Now, if ever there was a case in which this stewardship was conspicuous, it is in England’s relationship to India. It was placed in our hands by God himself. When our merchants first settled on the banks of the Hooghly, there was no thought of territorial possession. In their first acquisitions of property they were influenced merely by motives of self-defence. They were compelled to occupy districts surrounding them, in order to protect themselves from aggression. I fear that the same cannot be said of our more recent annexations; but it was most unquestionably the case when India was first placed in our hands. Our first merchants had no thought of a kingdom, but the providence of God gave it us. Look, again, at the wonderful power with which that vast empire has been held. Look at the two countries on the map—the one a little island on the western ocean, and the other a vast territory 15,000 miles distant, extending thousands of miles in every direction, and supporting a population of not less than 160,000,000 souls. Remember, again, that India contains many large, powerful, and warlike nations, and you will see that there must have been a power far beyond the hand of man which has enabled a little handful of Englishmen to hold under control so large a proportion of the inhabited world. As the Lord gave the stewardship, so the Lord has likewise preserved the power. But look again at the religious condition of the two countries; one, being the centre of Asiatic idolatry, with its vast population sunk in idolatrous worship, and degraded by the most soul-abasing superstitions, while the other has been the centre of Christian light, with a greater amount of Christian truth, and greater opportunities for its spread than any other nation in the world. Is there not enough in this to teach us the character and purport of our stewardship? Idolatrous India is placed under the government of professedly Christian England. This vast mass of heathen darkness is brought into direct contact with the clearest light to be found in Christendom, and is it too much to conclude that the stewardship was a Christian stewardship, and that the great purpose for which it was entrusted to our care was that the scriptural light of England might be freely communicated, and shed its beams in the midst of the deep darkness of Indian heathenism?