Christianity in India

Front matter

TM

NOT TO BE ISSUED

(@ oar OF THE LIBRARY. Xs

Chapter I

The Ante-Protestant Era—Legend of St. Thomas—Pante#nus—Frumentius—The Syrian Churches—Francis Xavier—Inroads of the ee —~Menezes—The Jesuit: Missions sod te he

: CHAPTER II.

Establishment of the East India Company—Immorality of the first English Settlers—Strife at the Presidencies—The first’ Church Services—Exhortations of the Directors—The first Protestant

Chapter IX

The Epigcopate of Reginald Heber—The Bishopric in Commission— Heber’s early History—His Nomination to the See of Calcutta— State of Christianity on his arrival—His 3 Tour _ in the Upper Provincés—Visitation ig the South—State of the Southern Missions —Death of the Bishop—His Character . 315

Nee

Chapter X

Government Connexion with Idolatry —Juggernauth—The British Government and the Religious Endowments of the People—The Pilgrim-tax—Gradual extension of State-Patronage—Results of our interference :

.

» 366

Chapter XI

Ignorance of the People of England—Their dawning apprehensions— Mr. Charles Grant—The extension of the ecclesiastical establishment-—-Bishop Wilson—The posi of eer ee of the

Court—-Subsequent orders. - = ‘ . « . 397

CONTENTS. 1X

CHAPTER XH.

PAGE Severance of Government Connexion with Idolatry—Employment of

Native agency—Administration of temple-funds—Landed endowments — Money-payments — Missionary efforts— Bishop Wilson— Connexion of Government Servants with Missionary schemes—The Hindoo law of inheritance—Education . : . : , . 431

Conclusion

Retrospect — Recapitulation — Success the result of caution — The question as affected by the Rebellion of 1857—Our future policy— Proposed demonstrations — Duty of the Government—Duty of individuals—Conclusion . : : . é ‘ A ‘ «475

APPENDICES . : Pe Me Le ee oe <8 . 507

ERRATA.

Page. 41; line.16, for “heathen’s minds,” read “ heathens’ minds.”

Page ‘65, head line, Sor “ ¥RENON,” read “ pres,”

Page 228, line 3 from bottom, for “fraudulent banker and low swindler,” xead “ fraudulent debtor and.low swindler.”

Page 432, line 9, for “ other agency from. that,” read “ other agency Jor that.” “-

‘In some places, in the earlier ‘part of this work, the name “Udny” is mis-* Printed é ‘Waney: 7

Preface

I wave been thinking, for many years, of such a work as this—or of one, perhaps, of greater pretensions. But for circumstances affecting my daily life, and limiting my powers of literary labour, I might have indented more largely upon the patience of -the reader. As it is, I give this volume to the world, with some confidence that the interest of the subject will atone for any inefficiency in its treatment.

When the great rebellion of 1857 was at its height, and every mail was bringing from India fresh tidings of disasters suffered or retrieved, I often found in

society that men would turn away from the considera- ” tion of the most important political events, or the most touching personal incidents, to discuss the great subject of the future place of India among the Christian nations of the world. The missionary seemed, even then, to overlay the military element in men’s minds; and now the Indian question has become so largely a religious question, that many have ceased to regard it in any other light. A profound interest, indeed, has been awakened, and I trust that-1t is an enduring xi PREFACE.

one. But, with this interest, it has appeared to me that there has been mingled mucherror. A tendency to run into extremes has been observable generally in the controversies which have grown out of the question, both in private society and in the public press. At one time, indeed, the disputants were divided into two great classes—those who regarded the mutiny of 1857 as the natural result of our religious and social innovations, and who, therefore, suggested the discontinuance of all efforts for the civilization and evangelization of the people of India; and those who, looking upon it as a chastisement inflicted upon us for the neglect of our Christian duties, were, therefore, eager to atone for the remissness of the past by the activity of the future, and who counselled a-course of vigorous iconoclasm — an unhesitating and undiscriminating crusade against Error, as something to be swept away by the strong hand of the dominant race. I found, too, that coupled with this extravagance of sentiment there was much ignorance regarding antecedent events; and I thought, therefore, that any contribution towards the available means of forming a more correct judgment with respect tothe Past_and the Future of Christianity in India might be serviceable to the Public.

