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Leader (1850-1860), 25th July 1857, Edition 2 of 2, Page 20, ANGLICAN THEOLOGY. Anglican Theology: Ch...

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      India And The English. Les Anglais Etvtn...

      The numerical strength of the civil service , under the presidency of Bengal and its dependencies , is estimated by M . Fridolin as follows : — Civil service ( covenanted ) . . . . . . 405 men „ ( uncovenanted ) . . . ... 1 , 443 „ Military officers iii civil employ .... . 100 „ Natives . * " ' • 45 , 538 „ Total . . . 47 , 486 men . The police are described sis universally corrupt , and the administration of justice very defective . For England's honom-, reforms ought to be made . There are constant meetings in London on behalf of Poland and Hungary , where the Emperdr of Austria is loudly denounced ; but look at India ! Thus , in spite of much that has been effected for the security of life and property , the British Government is not popular ; the sympathies of the people are ever with the enemy , whether Sikh , Af g han , or any other . It would therefore , argues M . IVidolin , be suicidal policy to admit natives to high offices . From January 1 , 1836 , to December 9 , 1846 , there issued 1976 military appointments to India , which were disposed of as follows : —To sons of captains and subalterns , 128 ; of field officers , 143 ; of generals , 77 ; of civil servants , 105 ; of ( royal ) army and navy officers , 380 ; of the clergy , 205 ; miscellaneously , 938 . What a vent , says our author , for revolutionary elements ! The griffin ' s military instruction is very limited , often not going beyond the list of his regimental equipments ; yet the officers behave well in battle , as * le Butchers Bill ( la liste des morts ) ' shows . Army promotion is slow . The Indian climate is not so fatal to European life as supposed . The majors average twenty-eight years * service , and many captains have served twenty-five years . If the purchasing out of regimental officers were not tacitly allowed , things would be even worse . The Military and Orphan Funds at each presidency are justly eulogised . The pay of the military is sp lendid in comparison with that of all other armies , yet barely sufficient to lrve on . This is accounted for by the customs of the country , and a compulsory retinue of servants ; the facility of obtaining credit ; frequency of early marriages , as already mentioned ; and the contributions , ever and anon demanded , for the purchase of steps . In Bengal , 2250 officers below the rank of colonel enjoy amongst them 530 staff appointments . Of these , 136 are civil or political ; 44 on the general and divisional military staff ; 130 in the commissariat department ; and 220 attached to irregular corps . Between the number thus withdrawn and the large proportion always absent on leave , there is a terrible paucity of officers actually present with Sepoy regiments . Staff employ frequently doubles the regimental scale of emoluments , and is consequently the chief incentive to extra exertion . Such a system is obviously bad , and would prove dangerous in face of a European enemy . M . Fridolin admires the mixture of equality and subordination that marks the social intercourse of English officers . " Hold your tongue , sir ! " says Major A ., at the mess-table , to a noisy ensign , who forthwith sits at attention , with tongue in fist , literally obedient to word of command . Ensign B . is in due course reprimanded by sentence of a court martial ' for conduct unbecoming , ' & c . But , as M . Fridolin slyly suggests , it should have been ' pour avoir execute un mouvement non prevu dans le manuel du soldat . The native army is recruited entirely on the voluntary principle . The term of enlistment is for three years ; at the end of which period a soldier may , in time of peace , claim his discharge as a matter of right . Liberal retiring pensions are granted to the worn out and to the wounded of all ranks—an indulgence which extends to the nearest representatives of such as are slam outrig ht in battle . Under the Presidency of Bengal alone , 22 , 381 veterans and 1730 families were drawing pensions in 1844 . The pension is the grand advantage which the Company ' s service holds out , and which could never be realized under any native government . This system is to thank for the fact that our native soldiery have never swei'ved from their allegiance under pecuniary temptations . M . Fridolin considers the Sepoy about the most curious production of India . It takes an average of nine months to perfect a recruit in his drill and general duties . Our author seems to have passed some time at Calcutta , and like all other travellers , feels bound to admire the exterior tout ensemble of the City of Palaces ; but truth compels him to state that , in respect of public monuments , statues , and so forth , the Chowringhee standard pf taste is no higher than that which rules in Trafalgar-square . The obtrusive Ochterlony column , surmounted by a colossal melon , in very justly censured for poverty of conception . The course , the band , the equipages ; the river with Ha unrivalled show of first-class passenger ships , and its less attractive freight of Hindoo corpses ; the palatial abodes , under whose very w alls are to be found hotbeds of infection and disease in all shapes ; the striking medley of primitive habits and customs , and of modern arts and i mprovements in immediate juxtaposition' — all these are characteristics which combine to distinguish Calcutta from any other capital in the world . In other respects . M . Fridolin describes the Presidency as a place of business par excellence . No idlers are to be found there , save a few stray military men ; and there is but little in the way of public amusements generally going on . In proof of this assertion , a laughably melancholy list of weekly 4 engagements' is quoted from the Bengal Sturkum \ Hurkctru f } , ' l ' organe le plus influent de la \ mb \\ vM 6 Indienne . ' The fact is , that during nine months of the year the climate of Calcutta is unsuitable to evening entertainments , were the heads of aociety ever so willing to patronise them . But there are other obstacles z-r—la morgue ojficielle , la froideur Britamiique , les dhastres commerciauw , les distinctions de la pean . Between the European and the native there stands a bairrier ( tine nwaille plus que Chinoise ') which yeax's of association have failed to break down . Froin all these causes , Anglo-Indian society is much divided into sots and coteries ; but within each circle the tune-honoured hospitality of the old school is still solemnly practised , le dindon , le jambon , eb le champagne being the triune emblems worshipped . JM ,. . Fndojin found it much more pleasant to admire the Anglo-Saxon ' s aptness for life in community at the Bengal Club , or under canvas with the sporting fraternity of the Tent . As to the morale of the English in India , M . Fridolin is the very pink of discretion . Ho holds that the less said the better . Judicious silence

