Part 9 (1/2)
THE REV. JOHN KEBLE, 1792-1866.
One of the leaders of the Tractarian movement. He is best known by his hymns published under the t.i.tles of ”The Christian Year” (1827) and ”Lyra Innocentium” (1847). He was Professor of Poetry at Oxford, 1831, and Vicar of Hursley, near Winchester, 1835-1866. Keble College, Oxford, was erected to his memory.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: _J. Faed._}
DR. THOS. CHALMERS, 1780-1847.
As minister of the Tron Church, Glasgow (1815), he obtained a great reputation. He was appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy at St.
Andrew's, 1823, of Theology at Edinburgh in 1828, and led the great secession in 1843. He was the first Moderator of, and was elected Princ.i.p.al and Primarius Professor of Theology in, the Free Church of Scotland.]
[Sidenote: The ”Ten Years' Conflict” in Scotland.]
[Sidenote: Disruption of the Church.]
[Sidenote: Dr. Chalmers.]
[Sidenote: Rise of the Free Church.]
The corresponding movement in the Established Presbyterian Church of Scotland, commonly referred to as the Ten Years' Conflict, arose out of a question of Church government rather than one of theology. Lay patronage had been imposed on the Church of Scotland by the Act of 1712.
The revival of spiritual activity, which in England took the shape of the Tractarian movement, was equally perceptible in Scotland, and resulted in the General a.s.sembly of the Church of Scotland pa.s.sing the Veto Act in 1834, by which it was declared to be a fundamental law of the Church that no pastor could be appointed to a parish against the will of the majority of the congregation. It was not long before this led to appeals from the Ecclesiastical to the Civil Courts. In 1842 the General a.s.sembly presented to the Queen a ”claim, declaration, and protest,” accompanied by an address praying for the abolition of patronage, to which the Home Secretary made reply that the Government could not interfere. In March 1843, the House of Commons decided by 211 votes to 76 against attempting to redress the grievance, and on May 18 following, the non-intrusion party withdrew from the General a.s.sembly and const.i.tuted the first a.s.sembly of the Free Church, under the leaders.h.i.+p of Dr. Thomas Chalmers. The action was all the more significant because Chalmers, the most powerful and popular preacher in the Scottish Church of that day, and a distinguished leader of ecclesiastical thought, had hitherto been a powerful champion of the connection of Church and State. But he had thrown himself with great earnestness into the work of reclaiming the ma.s.ses and bringing them into direct relations with the Church, and he felt convinced that this great work could not be carried to success unless the Church were free to choose her own instruments. Four hundred and seventy parish ministers resigned their livings and joined the Free Church. A sustentation fund was set up, based on a calculation made by Chalmers that a penny a week from each member of a congregation would produce a stipend of 150 a year for 500 ministers. It amounted to no less than 367,000 in the first year of disruption.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _J. Doyle_ (”_H. B._”).} {_Political Sketches._
AN OLD SO'GER IN MARCHING ORDER.
General Sir Charles Napier, 1782-1853.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: _H. Martens._} {_From a Coloured Engraving._
THE BATTLE OF SOBRAON, February 10, 1846.
This ill.u.s.tration is reduced from a popular, but somewhat quaint, coloured print representing the 31st Regiment, with Major-General Sir Henry Smith's division, in action at Sobraon. It forms an instructive contrast with the military prints of the present day.]
[Sidenote: Affairs of British India.]
[Sidenote: The First Sikh War.]
[Sidenote: Battles of Meeanee, Moodkee, Ferozeshah, Aliwal and Sobraon.]
