But such was not the case. He was at once an earnest parish priest, working hard to win his people, not only to attend at church, but to become regular communicants, and to give up their prevalent evil courses. We find him in one letter mentioning the writing of an article on Pindar in the Quarterly Review, planning for a village-school on the Lancastrian principle, and endeavouring to improve the psalmody. "At least," he says, "I have a better reason to plead for silence than the Cambridge man who, on being asked in what pursuit he was then engaged, replied that he was diligently employed in suffering his hair to grow."
These "endeavours to improve the psalmody" were a forestalling of the victory over the version of Tate and Brady. The Olney Hymns, produced by Cowper, under the guidance of John Newton, had been introduced by Heber on his first arrival in the parish, but he felt the lack of something more thoroughly in accordance with the course of the Christian year, less personal and meditative, and more congregational. Therefore he produced by degrees a series of hymns, which he described as designed to be sung between the Nicene Creed and the Sermon, and to be connected in some degree with the Collects and Gospels for the day. Thus he was the real originator in England of the great system of appropriate hymnology, which has become almost universal, and many of his own are among the most beautiful voices of praise our Church possesses. We would instance Nos. 135 and 263 in "Hymns Ancient and Modern,"-that for the 21st Sunday after Trinity, a magnificent Christian battle-song; and that for Innocents' Day, an imitation of the old Latin hymn "Salvete flores Martyrum." They were put together, with others by Dean Milman and a few more, into a little volume, which Heber requested Dr. Howley, then Bishop of London, to lay before the Archbishop, that it might be recommended for use in churches, but the timidity of the time prevented this from being carried into effect.
A deep student of church history, his letters show him trying every practical question by the tests of ancient authority as well as instructive piety, and, on these principles, already deploring the undue elevation of the pulpit and debasement of the Altar to which exclusive preference of preaching had led. Missions had, since the days of Carey's first opening of the subject become so predominant a thought with the Nonconformist bodies, and were often conducted so irregularly, that there was certain dread and distrust of them among the sober-minded and orthodox; but Heber was one of the first English churchmen who perceived that to enlarge her borders and strengthen her stakes was the bounden duty of the living Church. He was a fervent admirer of Henry Martyn, whose biography was published soon after the news of his death reached England, and his feeling found vent in that hymn so familiar to us all-"From Greenland's icy mountains."
He was meantime rising in influence and station,-Canon of St. Asaph, Preacher at Lincoln's Inn, Select Preacher before the University. He was beloved by all ranks: by the poor for his boundless charity and sympathy; and by his equals, not only for these qualities, but for his sunny temper, bright wit, and playfulness, which showed in his conversation, his letters, and in many a droll, elegant, and scholarly jeu d'esprit, thrown off by a mind that could do nothing without gracefulness. All this prosperity was alloyed only by such domestic sorrow as might be fitly termed gentle chastening. The death of his next brother, Thomas, who had acted as his curate, was a severe loss to him; and in the desire to make every affliction a stepping-stone in Christian progress, he began, from that date, a custom of composing a short collect-like prayer, veiled in Latin, on every marked occurrence in his life. The next occasion was, after several years of marriage, the birth of a little daughter, whom (in his own words) "he had the pleasure of seeing and caressing for six months," ere she faded away, and died just before the Christmas of 1817. He never could speak of her without tears, and (his wife tells us) ever after added to his private prayers a petition to be worthy to rejoin his "sinless child." His grief and his faith further found voice in the hymn, each verse of which begins with "Thou art gone to the grave, but we will not deplore thee," and which finishes-
"Thou art gone to the grave, but we will not deplore thee,
Whose God was thy ransom, thy Guardian and Guide.
He gave thee, He took thee, and He will restore thee,
And death has no sting, for the Saviour has died."
Such had been the training of Reginald Heber, through the pleasant paths of successful scholarship and literature, and of well-beneficed country pastorship; a life perilous to spirituality and earnestness, but which he kept full of the salt of piety, charity and unwearied activity as parish priest, and as one of the voices of the Church. Such had been his life up to 1822, when, on the tidings of the death of Dr. Middleton, Bishop of Calcutta, his friend Charles Williams Wynn, President of the Board of Commissioners for the affairs of India, offered him the appointment.
