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OF THE EXPEDIENCY OF

AN ECCLESIASTICAL ESTABLISHMENT

FOR

BRITISH INDIA.

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PART I.

ON THE MEANS OF PRESERVING THE PROFESSION OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION AMONG OUR COUNTRYMEN IN INDIA.

CHAPTER I.

Present state of the English Church in India.

1. THE present establishment of English chaplains for the British empire in India, is not much greater than the factorial establishment in the time of lord Clive.

2. There are six military chaplains for Bengal, Bahar, Oude, the Dooab, and Orissa. There are three chaplains in the town of Calcutta, five at the presidency of Madras, and four at the presidency of Bombay. Nor is that list ever full. Two-thirds of the number is the average for the last ten years.

3. Some islands in the West Indies have a more regular church establishment, and more extensive Christian advantages than the British empire in the east. Jamaica has eighteen churches; English India has three; one at Calcutta, one at Madras, and one at Bombay.

4. At the establishment of Bencoolen, at the factory at Canton, at the flourishing settlement of Prince of Wales's Island, at Malacca, at Amboyna, and at the other islands to the eastward now in our possession, there is not a single clergyman of the English church, to perform the rite of baptism, or to cele

brate any other Christian office. The two British armies in Hindostan, and in the Dekhan, lately in the field, had not one chaplain.

5. The want of an ecclesiastical establishment has produced a system, not only of extreme irregularity in the discipline of our church, but of positive offence against Christian institution. Marriages, burials, and sometimes baptisms, by the civil magistrate or by a military officer, are not only performed, but are in a manner sanctioned by a precedent of thirty years.

6. And as to the state of religion among the people who have no divine service, it is such as might be expected. After a residence for some years at a station where there is no visible church, and where the superstitions of the natives are constantly visible, all respect for Christian institutions wears away; and the Christian Sabbath is no otherwise distinguished than by the display of the British flag.

7. Were we, on the other hand, to state particularly the regard paid by our countrymen to Christian instruction, wherever it is regularly afforded, it would be an additional argument for granting the means off affording it. Wherever the Christian minister solicits attention, he finds an audience. In whatever part of British India he is stationed, there will be a disposition to respect the religion of early life, when its public ordinances shall have been revived.

CHAPTER H.

Of the establishment of the Romish Cuurch in the East.

The

There are three archbishops and seventeen bishops of the Romish church established in the east. natives naturally suppose that no such dignity be

longs to the English church. In Bengal alone there are eight Romish churches, four Armenian churches, and two Greek churches. In confirmation of this statement, we shall subjoin an authentic report of the Roman catholic establishments, which has been transmitted by the archbishop of Goa.

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[The Danish missionaries, Bartholomew Ziegenbalgius and John Ernest Grundler, in a letter to the Soeiety in England for promoting Christian knowledge, dated "Tranquebar, January 9, 1713," observes, "The Roman missionaries themselves confessed to us at Madras, that their congregation in that place consisted of twelve thousand members."Amer. Ed.]

4 See paper by him in Asiatic Researches, Vol. II.

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1. The above establishments are at present full with the exception of the Bishopric of Pondicherry, which was formerly presented by the king of France; and it is stated that the revenues are the same granted at the first endowment, with some exceptions of increase.

2. On a view of the ancient and respectable establishment of the Romish church, we naturally de

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