Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877Kennedy, James
History
Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877
Kennedy, James
India -- Description and travel; India -- History -- British occupation, 1765-1947 -- Biography; Missionaries; Missions -- India
Among the pioneers of modern missionary work in India the late Bishop
Corrie, of Madras, has a high and honoured name. He was one of the small
band of Government chaplains who gave themselves heart and soul to the
work of diffusing the gospel among the native population. Henry Martyn
is the best known of this band, and with him men like Brown, Thomason,
and Corrie deserve to be held in everlasting remembrance. Mr. Corrie
was, in 1817, the chaplain of the European community in Benares.
Previous to that time a rich native, Rajah Jay Narayan, had established
and endowed a school in the part of the city inhabited chiefly by
Bengalees. This Rajah formed so high an opinion of Mr. Corrie, and of
his ability to carry on the school efficiently, that he asked him to
undertake its management. Mr. Corrie accepted the offer in the name of
the Church Missionary Society, whose sanction to the measure he had
obtained, and to it the school was made over by formal deed of gift in
1818. Under the name of Jay Narayan's School, and afterwards of Jay
Narayan's College, it has continued down to our day; and it has done
much for the education, on Christian principles, of successive
generations of Benares youth. A Mr. Adlington was the first head-master,
and a short time afterwards a missionary was sent. He was succeeded by
others, but owing to their failure of health little was done on to the
fourth decade of the century, except the securing of suitable ground and
the erection of mission-houses at Segra, in the immediate suburbs of the
city on its southwestern side. This place had formerly been noted for
the thieves and thugs that infested it. In 1839 the two missionaries at
Segra were the Rev. William Smith and the Rev. C. B. Leupolt. Mr. Smith
reached India in 1830, and after spending fifteen months in Goruckpore,
on the borders of Nepal, was transferred to Benares in 1832. He was
joined by Messrs. Knorpp and Leupolt in 1833. The two Church
missionaries in Benares in 1839, Messrs. Smith and Leupolt, laboured for
many years afterwards with singular devotedness for the spiritual good
of the people. As it is invidious to make comparisons, I will not say
that they were foremost in the first rank; but all who knew them will
bear me out in saying they attained a high place in the first rank of
the missionary band.
[Sidenote: LONDON MISSION IN BENARES.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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