In this belief, ‘collecting the materials already within my. reach and going in search of others—

PREFACE. xii exhuming what I had written upon the subject in bygone years, and selécting therefrom whatever appeared to be most worthy of preservation—TI set about the preparation of this work. I felt, as it proceeded, that the very moderate views which it “enunciated would be palatable to no party—that £ might be accused of blowing hot and cold, of halting between two opinions, and giving an uncertain sound. But now that I have brought it to a close, I am surprised to find how much, during the year which has elapsed since I commenced it, public. opinion, whether in one extreme or the other, has moderated, and how many people have, so to speak, closed in upon the pivot where I once found myself almost alone.

I have spoken of this volume as merely a contribution to the literature of Christianity in India. I desire that it may be regarded and judged as nothing more. It does. not pretend to be a complete history of the efforts which have been made by Christians of various denominations to diffuse the light of the Gospel among the heathen nations of the East. Many very worthy efforts may be found ‘unrecorded, and many very worthy labourers may be found unnoticed in this volume. Anything like a sufficient record of all that has been done would demand not one but many volumes. I have aimed at the production not of an exhaustive, but of

XIV PREFACE.

a suggestive work; and I hope that it will be judged fairly—not by what it does not, but by what it does contain. No one knows better than I do myself how much more I might have said in every chapter of this work to give completeness to this record.

® It will be observed that the subject has been treated biographically in the earlier part of the work. I believe that this mode of treatment, whilst imparting a living interest to the narrative better calculated than anything else to enchain the attention of the reader, is at the same time the most truthful form in which the progress of Christianity in India can be represented. It is to the “advance of individual minds "—to the energy of individual efforts—that we owe the much or the little that has been done; and it is in the thoughts that were taking shape in the minds of these pioneers of the Gospel that we must trace the dawning of Christianity in the East. ° The first difficulties fairly overcome—the thicket cleared, the road made, the first step taken—the rest depends comparatively little upon individual character and individual exertion. There may at later periods have been many Xaviers and Ziegenbalgs—many Careys and Martyns, but their individuality is lost in the crowd. The history, therefore, as it advances, naturally tends towards diffusion and generalisation. The personal landmarks disappear altogether, and we look only at results in the gross.

PREFACE. XV

This much with regard to the method of the work. A few words now with respect to the materials of which it is composed. The reader will see at once that these are of various kinds, printed, manuscript, and traditional. The published works to which I am indebted are generally named in the foot-notes: They are too numerous for me to indicate them here. Mr. Hough’s elaborate “History of Christianity. in | India” deserves, however, prominent mention by all later writers on the subject. I must also especially acknowledge my obligations to Mr. Marshman, who kindly placed the first volume of his “ History of the Serampore Mission” at my disposal many mon months befere its publication, and to which I am indebted for nearly all the information contained in the Seventh Chapter of this book. I have consulted manuscript documents, public and private, whenever I have thought that there was anything to be found in them; but I make no boast of the exclusiveness of my materials. The biographers of the last half century have well nigh exhausted the private correspondence of the Christian worthies of the time; and the zeal of such good men as Sir wRobert Inglis and Mr. Arthur Kinnaird, with the ; consenting voice of Parliamgnt, has made nearly all — the official papers illustrative of the subject accessible to the public.

Partly in justice to the public, partly in justice to

XV1 PREFACE.

myself, I should mention, in conclusion, that, although the greater portion of this volume was written’ last year, and is now, for the first time, offered to the public, some parts of it were written many years ago, and published, in the shape of review-essays, but with a view to future collection. It is right that this should be stated, ‘in order that the reader may know what is offered to him; and that the writer may not be supposed to have borrowed from others what probably they have borrowed from him.

J. W.K.

London, February, 1859.

*

CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA.

Chapter I

The Ante-Protestant Kra—Legend of St. Thomas—Pantenus—Frumentius —The Syrian Churches—Francis Xavier—Inroads ‘of the Papacy— Menezes—The Jesuit Missions.

