by William Butler

“ After breakfast next morning I started off to explore Lucknow. Going out of the door, how well I remembered the last time I went through it, starting from the Residency on the back of an elephant, guarded by a Sepoy all day. But Mr. Montgomery did not offer me an elephant on this occasion, and there were no Sepoys to attend me. So I walked off, quite content to have it so, and was not ten minutes in the Bazaar till it was all explained. The change was amazing, even already. Instead of every man being armed with tulwar and shield, nobody bore a weapon, save the native police. ”

“ The Government of India to-day, in its freedom from the policy and traditions of the Company, its separation from idolatrous administrations, its strength and justice, its outspoken interest in the intellectual and moral well-being of the people, its humane and impartial administration, is a wonderful improvement upon the former things that have passed away. At length the oft-repeated assertion, that “India is the noblest trust ever committed to a Christian nation,” seems to have taken possession of the minds who guide her destiny. ”

“ This proud and powerful body of commercial men rose, in two hundred years, from the humble position of a mere trading company, through a series of events the most wonderful in modern history, till they came at last to sway their scepter over an empire six times more populous than that of their own Queen, and twice as populous as that of Augustan Rome, and separated, till recently, from them by a voyage of four or five months. ”

“ Noble men! I realized, as I stood before them, that their fame belongs to our nation as much as to their own. And I shall ever esteem it one of the highest privileges of my life that I was permitted to preach, and that, too, on the very ground of their last battle-field, to the men that General Havelock led to the relief of Lucknow!
Though it anticipates the time somewhat, I may here mention that Khan Bahadur was captured and brought into Bareilly. He and four or five others were confined in the little fort, awaiting their trial. ”

“ The result in India itself is, that England is considered to hold the land by a stronger right than ever; her laws are more respected, her magistrates more implicitly obeyed, her roads are safer, her peace is more profound. What her Government know to be right can now be attempted and carried out free from the temporizing of the past, so that legislation is more decided, and radical, and beneficent. A magnanimity that before was not dreamed of guides British policy. Native gentlemen of education are now invested with Commissions of the Peace. ”

“ Even as I looked and laughed at this half-drunken creature, how vividly did God's holy Word come to my mind, as I saw him in his whimsical resolution and proposal, exulting in his ability, and so eager for its display, offering to fulfill, to the letter, those words of Holy Writ, so true then to the race whom he, even in his unworthiness and unconsciousness, there represented, that “One should chase a thousand;” ”

“ The clique who could thus insult God and his ministers, and wish to hinder the conversion of India's millions, were regarded as henceforth unworthy to administer the political affairs of that great empire; and this very utterance was the knell of their doom, as it was also of the Sepoy power on which they so vainly and madly leaned for support. Natives and Christians alike celebrated with gladness the day that saw the country pass under the control of the Queen of England, to be henceforth ruled by the Parliamentary Government of Great Britain. ”

“ Their hopes of supremacy are utterly annihilated; their nobles fill the graves of traitors and murderers. They, themselves, are distrusted by all,
and hated with a double intensity by the Hindoo race, whom they first misled and deceived, and then oppressed, during their brief term of power. The worst that they can do is now well known, and they are well aware that they are no longer feared. ”

“ All has been overruled for good. The vastness of India, the value of her evangelization as the heart of Asia, and the influence of her position, as the key to the salvation of the nations with which she has commercial relations—Affghanistan, Beloochistan, Eastern Persia, Bokhara, Herat, Thibet, Ladak, Nepaul, Western China, and others—all these must feel the effects of the mighty change which India is yet to undergo, and for which this Rebellion did so much to prepare her. ”

“ A large portion of the towns and villages of Oude was a mere Sepoy training ground for the East India Company. Here, for generations, the inhabitants contemplated no other employment save service in the Company's army. At twice the compensation of artisans, with easy times, and decked out in the pomp of military array, these men lived in comparative affluence, and on the expiration of their term of service, they were retired on pensions for life equal to about half their pay. ”

“ They have been whipped into the alarming consciousness that their colossal and venerable systems of religion, in which they trusted, are utterly powerless; that with civilization is strength; and that Christianity is both invincible and inevitable. ”

“ As Noblemen around their strong Government, these representatives of dead or dying dynasties might do much for their country, as well as opening a way for their own children to be trained and educated for employment in positions of trust and usefulness.
These are but a mere intimation of the peculiar circumstances which English administrators in India have to deal with as they try to guide the interests of that country. The rebellion broke down many of these difficulties, and simplified their task to a great extent, making them more fully the masters of the situation ”

“ So that there were three generations of Sepoys in these villages in 1857, namely, the serving Sepoys, and as pensioners, their fathers and their grandfathers; and when the active force threw off their allegiance to the Government of Great Britain, and lost their cause, the reaction against them was so great, that, at one swoop, the Government which they had outraged cut off them and theirs from the rolls forever. Pay and pensions ceased, and two hundred thousand Sepoys, invalided and active, were thrown upon their own resources, and reduced to
hopeless poverty. ”

“ The position of Christianity in India, and its disabilities, will be well understood from what has been already advanced. The condition of the native Christian before the Rebellion was a most trying one. He was cut off and proscribed by his heathen friends, looked down upon too often by European officials, refused all employment under Government, with no one to sympathize with him except a few pious persons and the missionary, the latter very often unable to help him, though his heart was distressed for him. ”