      best becomes a writer who has lived in friendship amongst the parties whom he describes , and Las eaten their salt . There are voyagers enow alread y of atrabilious temperament , and our author explicitly declines lending himself to swell the ranks of puritan misses , and John Bulls renfonces who have heretofore volunteered to calumniate society at each of the three presidencies . He also speaks in high terms of the liberality and generosity towards all in distress which are universally practised throughput British India . It is curiously but truly remarked that the traces of early Anglo-Indian society ( that is . to say , records and memorials of a hundred years back ) are far more rare in Calcutta than relics of the middle ages are in any part of Europe . The several generations already passed away have left behind them but little to individualise their memory . Neither aged men nor pleasantly garrulous old ladies are to be met with in any number

      amongst the English sojourners in the East . All who have survived s . xty years deem it time to make their escape to Europe , if they have failed to do so at an earlier period . India is a land of exile—a tropical Siberia . Service under the East India Company has been almost , as it were , hereditary in many families ; but the youthful years of each succeeding generation are passed in England , their country , their home . As for tbei . urasians , M . Fridolin says of them , in severe but truthful language , " Cette race frele et che ' tive s ' abatardit des les premieres generations . " It is certain that no fusion will ever take place between the native and Eurasian population ; and thus British supremacy in India is safe from , at least , one element of

      dan ger to which the generality of colonial possessions are notably exposed . B * ut we must take leave of M . Fridolin , at all events for the present . That gentleman appears to have closed his journal at Hurdwar , near the foot of the Himalaya mountains , in April , 1856 , during the continuance of the annual fair held at that place , having previously visited Benares , Lucknow , Agra , and Delhi . We have endeavoured to serve up some portion of the cream of a really elaborate work . But there is much beside upon which it is impossible for us , at this moment , to bestow even the most cursory notice . Should occasion however offer , we may perhaps some other day attempt to give our readers an idea of what the same author has to communicate upon many important subjects . He indeed has gone at all m cotton

      the rin « r . Revenue , the administration of justice , thuggism , aacoity , , indigo " opium , & c . & c , are discussed at considerable length , and with statistical details . There is , in short , no legitimate Indian topic which M . Fridolin may not justly arrogate to himself as ' Nostri farrago libelii .