Ir is my design that this volume shall contain a

popular sketch of the progress of Christianity in

India; more especially as it has been affected by the

efforts of the Protestant Church and the measures of

the British Government. Glancing at the legendary history of the earliest Christian ministrations in the East, I shall touch upon the establishment of the Syrian Churches, upon the first efforts of the

Papacy, and upon those great and important facts the

Jesuits’ missions in the East; until, arriving at the

period of British connection with India, I come to

speak of the doings of our gwn countrymen at home and abroad, aided by the efforts of their Danish and

American fellow-labourers in the same vineyard. I

shall dwell upon the progress of the Anglican Church

in India; upon the advancement of practical Chris- B

Q CURISTIANITY IN INDIA.

tianity as exhibited in the lives of our Anglo-Indian brethren ; and upon what is called the ‘‘ traditionary policy” of the British Government in the East. I shall endeavour to show in what manner Christianity

‘and Heathenism have severally received support or discouragement from that. Government; and shall conclude the sketch with some observations on the _ manner in which the great question has been affected by the calamities which have recently filled so many hearts with fear and so many homes with mourning.

At the outset of his journey the historical inquirer finds himself groping in the dim regions which lie bétween fact and fable. He cannot clearly discover who were the first apostles who carried to the shores of the Indian ocean the truth of the new religion which Christ had bequeathed to the world. Te knows that from the very commencement of the Christian era there was constant interchange of worldly goods between the shores of the Red Sea and the southern and western coasts of the great Peninsula™ of India. It was by the enterprise and the ambition | of the Macedonian Alexander that a knowledge of the countries of the East had first been opened out to the empires of the West, that the gates of commerce had been unlocked, and the people of India

|e the colonists of Egypt brought into frequent intercourse with each other. The great city which he founded became in time the mart of the commerce of the East and the stronghold of the new religion of the West. But the glory of the Greek empire had

THE LEGEND OF ST. THOMAS. 3 passed away. The advent of the Redeemer found the Romans masters of the world; and Alexandria a Roman city.

With the increased demand for foreign luxuries, there grew new incentives to commercial enterprise. Every year, at the time of the summer solstice, a fleet of more than a hundred merchant ships sailed, under the Roman flag, ou't of the port of Myos Hormus on the Red Sea, and steered for the rich pearl-fisheries ys of Ceylon and the spicy coasts of Malabar. In exchange for the rich silks, the costly jewels, and the aromatic treasures of India and Arabia, the Romans gave their precious metals and something more precious still. They carried out tidings of the birth and sufferings of the Redeemer, and of the new faith that he had bequeathed to the world.

Of the first Indian missionaries we have no account. There is a legend which attributes to the apostle Thomas the establishment of the Christian Church in India. Slowly does reason reject a tradition which imagination is so eager to embrace. It would be pleasant to accord the fullest faith to the legend of the apostolic origin of Christianity in India; but there is really no authority in its favour to divest it of all the attributes of fable. A very exciting account of the life and death of the apostle in India is to be found in the pages of a Portuguese historian. With apparent good faith Maffeus relates the miracles that Thomas wrought in India; how he converted certain Magi; how he built a temple at Meliapore; how he brought the dead to life; how

Ba he delivered himself of certain wonderful prophecies : and, finally, how he became a martyr for the faith.* The Portuguese, at all events, believed these traditions, and invoked the miraculous aid of the saint when they went into battle. _Marcg Polo, who visited India before the time of the Portuguese, relates that St. Thomas was accidentally killed when at prayer in a wood, ‘by a low-caste man, who was shooting at peacocks ; and that, as a consequence of this mischance, none of the poor man’s tribe could ever enter the place where the saint lay buried —“ Nor,” adds the Venetian, ‘could twenty men force them in, nor ten hold them there, on account of the virtue of that sacred body.” Every one who has visited Madras, knows “ St. Thomas's Mount.” It has for centuries been held, both by the Syrian and the Romish churches, to be the burial place of the apostle; but the more the legend is investigated, the more fabulous it appears. I do not know a modern writer of any note who has the least faith in the story. ; That the gospel was ever preached in India during the first century, there is no credible evidence to show; but this much history may assert, that towards the close_of the second century, when the Emperor Commodus, one of the worst and weakest of the many tyrants and idiots who hastened the downfail

* Gibbon says that “Marco Polo was told on the spot that he (St.

Thomas) suffered martyrdom in the city of Meliapore.” This, however, is clearly an erroneous statement.

+ Dr. Fryer, who visited India about 1680, says that “about this

ount live a cast.of people, one of whose legs are as big as an elephant’s, which gives occasion for the divulging it to be a judgment on them, as the generation of the assassins and murtherers of the blessed apostie St. Thomas, one of whom I saw at Fort St. George.” Such the miraculous origin of Elephantiasis !

