a centralising of Christianity, and as soon as the world was required to accept its Gospel in a cast-iron form, moulded in Rome or at Constantinople, the nations no longer flocked as nations into the Christian pale. It matters but little whether the central seat of dictation be at the Vatican, or at Canterbury, or at Geneva, of in a London Committee, if Christianity has not a power of self-devekrpment ancl of adaptation to various emergencies and various wants. A native ministry and native church would very likely develop a native discipline and native rites. But even the Thirty-nine Articles of Anglicanism only claim deference for a body of doctrine necessary to their times. The idea of a Missionary Church —a Church which was to absorb such elements as the barbarism ofthe Caffir, the ingrained atheism of China, and the subtle intellect of Hinduism — which was to confront the ancient and majestic fabric of Budhism and to. regenerate alike the gentle Polynesian and the brutal Malay — could never have presented itself to Cranmer and Ridley. Missions and Missionary work arc not to be settled by twaddling about the principles of our Glorious Reformation. The Church of England will never be a successful Missionary Church until it learns the lesson of adapting itself to other forms of family life than that of the household assessed to the poor-rate and paying-the Queen's taxes, Bishop Colenso may be wright or wrong in his intepretat'on or application of Scripture to the single case of heathen polygamy ; but he will have done good service if, without intending- it —and we are far from saying that this larger aspect of the matter has presented itself to his mind—he sets men thinking as to the cause of the failure of recent Christian Missions.

Strong Language.—We copy from the Daily Telegraph an admirable article, which will be found in another column, on the Bishop of Oxford's treatment of the death of the Prince Consort as a chastise- , ment of Providence provoked by the sins of the nation. This slander on the nation, blister to the Queen's green grief, and- presumptuous, profane interpretation of the will ofthe Almighty, was conveyed in a sleek, smooth, soapy, slippery speech at a meeting for the propagation of the Gospel iv foreign •' parts. ' To us it seems that the life, the existence of : such a Bishop as Dr. Wilberforce may be a moro ■ marked sign of the wrath of the Almighty than the . death of a blameless Prince like the late Consort of our Queen. " Heaven sends its favorites early . doom," not so, perhaps, the grovelling sensualists, \ the sanctified hypocrites, the oily Tartuffes. They are ' tlie living scourges of our sins. It is te see them mitred in the high places, whose passions and propensities are all in the low places, that is the opprobium 'of the land. Shocking, indeed, it is to find one of Epicurus's hogs in the sacred fold. Prince Albert, as we have observed elsewhere, had penetration; He was solicited by a Bishop, we will not say by whom, to support the claims of a man of very doubtful opinions to a bishopric. He demurred, expressed liis misgivings of the ambitious candidate's orthodoxy. Shortly afterwards the disappointed man went over to Rome. When next the Prince met the Bishop he observed how fortunate it was that he, the Prince, had not recommended his friend the. regnegade to ecclesiastical advancement, to which the indiscreet but characteristically unprincipled answer was, "Had your Royal Highness done so, the apostacy would not have happened." From that moment the Prince knew his man; and that mau, whoever he is, now treats tho Prince's death as a judgment. Out upon him! — Examiner.

Immigration to Great Britain. —The early settlement of Britain by the races which at present occupy it it is usually spoken of as an invasion and . a conquest; but there is good reason to believe that_ it was principally effected by a system" of immigration and colonization, such as is going forward under onr own eyes at this day in America, Australia, and NewZealand ; nnd that the people who swarmed into the country in early times from Friesland, Belgium, and Jutland secured tlieir settlement by the spade far more than by the sword. The Celts were a pastoral race, whilst the immigrants were tillers of the soil. Whenever the new men came, they settled themselves down on their several bits of land, which became tlieir holdings; and they bent tlieir backs over the stubborn soil, watering it with tlieir sweat, and delved, and drained, and cultivated it, until it became fruitful. — Lives of the Engineers. By Samuel Smiles-