“ I would not speak too harshly, even of a criminal; yet I will take the responsibility of saying, that I never saw or heard of men to whom, more appropriately or deservedly than to the Sepoys and their chiefs, could be applied the terrible character given by the Holy Spirit, when he so fully describes those whose profanity, crimes, and riot, exhibit them “as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed.” 2 Peter ii, 12. They were men who neither knew nor showed mercy, any more than would be exhibited by the tigers of their own jungles ”

“ Not one native Christian in India joined the mutineers, though their education would have made them valuable to them. It was also known that some conspiracies had been discovered and prevented by timely information furnished by native Christians. Notwithstanding the sufferings to which they were reduced during the Rebellion, as a body they stood nobly for Christianity and the British Government, though that Government had neglected and despised them. Many of them laid down their lives for their religion. ”

“ They well knew that they were united in a common class interest, could dictate their own terms, and had the Government at their mercy. They were pampered to the last degree by their timid and politic rulers. The stronger they grew, the more dangerous they became, and sooner or later a fearful conflict with them was inevitable ”

“ It was one of the most fearful blows that Caste and Brahminism ever received, and has forever lowered the prestige of that proud class in India. A mixed native army, to more limited numbers, formed out of all creeds and parties, has taken their place, while the amount of British soldiers has been more than doubled, and the forts, arsenals, and magazines of India are henceforth in their safe keeping.
Second. Equally marked have been the results of the great Rebellion upon the Mohammedan portion of the population. To conciliate these people is impossible. ”

“ The legislation, the principles, and the personal influence of the Government, are all thus bearing upon the repression of what is wrong in Hindoo society, and the encouragement of all that is right and good.
None but those who have lived in India can adequately appreciate the difficulty or the delicacy of the great task which England
is trying to fulfill there to-day. ”

“ The system of caste can no longer be permitted to rule in our service. Soldiers, and government servants of every class, must be entertained for their merits, irrespective of creeds, class, or caste.
“The native Christians, as a body, have, with rare exceptions, been set aside. I know not one in the Punjab, to our disgrace be it said, in any employment under Government. ”

“ As a corporation, they had no soul that would feel for the guilt and danger of perishing men, or make any effort to redeem them, but, on the contrary, they tried to discourage all such efforts. To this unworthy and unchristian policy they held on to the last, and would have held on probably for ages if God and the English public had not abolished their rule on the 1st of November, 1858. Even in the terrible lessons of the first outbreak, instead of relenting and turning from their course, they clung all the more tenaciously to it. ”

“ Speaking of the measures to be henceforth employed in India for the pacification of the country, and the retention of British supremacy,
he says: “Missionaries must be sent away about their business, and the practice of attempting conversions be put immediate stop to. If a black individual express a sincere desire to become a Christian, by all means let his wishes be instantly attended to by the ministers of the Gospel, [the Episcopalian chaplains of the troops and civilians.] ”

“ There is not a man in the Bazaar would dare to look him in the face!” Mr. W. insisted that he must “look him in the face,” and
bring him up before him, adding, “If you are afraid, then take your six men,” (who all stood in a row behind their gallant leader, with about as much courage as Falstaff's squad, gazing right into the face of the magistrate;) “surely seven of you, armed with tulwars, are enough to arrest one English soldier with only a stick in his hand.” ”

“ At Cawnpore we visited “the Well” of sad memories, and the Shrine, (then being built) and the Intrenchments, and Ghat, and conversed with Private Murphy, the only survivor in India of the terrible massacre.
On reaching Lucknow we were most kindly received at Government House, no longer the Residency, but a building in another part of the city. Mr. (now Sir Robert) Montgomery welcomed us with the cordiality of a Christian, requesting us to consider his house our home till we could obtain a mission residence, and offering to aid us in every way within his power. ”

“ This devoted servant of God encouraged and stood by me in all my future plans for the extension of our mission. No other man in the East or in America has given half as much money to develop our work in India as Colonel Gowan has contributed. ”

“ The results upon the Hindoo race are equally marked. They, too, have lost their Peishwa and their prestige; they have become deeply convinced of the impotence of their idols to aid them in any great emergency; they have learned an additional lesson of Mohammedan perfidy and bitterness, which can never be forgotten by them, and which forbids the possibility of any future combination with their cruel antagonists. ”

“ The native element is introduced into legislative halls, and connected with the government of their country. Already they sit on the bench of the High Court, and hold honorary positions in Council, as the colleagues of the Governor General. Public education is encouraged and pushed forward, the admission of ladies into general society commended, female education among all classes encouraged to the utmost, and extravagant costs of weddings and funerals discountenanced. ”

“ Nothing less than the conviction and grace that can lead a Romanist to esteem and love evangelical Christians, can ever induce a Mohammedan to become a willing subject of a Christian power. Till then their insolence has to be borne with, and their rage controlled by a firm, but humane, hand. ”

“ The excellent Magistrate also received us cordially, and advised an immediate commencement of our work, promising to aid us in every way. Before I was twenty-four hours in Bareilly a subscription was started to help us in organizing our missions. That financial liberality has continued, year by year increasing, to this day; those excellent men, in the civil and military service of England, have since furnished the means required to carry on our system of Christian schools and our Orphanages, averaging over $10,000 gold per annum. ”