PANTENUS. 5 of the Roman empire, exercised bloody dominion in

the eternal city and throughout its marvellous depen- -dencies in three quarters of the globe, the glad “tidings ‘of the Gospel had reached the ears of the dwellers on the Southern Indian coast. From whosesoever lips the great message fell, it had not fallen on ungrateful soil. Among the pearl-fishers of Ceylon and the rude cultivators: on the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel were men who sighed after better! teaching and a purer faith than those of the priests of their idol temples.

From those distant Indian shores the Egyptian mariners brought back intelligence which spread joyfully among the Christians of Alexandria. Demetrius held the episcopate of the Alexandrian see. Pantenus presided over the celebrated school which was among the glories of that famous city. He had forsaken the philosophy of the Portico to embrace the faith as it is in Jesus; and now the intelligence brought home by the Egyptian mariners stirred his heart among his pupils and his books. ‘The longings of the heathen were after Gospel teaching. Their prayers for the help of instructed Christian guides did not find utterance in yain. Pondering, perhaps praying over, these strange tidings, the philosopher formed a great resolution, and girded himself up for a great enterprise. He determined to leave his disciples—to abandon the honours and rewards of the academy—and to go forth to preach the Gospel to the heathen upon heathen ground. What he did, and what he taught, it is hard to say. Doubts of the soundness of his doctrines have been freely expressed. It is said, that the taint of the old Stoic philosophy clung to the Christian teacher. But we may at least believe the sincerity and devotedness of the man, who exchanged the learned quiet of the schools, and the amenities of civilization, for the hardships and sufferings of missionary life, beneath a burning sun, and among a barbarous people ; and though there be no record of his exploits, or even of the precise scene of his labours,* and it is known that he returned after a time to Alexandria, to take his old place among his disciples, we may cherish the pleasing belief, that the first Indian missionary of whom we have any authentic account, did not labour wholly in vain.

But it is not easy to say what he left behind him, or who succeeded him in the great work. The history of the Christian Church in the East here sinks into a cloud of obscurity. Little is known of the progress of the Gospel on Indian soil throughout the whole of the third century. It was at the commencement of the fourth, that the Emperor Constantine, ‘ seated Christianity on the throne of the Roman world.” At the Council of Nice, held under his authority, at the close of the first quarter of that century, one of the

* It is even doubted by some writers) whether he visited India Proper. at all; and it is suggested that the scene of his labours was more probably the coast of Arabia. But the balance of evidence collected by Mr. Hough, in his “History of Christianity in India,” is against the latter hypothesis. There is no reason, -indeed, to doubt that Pantenus visited India; in all probability the island of Ceylon and the Malabar coast.

It is certain, however, that-there is something extremely vague and indefinite in the geographical nomenclature of ancient writers, who are too apt to describe Arabia, Abyssinia, Persia, and Central Asia, indifferently, under the comprehensive name of India,—-a word, indeed, often made to represént all the countries of the East.

THE STORY OF FRUMENTIUS. 7 assembled prelates, named Johannes, subscribed his name, as “ Metropolitan of Persia and the Great India,” a fact which seems to indicate that there was ‘at that time a Christian Church of some bulk and significance planted on the Indian coast. Thirty years later, one Frumentius, a Tyrian by birth, sailed for India, invested by Athanasius with Episcopal authority, and gathered together the scattered Christian flocks which were then dispersed over ‘the southern peninsula.

The story of this man is worth telling. He was the kinsman of a Christian philosopher named Meropius; who had heard from others such accounts of the wonders of the ‘“ Great India,” as filled him with a strong desire to visit the utmost isles and shores of the East. Taking two young kinsmen with him as companions of his voyage, he sailed for India, satisfied his longings, and was about to turn the prow of his vessel towards home, when the natives of the country seized him and the mariners who had worked his ship, and barbarously murdered them. The young kinsmen of the philosopher alone escaped: Their names. were Frumentius and Aldesius. The natives carried the youths to their king, who made the one his secretary and the other his cup-bearer ; and when he died, leaving a son in his minority, the queenmother entreated the strangers to undertake the guardianship of the. boy, and to direct the administration of the country. They consented; and Frumentius became the chief ruler of the state. The precise locality in which the Christian tutor and regent of a heathen prince and a heathen country exercised dominion is not on record; but it is narrated by many credible authorities, that in this trying ~ and responsible position Frumentius remembered the lessons of his youth, and turned to good account his influence and authority. He found on inquiry from the merchants that there were many Christians on the coast; he gathered them together erected a church ; exhorted them to the constant worship of the true God, and promised to. protect their temporal interests. Many were thus added to the Christian Church ; but in due course the princé; attaining to years of discretion, took the reins of government into his own hands, and Frumentius and Aidesius, in spite of the remonstrances of the young sovereign and his mother, prepared to return to the country of their birth. Alidesius repaired at once to the home of his kindred in Tyre, but Frumentius made his way to Alexandria, sought an interview with Athanasius, and urged him to provide for the spiritual wants of the native converts on the Indian coast. The Patriarch besought him to undertake the mission himself, and Frumentius returned to India. It is said that the new bishop made many converts and erected many churches. It is only in accordance with the general character of the traditions of the age, that it should be added thet he wrought many miracles.

