A Church Conference on Foreign Missions was held on Tues-
day in the Hall of the Cannon-Street Hotel, and was remarkable for the importance assigned to India, and for the expression given to an obviously growing idea that more must be done to create an independent native Ministry. The native con- verts everywhere, and especially in India, hang on to the Missionaries and to the parent Churches too much. The Bishop. of Edinburgh seems inclined to ordain natives with- out too much attention to culture,—which must have been wanting to the early Christian preachers,—and distinctly deprecated visits by native Christians to Great Britain. The contrast of the two civilisations was too violent for their minds. The ancient idea of not requiring candidates to violate caste was strongly sup- ported, and the Bishop of London even recommended that the whole Missionary strength of the Churches at home should be directed to India. Some of these ideas are mutually destructive; for example, if the work is to be entrusted to native Missionaries, there is no need for such a crowd of European teachers ; but the central idea of the meeting is, we feel certain, sound. India will be converted by native apostles, or not converted at all, and every impediment, therefore, in the way of Christian teaching through natives must be removed. The principal one is the assumed necessity of passing every native teacher through a sort of intellectual mill, instead of allowing him to take his own way and judging only by results. We want, first of all, to know in what form a native Christianity left to itself would develope, and we know nothing about it, and never shall while any de- parture from English Christianity is considered a relapse towards the ancient creed.
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