the respect they were entitled to from the natives. Indeed, the poor Hindus were often puzzled how to define the religious character of those sent out to convert them; when seeing that they were not recognised by their own fellow-labourers as ministers of the Church of their rulers. To the missionaries, Heber preached plainly and openly in Calcutta.

He advised such as had not been ordained in England to come and take orders from him, whilst he wrote home and recommended the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge to send no missionaries out for the future, unless regularly ordained. These changes were urged in so kind and courteous a spirit, so gently yet firmly, that in a short time Bishop Heber had the satisfaction of finding differences reconciled, and the cause of Christianity itself strengthened, among those who had undertaken native conversion.

The next point he attacked was the Anglo-Indian prejudices against the natives. He was shocked and horrified at the cruel way in which the English residents in India almost universally treated their servants; and from the moment he came among them he endeavoured, by his own example as well as by his open and declared disapproval, enounced from the pulpit, to effect a change in this point.

He seems from the first to have felt deeply for the Hindus, whom he called, in a journal that he kept, 'goodly,'' gentle,'' misled,' and 'blinded.' When he had been longer among them, he seemed to think the gentleness was more external than genuine; but his wish to convert them never altered.

Genuine pity filled his mind at contemplating so degraded an idolatry as that of the Brahmin religion;

and he describes his sensations on entering a temple for the first time, and seeing the naked devotees, covered with chalk and filth, doing penance to the continued cry of Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram! as making him quite ill and faint.

Heber's spirit was thoroughly enthusiastic in the work of conversion. To this he added a great fear of sinking into that supineness often engendered by the climate of the East Indies-and he never gave way to indolence.

Not a day passed but that he visited the native schools; and before he had been many months at Calcutta he had ordained from them two native missionaries.

This had been the favourite plan and hope of his predecessor, Dr. Middleton. Heber met with a thousand objections, and the Anglo-Indian government looked with much suspicion on a scheme which they feared might interfere with native prejudices. Heber represented, in reply to all such objections, the absurdity of sending out only English missionaries. To those he ascribed all praise and honour, but prophesied, that when once native preachers of the gospel could be employed, the work of conversion would rapidly progress.

After his death, the result proved he was right; and in the present day there are endowed colleges in India for the education of native missionaries alone. Heber founded his opinion also on the fact that in Ceylon, where caste was not a part of religion, and where the Dutch had instituted native missionaries, Christianity had gained ground stronger and faster than on the Indian continent, where the early English

missionaries were often much discouraged by receiving to all they urged, only that monotonous answer, "Nisam,' that is, most certain,' and finding that it meant but little more than the unmeaning sounds of a parrot or an infant; and, to draw a distant but obvious parallel that may confirm Heber's argument, England, Scotland, and Wales became Protestant countries more easily than Ireland, because the men who propagated in those lands the reformed doctrines were their fellow-countrymen, and spoke home to their direct sympathies; Ireland, on other hand, has never become entirely Protestant, because in the first instance the purer religion was inculcated by English teachers, to whose precepts and manners all the nationality of the Irish was opposed.

Bishop Heber's account of the native idols, in the journal before alluded to, is much too graphic to be omitted.

He says, 'Most of the Hindu idols are of clay, and very much resemble, in composition, colouring, and execution, though of course not in form, the more paltry kind of images which are carried about in England for sale by the Lago di Como people. At certain times of the year, a great number of these are, in fact, hawked about Calcutta in the same manner, on men's heads. This is before they have been consecrated, which takes place on their being solemnly washed in the Ganges by a Brahmin pundit. Till this happens, they possess no sacred character, and are frequently given as toys to children, and used as ornaments to rooms; which, when hallowed, they could not be without giving great offence to every Hindu who saw them so employed,

I thought it remarkable that, though most of the male deities are represented of a deep brown colour, the females are usually no less red and white than our porcelain beauties as exhibited in England. But it is evident, from the expressions of most of the Indians themselves, from the style of their amatory poetry, and other circumstances, that they consider fairness as a part of beauty and a proof of noble blood.' They do not like to be called black, and though the Abyssinians, who are sometimes met with in the country, are very little darker than they them selves, they fill their jest-books full of taunts on the charcoal complexion of the "Hubshee.""

6

The bishop's first attendance on the Durbar, or native levee of Lord Amherst, the Governor-general, is also described in the journal.

'I found,' says he, on my arrival, that the levee had begun, and that Lord Amherst had already walked down one side of the room where the persons of most rank, and who were to receive "Khelâts," or honorary dresses, were stationed. I therefore missed this ceremony, but joined him and walked round those to whom he had not yet spoken, comprising some persons of considerable rank and wealth, and some learned men, travellers from different eastern countries, who each in turn addressed his compliments, petitions, or complaints to the Governor. There were several whom we thus passed who spoke English, not only fluently but gracefully. Among these were Baboo Ramchunder Roy, and his four brothers, all fine tall stout young men, the eldest of whom is about to build one of Mr. Shakespear's ropebridges over the Caramassa.'

The rope-bridges, mentioned here by the Bishop, were constructed on the principle of a ship's standing rigging; and were somewhat on the same theory as chain bridges; though, in two important principles, differing from those constructions.

The rope-bridges in India have no abutments, and can be taken to pieces, and moved on camels and elephants from any one point to another. The materials employed in their construction are simple cordage, iron, and bamboos.

The centre portion is constructed slightly raised in the middle; the whole resting on flat timbers, and strong enough to stand any test.

Farther on in the journal, Dr. Heber again mentions them, and gives the following account of one over a torrent near Benares. The Bishop's journal says:

'During last year's inundation, when, if ever, the cordage might have been expected to suffer from the rain, and when a vast crowd of neighbouring villagers took refuge on it, as the only safe place in the neighbourhood, it was almost the only object that continued to hold itself above the water.'

To continue his account of the Durbar, before proceeding to narrate his visitation through his diocese:

After Lord Amherst had completed the circle, he stood on the lower steps of the throne, and the visitors advanced, one by one, to take leave.

6

First came a young Rajah of the Rajapootana district, who had received that day the investiture of his father's territories, in a splendid brocade, khelât, and turban; he was a little shy pale-looking