Of the progress of Christianity in the East during the fifth .century there are few, if any, authentic - records. Early in the sixth century, a merchant of -Alexandria named Cosmas visited India,‘ and wrote

THE SIXTH CENTURY. 9 an account of the places he had seen. ‘There is,” he said, “in the Island of Taprobane (Ceylon) in the furthermost India, in the Indian sea, a Christian Chureh, with clergymen and believers. I know not whether there are any Christians beyond this island. In the Malabar country also, where pepper grows, there are Christians, and in Calliana, as they call it, there is a bishop Who comes from Persia where he was consecrated.”* , The Gospel had indeed been making its way towards India by the northern route, through Central Asia; ‘and was preached, with success, in Persia, in Media, in Armenia, in Bactria, and in the Tartar countries lying to the north of the great Caucasian range. “The Barbaric Churches,” says Gibbon, “from the Gulf of Persia to the Caspian Sea, were almost infinite; and their recent faith was conspicuous in the number and sanctity of their monks and martyrs.” «In a subsequent age,” to borrow the language of the same historian, “the zeal of the Nestorians}-overleaped the limits which had confined the ambition and curiosity both of the Greeks and Persians. The missionaries of Balkh and Samarcand pursued without fear the footsteps of the roving Tartar, and insinuated themselves into the camps

* There has been a good deal of Iearned discussion relative to the identity of this place, but I see no reason to disbelieve that the Greek Kah\ava represents the modern Callianee, near Bombay. Cosmas evidently knew nothing of the eastern coast of the Indian peninsula; and yet Mr. Hugh Murray, in his “ Historical Account of Discoveries and Travels in Asia,” a very able and interesting compilation, suggests that the Pudifetania on the Coromandel coast, mentioned by Nicolo Conti, is identical with the Poodabatan of Cosmas, which was on the Malabar coast.

{ The Nestorians were the followers of Nestorius, who was consecrated Bishop of Constantinople in 429. For an interesting account of his career, and of his peculiar coctrines, see Mr. Hough's “ History,” vol. i, chap, 11,

— of the valleys of Imaus and the banks of the Selinga.”

But as the seventh century dawned upon Asia, the great imposture of Mahomed arose, and checked for a time the growth of Christianity in the Eastern world, The faith of the Arabian enthusiast, supported by, seductive appeals to the passions of men, began to roll its irresistible tide. over the vast extent of country that lies between the banks of the Mediterranean and the confines of the Chinese Empire. The followers of the new creed were men of earnestness and enterprise; they monopolised the trade and navigation of the East; and for a time the Christian churches languished. Commerce had been, hitherto, the great agent of proselytism, and now that agency was suspended. Receiving no new strength from without, and within abject and corrupt, presenting a feeble contrast to the gigantic ascendancy of the new faith, the churches of India visibly declined in power as the mosques of the Mahomedans cast their shadows over the parched ground, and the stillness of the evening was broken by the Muezhin’s call to prayer.

Two noticeable events, though not altogether unobscured by that mist of uncertainty which hangs over the early history of the Christian Church in India, distinguished the eighth and ninth centuries. Towards the close of the former, when it appears that the Indian bishoprics were under the authority of the Nestorian Patriarch of Seleucia, an Armenian merchant, named Thomas Cana, took up his abode in Malabar. ‘Before this time the Christian brother-

