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future prospects, its internal discipline, the means of its extension. In his synodal address in 1885 he spoke at some length on the Church's future. He said that, considering the small salaries that were available for native clergy, and the consequently small proportion of the very ablest men who cared to enter holy orders, he looked for some great developement of the old office of the prophet,' and believed that the efforts of the clergy would be largely supplemented by educated laymen, who would exercise 'prophetic gifts' under the gentle supervision of the bishop.

In answer to an appeal to him to solve the knotty problem of union with the Presbyterians and Episcopal Methodists, he said:

'In judging of such great and serious matters I have little faith except in that Providence which "shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we may." It would be very rough-hewing, I apprehend, and much wasteful expenditure of thought and paper to draw up a scheme or programme making overtures of compromise.. If it took a century for the early Christians to come to a settled, or at least uniform, understanding as to the expediency of three orders, so perhaps it may be in India, where it is a national characteristic (at least as regards modern India) to fret and chafe under too rigid a yoke of authority, and for whom it has an indescribable charm to leave the central nucleus of dogmatic truth so nebulous, that a wide margin is left for endless abstruse speculation, or, as it should be called, uncramped freedom of discussion.'

He then proceeded to point out that the true way to recommend episcopacy was not by a surrender of the Church's ancient heritage and apostolical succession, but by improved synodical action, a greater and more real rapprochement between the bishop and the presbyter, and due allowance to laymen of their right to speak, in all that more especially concerned them, in the councils of the Church.

'It does not need to invite either our Presbyterian brethren, or the Nonconformist bodies broken off from us, to come forward and state on what conditions they would form one Church with us and accept our episcopacy. Such an attempt to manipulate and construct concordats between the various bodies would, I fear, only

tend to multiply sores, instead of healing them. Besides, the Indian Church would be in danger of decatholicizing itself thus. It is from itself that it has power to divest itself of all that is imperious, tyrannical, and lordly, and to hold out a sisterly and motherly hand to those who think more influence should be allowed to the presbyter, who is also an elder, and that the congregation should have its claims allowed, and a recognized organ by which its utterances should be outspoken and have a hearing.'

He looked to the appointment of native suffragan bishops as a means of further developement, and as these increased, he looked for a gradual modification of the newest strata of Church services as distinct from the 'palaeomorphic strata' or earliest formularies.

'There is very much,' he said, 'in our Articles so happily and wisely expressed, that I should be sorry to see them rejected as a whole, though I should not object to see them revised and modified where passing and shortlived phases of English Church parties gave a tinge of insular specialities to the formularies employed.'

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He looked further to the rise of some ecclesiastic Joseph in the future to solve, by the Holy Spirit's help, the hundred problems as to the constitution of the native synod, and its relations to the joint Native and European synod of each diocese. He trusted the Society committees would growingly see it to be their true wisdom and policy to exercise, if a controlling hand at all, at least a very gently and almost insensibly controlling hand, on the forming of the Church as an organic structure, leaving the diocesan framework, and the " divers orders appointed" in the Church, to follow out the Divine methods as indicated in Ephesians iv. 11-16.'

'As regards the future, I for one do trust,' he said, 'that the verdict pronounced may be one Church for India, one Church, not two; a Church in which, on all national questions affecting most closely the Indian branch of the Aryan stock, the initiative may come from themselves. A divided Church (according to St. Paul) was a divided Christ. It is of mere party differences St. Paul thus speaks; not of the Church sundering itself from those that are in heresy on vital points of doctrine.'

LAY-BAPTISM.

RE-MARRIAGE OF CONVERTS

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Beside these broad views of the Church's future he had to deal with many questions of detail concerning baptism and marriage and Church discipline, and his judgement on these points may be of use to others.

On the baptism of natives he wrote to the Rev. T. R. Wade:

Dasht, near Quettah, Oct. 20, 1885.

I have no question at all about the reply to be given to the questions proposed by the lady missionaries and yourself and brethren in case of baptism applied for by catechumens, or in behalf of infants in articulo mortis, when the sick are reduced to extremities, so near to death as that no one in Holy Orders could be expected to arrive in time to perform the ceremony. Were death not actually imminent the Church would certainly discourage lay baptism. In the case of catechumens who had shrunk from open confession through want of courage, sudden baptism at the last moment under terror of approaching death should also be discouraged, except some two or three could be gathered from the circle of heathen or Mohammedan friends, so that that important feature of baptism ('If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus') should not be wanting to complete the full significance and essential groundwork of the ordinance. Even the Roman Catholic Church fully recognizes the validity of lay baptism at the last moment, when life is near to be extinct.