      71g The Lea Per. [No. 383, July 25, 1857...

      71 G THE LEA PER . [ No . 383 , July 25 , 1857 .

      Anglican Theology. Anglican Theology: Ch...

      ANGLICAN THEOLOGY . Anglican Theology : Chapters on Coleridge , Hare , Maurice , KingsUy , and Jowett , on the Doctrine of Sacrifice and Atonement . By the Rev . James H . Rigg . Alexander Heylin . To collect together the signs of faith and doctrine scattered about in the various writings of a certain school of divines popular m thepresent day , and to examine into their orig in and theological tendency , is the object of not travel far back

      Mr Riffg ' s volume . In making this inquiry he does very for the source of these opinions . In fact , he regards . Coleridge as the root from which the theological doctrines of this ' certain school'have been developed ; and , in a few words , he portrays what he presumes to be their several characteristics . The legitimate line of tleosophical and theoSgical derivation from Coleridge is traced in part through Hare and more directly and fully through Maurice and Kingsley , to a ' number of later disciples , of whom Mr . J . L . Davies is one of the most intelligent . Though Mr . Jowett ' s theology is discussed in the WuSe andtho ^ U the influence of Coleridge upon him is admitted to ui ^ 0 ^^

      have been considerable , yet he is not numbered as one u « a . *» ( that is Mr ? Jowett ) sees through and despises the neo-Platomst d . sgu . se which serves to veil from Messrs . Maurice and Kingslev the really inherent Pantheism of the doctrines which they would fain present as anti-Pantheistic and he teaches a philosophy much more directly and manifestly Pantheistic ' The Kev . H . James Rigg himself seems to entertain views which w may not unfairly designate diluted Spurgeonism . He admits the noble catholicity of feeling , the earnest sympathy with human suffering , the deen desire to ameliorate the condition of their fellow-creatures . which per , vades the writings , and has distinguished the conduct of these clergymen ; but he sees in the midst of their teachings the colossal form of heterodoxy looming in the distance , like the shadowy shape of ^ Polyphemus A bold , of conviction in theoloi

      liberal opinion , or , ut least ' the frank expression --cal subjects , is to him a nightmare . He predicts a fearful confusion of right and wron <* as the result of such opinions . Mr . Maurice ' s repugnance to admit Scripture passages as an authority for believing in a perpetual state of punishment after life is well known to our readers . Mr . Kigg comments on them : "If this is true doctrine , not only the peasant and the boggar , but the cold-blooded murderer , the brutal ravisher , the most liendish ot slave drivers , all the children of the devil on earth , and all the demons ot hell may ' rejoice and sing merry songs' together . Hell may hold cornivnis on earth to the glory of God in heaven . " It is not our intention to enter into the discussion to which an inquiry of this kind is calculated to give rise ; we shall , therefore , abstain from doing more than give the results ot an analysis of th « philosophical theology of Coleridge made according to the tests applied to it by Mr . Rigg . it only remains to sum up m findings of this inquiry , says Mr . Rigg . What he has found , then , amounts to this , that Coleridge ' s philosophy was a new Platonizod edition

      of Schelling ' s , that his theology has affinities with Popish rather tunn a i" - teatant doctrine , but is essentially rather a semi-pagan thcosophy or mysticism , baptized with a Christian and biblical nomenclature , than any system of doqtrineB direotly derived from the Bible ; that in intellectual and ecu csiastical sympathies he was radically Protestant , though disposed to l > o highly reverent of anoient relig ious forms and ceremonies . i . o tins scnooi of Coleridge' Mr . Kigg applies the designation ' Broad Church , ' a term which ho thinks himself justified in employing , inuamuch as the Church wuiui they would establish ia an broad as the Christian world , and all their , views in ecoloBiaBticul doctrines and politics tond much more to latitu dinarmnisui

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), July 25, 1857, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_25071857/page/20/