Dr. J. E. C. Welldon, the new Bishop of Calcutta,
who left, England for his diocese on Tuesday, has taken the rather unusual coarse of addressing a letter to the Times upon his view of the relation of the Church to Indian life. She should not, he thinks, be a missionary Church, but should regard all faiths as "approximating to the perfect truth of Christianity," a remark which we fear will not make the Bishop persona grata to the great missionary bodies. It the native faiths are approximating to divine truth—whiok we do not in the least believe—why should those whe hold them be hurried on their upward path P With Dr. Welldon's second thought, that the special business of his Church in India is to make the dominant minority religions, and so Christianise the State, we cordially agree, but we fear he takes himself a little too seriously. There is no State Church in India, the Government chaplains are not a very potent body, the best employed of them being practically military officers, and the new Bishop will find on arrival that his influence is even more limited than that of a Bishop in an English diocese. We shall be curious, if he writes occasionally to the Times, as he promises, to see what his ideas are after four or five years of practical experience.
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