In the case of the woman in purdah, I think that notice should be given to the husband (if living and at hand), not necessarily to any other person, not even child or parent: if the husband forcibly prevent, or peremptorily forbid, the lady would be authorized to say, 'You may hold yourself for baptized, count yourself for such, the whole essence of the act as regards confession and openly expressed desire and surrender of the soul being perfected, ratified in heaven, we cannot doubt.'

In a paper on the law of Christ and His Church and the law of the State in the matter of the re-marriage of a convert deserted or cast off by a heathen wife or husband, after quoting the opinions of Augustine, Chrysostom, Ambrose, and Thomas Aquinas, the bishop summed up his conclusions thus:

'On the whole, the result of the reasonings and authorities above quoted, embodying the opinions held in various Churches and in different ages, is favourable to re-marriage on the part of

those deserted by heathen partners: though this re-marriage is clearly regarded as allowable, rather than expedient, as to be tolerated for compassion's sake to human frailty, rather than commended. In the case of converts in India this view derives additional force from the exceptionally strict views prevalent in this country on the necessity of the married life, and the dishonour and suspicion attaching to the unmarried. Whilst, therefore, I should count them worthy of special honour who are bold and self-controlled enough to act on the Church's higher and more perfect rule, and should count it better for them to continue unmarried, yet I would not hesitate to say that they do well, or, to say the least, are not to be blamed in any way, who accept the freedom which the judgement of the Church of Christ allows them, and which the law of the land sanctions; and on the wholesome conditions imposed by the latter, enter again on the state of marriage.'

Then follows a brief résumé of Indian law on the subject, from which it appears that a wife or husband deserted on grounds of religion may, after six months of desertion, apply for a restitution of rights, and within a year of the application, all the required formalities having been complied with, and the husband or wife petitioned against still refusing to cohabit, the application for civil dissolution of marriage may be granted1.

As regards the Hindu custom of child marriages, the bishop dissuaded the missionaries from taking part in any agitation for a legislative prohibition. He held that so great and ancient a national institution should be left, like slavery in early Christian days, to fall self-condemned by the growing prevalence of Christian ideas, doctrines, and course of practice. He thought that exceptional cases of especial hardship, the unhealthy excrescences, might be met by exceptional legislation without eradicating the whole system. Nor was he fully persuaded that our own plan, by which so large a proportion of women are left unmarried, had any such great advantage over the domestic customs of the Hindus, as to entitle us to overturn their system by imposed authority. Take which procedure you will (Hindu,

1 This law applies to the Hindus, not to Mohammedans.

POLYGAMY AND BAPTISM

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English, French, or German), some hard and exaggerated cases of wrong must occur in exceptional instances.'

In 1887 the question of polygamy in native Churches was very much discussed. The bishop wrote upon the subject to the Guardian, maintaining that, in the case of Mohammedans at least, the refusal to break free from ties formed in good conscience, according to their prophet's law, before conversion, should not be held as any fatal barrier to baptism.

'The letter,' the bishop said to Mrs. French, Sept. 30, 1887, 'occupies a column and a half, and is headed in large and formidable letters, "The Bishop of Lahore on Polygamy." As there is a good deal of Latin in it quoted, my Clifton friends will gaze at it in wonder. However, the archdeacon's approval will satisfy you it is all right.'

Dr. Bright, his old schoolfellow, who had before borne part in the discussion, replied in an admirable letter, establishing the point that the patristic quotations did not refer in any way to cases of polygamy, but to successive marriages, which in the early Church were held to be a bar to holy orders, and that the principle culpa enim lavacro non lex solvitur was applied to preclude the ordination of one who had been married a first time before baptism, which some held as admissible. Still, the broad question of first principles was left very much where it was, and the bishop wrote to the archdeacon, October 11, 1887

'Dr. Bright's reply is extremely ingenious, yet I still think the principle holds good in the case of all alliances legally valid at the time they were entered into "The baptism remits the fault, but confirms the rite of marriage "-though the sacramental seal of holy orders would lose its due honour and special prerogative'. To say as much as that it seems scarcely worth while obtruding oneself into the Guardian's correspondence sheets, though I believe I have represented St. Augustine's real meaning, and the line he lays down correctly.'

Amongst other steps for the good of the native Christians, the bishop put forth special forms for the admission of

1 That is, if a polygamist were admitted to be ordained.