. MAR THOMAS. 11 hood, both on that and the Coromandel coast, persecuted by the native princes, had been driven into the interior of the country, to seek refuge on the hills. The influence of Mar Thomas, who whether formally appointed or not to the episcopal office, appears to have performed its functions and borne its title, was great throughout Southern India. Under his protection the native Christians enjoyed security’and peace. It has been conjectured that this man, who married and died in India, and left behind him a numerous progeny, is the Christian worthy who has been confounded with the Apostolic saint.‘ The chronological question simply involves a discrepancy of a small matter of eight centuries ; and all we now know about it, or are likely to know, is that the St. Thomas, who is venerated by the Christian Churches of Southern India, and whose name: they bear, was either “an apostle, a Manichean, or an Armenian merchant,” and that he died in the first century or the ninth. :

The noticeable event of the ninth century, to which J have alluded, is connected with this history of St. Thomas. It is on record that Alfred the Great despatched from Great Britain an embassy, under Sighelm, Bishop of Shireburn, to the shrine of the saint at Madras.* Having paid their devotions, the

* This was in 883. It seems little likely that if the legend of the death and burial of St. Thomas in the neighbourhood of Madras really arose out of the fact of the death and burial of Mar Thomas—an event which took place only about half a century before

Alfred’s embassage — there should have been at that time, either in Egypt or Great Britain, any confusion of an incident which occurred fifty years before with one that was at least eight centuries old, holy men returned home, bringing with them a costly recompense in the shape of a rich cargo of pearls and spices. The fame of these precious commodities had reached the monarch of.the Western Isle, and the substance now rewarded his zeal. “This story is related on such good authority that I am slow to pronounce it apocryphal. It would seem, to be at least partly true. It is surmised by Gibbon and other writers, that the pilgrims were despatched from Great Britain, but never proceeded: farther than Alexandria, where they “ collected their cargo and legend.” However imperfectly we may understand the motives of the British monarch, or grope our way through the haze of doubt that besets the tradition, it would be pleasant to accept, without misgivings, this history of the dawn of Saxon enterprise in the Kast.

From this time, over a large surface of years, lie few. and scattered the incidents which mark the progress of the Christian churches in the East.. In the tenth century the cause of the pure faith had greatly recovered from the blighting effects of Mahomedan ascendancy, and new efforts were made to support and to recruit the churches. It is said that about this time the Christians of St. Thomas were so many and so powerful in. Southern Indid, that they asserted their independence as a people, and erected a sovereignty of their ‘dwn. For some time they prospered under their Christian Rajahs, until one of them dying without. issue, adopted a heathen prince as his heir, and from that time the

WESTERN. CIVILIZATION. 13 race of Christian rulers was extinct—a remarkable instance of the advantages of that system of adoption which now, after the lapse of nearly a thousand years, is debated with as much warmth, and advocated with as much earnestness, as though the welfare of India were dependent upon the issue of the contest.

Hitherto, with but a dim uncertain light to guide us, we have groped through a country of much doubt and perplexity, a desert’ on which, few and far between, stand up shadowy landmarks of history, scarcely better than the merest fables. Out of the regions of the indistinct and conjectural, we are now about.to emerge, by sensible degrees, into the light of substantial history. .We have seen the tide of Christianity setting in from Egypt and ‘Syria, through Arabia and Persia, towards the western coast of Hindostan, and thence up the southern peninsula. For a time the ascendancy of Mahomedanism cut off the growing intercourse between Christianity and Heathenism, and kept down the growth of the Nestorian churches. It was but for atime. The growing civilization of the West went out to meet the stern enthusiasm of the East, and the traders of Arabia yielded the commerce of the Indian seas to the merchants of Genoa and Venice. But the enmity of Mahomedanism was not extinguished, and its power was not suppressed. By the victorious arms-of Mahomed II., the crescent was planted in the capital of the Greek empire, and the mart of Constantinople closed against the European world. By such hostility as this, the spirit of Christian enterprise was excited rather than depressed. The nations of the West had hitherto known no other sea route than those through the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, along the Arabian coast to Ceylon; but the aggressiveness and exclusiveness of the Mahomedans stimulated them to seek another channel by which to import into Europe the wealth of the Oriental marts, and on the common road of the great ocean they tried, for the first time, towards the close of the fifteenth century, the great experiment of a western passage to India, around the stormy promontory of Southern Africa. It was in the year 1497, that Vasco de Gama, a subject of the King of Portugal, doubled the Cape of Storms, and steered for the western coast of India. After a voyage of ten months from the port of Lisbon, he cast anchor before the town of Calicut in the month of May in the following year; and from that time we date a new epoch in the. history of the Christian churches in the Indian world.