The existence of British territory in India, side by side with territory under British protection and States wholly under native rule, was a condition of things neither conducive to peace nor likely to be of a permanent nature. A single spark dropped among the warlike races inhabiting that vast peninsula was often enough to cause wide-spreading conflagration; and, however agreeable it might be to British consciences, it would be unphilosophic in the highest degree to attribute the blame for such outbreaks exclusively to the native rulers and people. Trouble broke out early in 1843 which led to the annexation by the British of Scinde, a fine territory lying between the Indian Ocean and the Cutch on the south, and southern Afghanistan and the Punjab on the north. Scinde had been divided into three provinces--Hyderabad, Khyrpore, and Meerpore--each ruled by a group of Ameers or hereditary chiefs, descended from Beloochee conquerors, who, it was said, most cruelly oppressed the people under them. Successive treaties had been effected with these rulers by the Indian Government, but the disaster which fell on the British arms in Cabul seems to have encouraged them to withhold some of the tribute due by them under the latest treaty, and they began warlike preparations. In 1842 Lord Ellenborough appointed Sir Charles Napier Commander-in-Chief of the British troops in Scinde, with instructions to inflict signal punishment on any chiefs detected in treachery, at the same time empowering him to make a fresh treaty, relieving the Ameers from the payment of any subsidy for the support of British troops. This treaty was at length signed, though it must be confessed that the Ameers were only induced to consent to it by the threatening display of Napier's force. On February 15, 1843, the British Residency at Hyderabad was attacked by 8,000 troops with six guns, led by one or more of the Ameers, and the garrison of 100 men under Major Outram was driven out after a gallant resistance. Napier marched to Muttaree the following day with a force of 3,000, attacked the Ameers, who had an army of 22,000 Beloochees, on the morning of the 17th at Meeanee, six miles from Hyderabad, defeated them, and captured their whole artillery, ammunition, baggage, and considerable treasure. The British loss amounted to 256 killed and wounded. Hyderabad was occupied, but the Ameer of Meerpore was still under arms, holding a strong position at Dubba, about four miles from Hyderabad, with 20,000 men. Napier attacked him, and a battle lasting for three hours ended in the complete defeat of Shere Mahomed and the occupation of Meerpore by the British. Sir Charles Napier continued warlike operations at intervals against the hill tribes north of s.h.i.+karpore, and there can be but one opinion of the masterly way in which he handled the troops under his command. But the policy of the Governor-General was open to some difference of opinion. He had carried things with a high hand in dealing with the Ameers, and early in 1844 he was recalled by the unanimous vote of the Court of Directors of the East India Company, and Sir Henry Hardinge was appointed in his place.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _Sir F. Grant, P.R.A._} {_By permission of Messrs.
Graves, Pall Mall._
SIR HENRY, AFTERWARDS VISCOUNT, HARDINGE AND HIS STAFF AT FEROZESHAH.]
Hardinge applied himself to the peaceful preparation of railroad schemes for the development of India, but at the close of 1845 events again forced the Government forward on the path of fresh conquest. At that time the Punjab, a kingdom consisting both of independent Sikh States and those under British protection, was under nominal rule of the boy-king, Dhuleep Singh, and his mother, the Ranee; but his government at Lah.o.r.e was distracted by faction and lay at the mercy of his own powerful army. In December 1845, the Sikh forces, for some reason which has never been clearly explained, began ma.s.sing on the British frontier, and crossed the Sutlej, 15,000 or 20,000 strong, on the 13th. Sir Hugh Gough advanced by forced marches to meet them, attacked them at Moodkee and defeated them, capturing seventeen guns. The Sikhs retired to a strongly-entrenched camp at Ferozeshah, whither Gough, reinforced by Sir John Littler's division from Ferozepore, followed them on the 21st. The Sikh army was now upwards of 50,000 strong, with 108 heavy guns in fixed batteries. The British force consisted of 16,700 men and sixty-nine guns, chiefly horse artillery. There ensued one of the severest conflicts in the history of our Indian Empire. Beginning on the 21st it lasted through part of the 22nd, and ended in the gallant Sikhs being driven across the Sutlej with the loss of many killed and wounded, and no less than seventy guns. The Governor-General, Sir Henry Hardinge, acted as a volunteer, second in command to Sir Hugh Gough, in this memorable action.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _Sir F. Grant, P.R.A._} {_By permission of Messrs.