To a man of his present position, talents, and prospects at home, the preferment was not advantageous: the income, with the heavy attendant expenses, would very little increase his means; the promotion threw him out of the chances of the like at home; and the labour and toil of the half-constituted and enormous diocese, the needful struggles with English irreligion and native heathenism, and the perils of climate, offered a trying exchange for all that had made life delightful at Hodnet Rectory. A second little daughter too, whom he could not of course look to educating in India, rendered the decision more trying. But in his own peculiarly calm and simple way, he wrote: "I really should not think myself justified in declining a situation of so great usefulness, and for which, without vanity, I think myself not ill adapted, either from a love for the society and friendship of England, or from a hope, which may never be realized, of being some time or other in a situation of more importance at home." At first, however, the fear for the child's health induced him to decline, but only if anyone else equally suitable could be found; and finally he accepted it, with apparent coolness, veiling the deep spirit of zeal and enthusiasm that glowed within. It was not the ardent vehemence that enables some to follow their inward call, overcoming all obstacles, but it was calm obedience to a call from without. "After all," he wrote, "I hope I am not enthusiastic in thinking that a clergyman is, like a soldier or a sailor, bound to go on any service, however remote or undesirable, where the course of his duty leads him, and my destiny (though there are some circumstances attending it which make my heart ache) has many, very many, advantages in an extended sphere of professional activity, in the indulgence of literary curiosity, and, what to me has many charms, the opportunity of seeing nature in some of its wildest and most majestic features."
In the spring of 1823, he took leave of Hodnet, amid the tears of his parishioners; and on the 18th of May preached his last sermon in Lincoln's Inn chapel, on the Atonement. On coming out, one of the most leading men among the Wesleyan Methodists could only express his feelings by exclaiming, "Thank God for that man! Thank God for that man!"
It is striking to find him in the full pressure of business, while preparing in London for his consecration and his voyage, making time for a letter to one of the Hodnet farmers, to warn him against habits of drunkenness, hoping that it would dwell with him "as a voice from the dead." On the 1st of June, 1823, Reginald Heber was consecrated at Lambeth, and on the 10th sailed for India! He made several sketches along the southern coast, under one of which he wrote:-
"And we must have danger, and fever, and pain,
Ere we look on the white rocks of Albion again."
A few days later, when passing the western coast of France on a Sunday, the sound of the bells suggested the following meditative verses:-
"Bounding along the obedient surges,
Cheerly on her onward way,
Her course the gallant vessel urges
Across thy stormy gulf, Biscay.
In the sun the bright waves glisten;
Rising slow with solemn swell,
Hark, hark, what sound unwonted? Listen-
Listen-'tis the Sabbath bell.
It tells of ties which duties sever,
Of hearts so fondly knit to thee,
Kind hands, kind looks, which, wanderer, never
Thy hand shall grasp, thine eye shall see.
It tells of home and all its pleasures,
Of scenes where memory loves to dwell,
And bids thee count thy heart's best treasures
Far, far away, that Sabbath bell.
Listen again! Thy wounded spirit
Shall soar from earth and seek above
That kingdom which the blest inherit,
The mansions of eternal love.
Earth and her lowly cares forsaking,
Bemoaned too keenly, loved too well,
To faith and hope thy soul awaking,
Thou hear'st with joy that Sabbath bell."
By the 28th of September, the vessel was in sight of the Temple of Jaghernauth, and on the 3rd of October was anchored close to the island of Saugor.
All through his voyage and residence in India, the Bishop kept a journal of the doings and scenes of each day, full of interesting sketches, both in pen and pencil. The beauty of the villages on the Hooghly, "the greenhouse-like smell and temperature of the atmosphere," and the gentle countenances and manners of the natives, struck him greatly, as he says, "with a very solemn and earnest wish that I might in some degree, however small, be enabled to conduce to the spiritual advantage of creatures so goodly, so gentle, and now so misled and blinded. 'Angili forent si essent Christiani.'"
