| Description | Gives view of 'Calcutta' Corresponding Committee [Kolkata] that the two missionaries should come to Bengal and that Aldeen is unsuitable for purchase, but agrees that CMS should possess a site for missionary headquarters; they have a school ready for opening on a site near Calcutta [Kolkata], given by a 'native', and are only waiting for the report on the Lancasterian experimental school superintended by May of the London Missionary Society at Chinsurah; government pays May 600 rupees per month; T. has plan to buy a small piece of land adjoining CMS school site and build house there; perhaps the two new missionaries can be placed there.
10 Jan 1816: has now heard from missionaries in Ceylon [Sri Lanka]; the Lancasterian system gives a limited power of reading and writing, but only trifling knowledge or means of obtaining knowledge; the bishop has no jurisdiction or concern with any but the Company's chaplains, and will not allow missionaries to preach in any place licensed by himself; he is not disposed to promote missionary labours; it seems anomalous that he will not acknowledge regularly-ordained clergy working in India by licence of the East India Company; T. suggests a plan for integrating mission work with the bishop's authority, but thinks it hopeless with the present missionaries; the bishop has deprived T. of Robertson's assistance and will not allow him to use Greenwood, as he is not a regular chaplain; stresses the importance of sending out really spiritual men as chaplains; Robertson at Dum-Dum is keeping the Hindustani school going against Corrie's return; the missionaries are not discouraged, and, if they are humble and faithful Church of England labourers, he believes the bishop will come to depend on them; Munsoor has turned out thoroughly worthless. |