On the 10th of October the Heber family entered their temporary abode in the Fort at Calcutta, and were received by two Sepoy sentries and a long train of servants in cotton dresses and turbans, one of them with a long silver stick, another with a mace. There, too, were assembled the neighbouring clergy-alas! far too few-and the next day the Bishop was installed in his cathedral.
Then began a life of very severe labour, for not only had the arrears of episcopal business after the interregnum to be made up, but the deficiency of clergy rendered the Sunday duties very heavy; and the Bishop took as full a share of them as any working parish priest; and even though he authorized the Church Missionary Society's teachers to read prayers and to preach, the lack of sufficient ministrations was great. Bishop's College had, however, been completed, and what Middleton had founded was opened by Heber, with the happiest effect, which has lasted to the present time.
The difficulties as to the form of ordination of such as were not British subjects had also been overcome, and Christian David was to be sent up from Ceylon in company with Mr. Armour, who was to receive Priest's orders. The latter excellent man died just before he was to set off, and this delayed David until the next spring, when he came to Calcutta, was lodged in Bishop's College, passed an excellent examination, and was ordained deacon on Holy Thursday, 1824, and priest on the ensuing Trinity Sunday. He is memorable as the first man of the dark-skinned races admitted by the Church of England to her ministry. An excellent and well- expressed letter from him, on the difficulties respecting the distinctions of caste, is given in Bishop Heber's Life. This, indeed, was one of the greatest troubles in dealing with converts. The Serampore missionaries had striven to destroy it, but Ziegenbalg, Schwartz, and their elder companions, regarded it as a distinction of society-not religious-and, though discouraging it, had not so opposed it as to insist on high and low castes mingling indiscriminately in church or at meals. The younger men who had since come out had been scandalized, and tried to make a change, which had led to much heartburning.
Next to his hymns, Bishop Heber is best known by the journal he kept of his visitation tour, not intended for publication but containing so much of vivid description of scenery and manners, that it forms a valuable picture of the condition of Hindostan as it then was.
His first stage, in barges along the Ganges, brought him to Dacca, where he was delayed by the illness and death of his much esteemed and beloved chaplain. He then went on to Bhaugulpore, where he was much interested in a wild tribe called the Puharries, who inhabit the Rajmahal hills, remnants of the aborigines of India. They carried bows and arrows, lived by the chase, and were viewed as great marauders; but they had a primitive faith, free from idolatry, hated falsehood, and, having no observance of caste and a great respect for Europeans, seemed promising objects for a mission; but unfortunately the climate of their mountains was so injurious to European life, that the clergyman, Mr. Thomas Christian, a scholar of Bishop's College, whom the Bishop appointed to this mission, was only able to spend three months in the hills in the course of the year, while for the other nine he took the children under his instruction back with him to Bhaugulpore.
At Bankipore, the Bishop met Padre Giulio Cesare, still a remarkably handsome and intelligent-looking little man, and speaking warmly of Henry Martyn. Dinapore, that first station of Martyn's, had since his time fallen into a very unsatisfactory state, owing to the carelessness of his successor, though it was newly come into better hands.
On the contrary, at Buxar, the Fort-adjutant, Captain Field, had so influenced all around, though without a chaplain, that, though the Bishop could not give the place a Sunday, his Saturday evening service in the verandah was thronged, the English soldiers coming with Prayer-books and making the responses, besides numerous Hindoos, many of them the Christian wives and children of the soldiers. There was a boys' school kept by a converted Mahometan, and one for girls by "Mrs. Simpson," a native of Agra, converted by Mr. Corrie, and the widow of a sergeant. She, however, got no scholars but the half-caste daughters of the soldiers. A little boy of four years old, son to an English sergeant with a native wife, was baptized, and the Bishop was delighted with the reverent devotion of the spectators. Cureem Musseh, once a Sepoy havildar, had his sword and sash hung over the desk, where, in a clean white cotton dress and turban, he presided over his scholars, whom he had taught to read Hindostanee, and to say the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Commandments, with a short exposition of each. The school served them likewise to hold prayer-meetings in, and, on rare occasions, a clergyman visited them.
The Bishop's entrance into the sacred city of Benares he describes to his wife thus: "I will endeavour to give you an account of the concert, vocal and instrumental, which saluted us as we entered the town:-
"First beggar.-Agha Sahib! Judge Sahib, Burra Sahib, give me some pice; I am a fakir; I am a priest; I am dying of hunger!
"Bearers trotting under the tonjon.-Ugh! ugh!-Ugh! ugh!
"Musicians.-Tingle, tangle; tingle, tangle; bray, bray, bray.
"Chuprassee, clearing the way with his sheathed sabre.-Silence! Room for the Lord Judge, the Lord Priest. Get out of the way! Quick! (Then gently patting and stroking the broad back of a Brahmin bull.) Oh, good man, move.
"Bull, scarcely moving.-Bu-u-uh.
"Second beggar, counting his beads, rolling his eyes, and moving his body backwards and forwards.-Ram, ram; ram, ram!"
Benares, said to be founded on the point of Siva's trident, as the most sacred city of all Hindostan, swarmed with beggars, fakirs, sacred animals, and idols of every description; but close beside it was a church for consecration and thirty candidates for confirmation, of whom fourteen were natives. The next day the Bishop was taken to see a school founded by a rich Bengalee baboo, whom Mr. Corrie had almost persuaded to be a Christian, but who had settled down into a sort of general admiration for the beauty of the Gospel, and a wish to improve his countrymen. He had made over the house where the school was kept to the Church Missionary Society, and the staff consisted of an English schoolmaster, a Persian moonshee, and two Hindostanee writing masters, the whole presided over by an English catechist, a candidate for Holy Orders. There were several class rooms, and a large, lofty hall, supported by pillars, where the Bishop examined the 140, who read Persian and English, answered questions in Hindostanee and English, and showed great proficiency in writing, arithmetic, and geography. No objection was made to their reading the New Testament.
Afterwards, when the Bishop looked into a little pagoda, richly carved, and contain
ing an image of Siva, crowned with scarlet flowers, with lamps burning before him, and a painted bull in front, a little boy, one of the brightest scholars in the school, came forward, and showing his Brahminical string, told, in tolerable English, the histories of the deities with which the walls were painted. "This," says the Bishop, "opened my eyes more fully to a danger which had before struck me as possible, that some of the boys brought up in our schools might grow up accomplished hypocrites, playing the part of Christian with us, and with their own people of zealous followers of Brahma, or else that they would settle down in a sort of compromise between the two creeds, allowing that Christianity was the best for us, but that idolatry was necessary and commendable in persons of their own nation." This in fact seems to have been ever since the state of a large proportion of the educated Hindoos. May it be only a transition state!
The street preaching employed by the Serampore community had not been resorted to by the Church Missionary Society, and Bishop Heber decided that in the fanatic population, amid the crowds of bulls, beggars, and sacred apes, it was far wiser not to attempt it; but the missionaries were often sent for to private houses to converse with natives of rank, on their doctrine. One notable Hindoo, Amrut Row, who had at one time been Peishwa of the Mahrattas, who had retired to Benares, used on the feast of his patron god to give a portion of rice and a rupee to every Brahmin and blind or lame person who applied between sunrise and sunset. He had a large garden with four gates, three of which were set open for the three classes of applicants; the fourth served himself and his servants. As each person received his dole, he was shown into the garden, and detained there to prevent his applying twice, but there he enjoyed plenty of shade, water, company, and idols! This day's distribution often amounted to above 50,000 rupees, and his charities altogether were three times as great in the course of every year. He was a good kind man, religious to the best of his knowledge; and just before the Bishop's visit, he had sent a message to Mr. Morris, the clergyman at Sealcote, to call on him in the middle of the next week as he wished to inquire further into Christianity. Alas! before the appointed day Amrut Row was dead, and his ashes were still smoking when the Bishop quitted Benares.
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