the station at Cawnpore, nor continue to him his reputed father's immense pension--the refusal of the royal honor more than of the royal pension-sunk into the soul of this Hindoo, and he determined, if the opportunity ever came, he would have revenge. He was in a state of mind to sympathize with the parties in Delhi who originated this great conspiracy against English rule, and it was understood that the emperor, as the center of that conspiracy, promised him that if he would aid in the overthrow of the English government, the title of the Peishwa should be honored as it was of old, and he should be placed on the throne of his reputed father. The word Peishwa was in India somewhat equivalent to the word Pope in Roman Catholicism. The hundred millions of Hindoos in that land looked to this man as the head of their religion.

In addition to this, there entered into the elements of this development the priesthood of both religions. They were terrorized by the growth of education and the spread of the Christian faith, and at the restraints put by Christian law and civilization upon the horrible customs of the country, such as infanticide, Suttee, Juggernaut, naked fakirs, and the deeds and circumstances of a cruel heathenism. These priestly parties circulated the most enormous falsehoods, to misrepresent the purposes of the English government in regard to their faith.

The fourth element was their immense caste army. For long years the East India Company had fondled this caste army, respected its institutions and given it a dignity which otherwise they never would have realized. At last it became so that a low caste man had but little chance among them, and the whole Bengal army was considered to be composed almost entirely of high caste Hindoos. They came at last to dictate to their government, and to demand consideration and respect for their caste prejudices and rules, until they became masters. That army of Bengal was 190,000 strong, irrespective of the other armies in the other presidencies. They were a splendid body of men, invincible to anything in the east as long as led by English officers. Besides these 190,000 men in the regular army, were the "contingents," permitted to be held and used by the various governments over which England exerted its protectorate, so that there must have been something like 400,000 armed men in combination with this great effort when it was made. To meet this we had in India at that time 45,000 English soldiers, and like our own army they were away on the borders and up toward Cabul. We had not a single English soldier in the whole northern valley of the Ganges, with the exception of half a regiment at Lucknow and half a regiment at Cawnpore. You can see at once how completely we were in the power of this caste army. They were ignorant-perhaps not one in a hundred could read or write; they were superstitious-their consciences were completely under the control of the priests and they would believe everything that was said by these priests. The forts, the arsenals, the treasuries of the empire, were in their hands. They had any amount of money and of munitions of war. They were stupid enough to believe the falsehoods of the priests and fakirs, that if they would only wipe out the handful of English people then in the country, England never would renew them, and the land would fall, as a result, into the hands of the Hindoos and the Mohammedans. The East India Company and the old fogies would accept no warning. They fully believed the Sepoys. They said: "They have served us one hundred and fifty years, and what motive have they now to be unfaithful?" The result was that they discouraged every attempt to educate or Christianize them. I am sorry to say, but it is historical, that I have known Lord Canning, the Governor-General, before the Sepoy rebellion broke out, to dismiss from Her Majesty's service a Sepoy that had become a Christian at

Umritser, and blamed his commanding officer, and, I believe, reduced him for having been present at the baptism. Such was the manner in which the English government then were determined to deal, as far as English public opinion would permit them, with the question of evangelizing that great Sepoy power. God was ignored, and idolatry was patronized.

The next item is that there were no railroads and no bridges-in fact the Hindoos never think of making either; these improvements have to be made by foreigners; and the time chosen for the development of the rebellion was the worst part of the year for the English constitution, just as the great heat was coming on.

Now you have the facts-the condition of the Delhi emperor, the state of dissatisfaction of the Nana Sahib, the conspiracy, uniting for the time these heads of the leading creeds. Then, as their instruments to work out the result, this immense caste army, this bigoted priesthood, with all the opportunities of every sort that were required to do it successfully and well, and this, too, at a time of year when they could take every advantage of the European constitution in the hottest season of the year. I come now to its development. These were the preparatory facts that made it possible. When I entered the country in the fall of 1856 there were no hotels; I was dependent for a night's lodging and a meal of food on the liberality of the English officers wherever I went, and grander hospitality no stranger could desire than was ever ready for the traveler there. Everywhere I went there was anxiety. I saw it on the faces of the ladies and in the looks of the English officers. I made bold to inquire what was the matter. They said there was a something, an under movement working; they could not exactly say what it was, but they realized that the Sepoys were dissatisfied; the fakirs were busy, the priesthood was insolent, and they feared that they were standing over a volcano that might at any hour burst beneath their feet. The Delhi conspirators would no longer trust their documents to the usual postal facilities, so they made arrangements by which the fakirs became the living post office of the conspiracy, and when we were in our beds at night, little dreaming of danger, those fanatical priests were sitting with groups of Sepoys around them, preparing for that dreadful hour.

The year I went to India saw the introduction of the Enfield rifle there-a weapon that needs a special cartridge which has to be lubricated. The Enfield rifle brought "the greased cartridge," a cartridge suitable to it, and these fakirs, who went over the country preparing for this combination and our destruction, told the Sepoys that they had information from a contractor who prepared those cartridges that they were lubricated by a compound made of bullock's fat and hog's lard. That seems a very simple statement to you, but I will venture to say, there could not be put into a single sentence an influence that would more thoroughly alarm both Hindoo and Mohammedan than did that short sentence. It has to be explained. The bull is sacred among the Hindoos. The mythological allusion I dare not fully explain. If you walk into the streets of Benares to-day you will see these Brahmanee bulls as white as silver, with a great hunch on their back, walking about the streets. Nobody owns them. They are the chariots of the god, Siva, and carry him on his midnight rides wherever he wants to go. So they wander into the temples and are fed by the offerings of the people, and they multiply until they become troublesome, but you dare not touch them because they are sacred. I have sat and watched the operations in the crowded thoroughfare. One of these bulls will come along, his sides shaking with fat; he is so used to people that he will not do them any harm, still he feels as though he had the right of way, and if he pushes you over you are not to complain. If

he passes by a grain store it is an opportunity for him. The shops are not like yours. They are not enclosed, but are simple counters placed in the street under a straw shed, and the merchant sits with his legs under him, tailor fashion, and a stick with a hook in it by which he can draw his grain baskets to him. The bull comes along and dips his head into a basket of grain and commences to enjoy himself. Now, the Hindoo merchant dare not strike him. I have seen them jump off in their anxiety, and run around where the bull was, and take up a handful and offer it to him. It is more easy for the animal to eat in that way than to have his head over a deep basket, and as he eats the Hindoo will walk along with him until he gets him by his own store and pass him on to his next door neighbor, and there leave him. [Laughter.]

Now, to a people who act in this way, what a horror it was to hear that one of these bulls had actually been slaughtered, and his fat taken to lubricate a cartridge that must be taken by the Sepoy to his lips and bitten off before he could pass it into his gun. No, he would die any death before he would touch it. It equally affected the Mussulman, who has just as much antipathy to the hog as the Hindoo has reverence for the bull, and there is not an orthodox Mussulman in India who would touch a hog with a ten-foot pole. I do not wonder at it, for the hog is there in his native land. [Laughter.] And more hateful looking cattle you never saw than Hindoo hogs; they are tall and slab-sided, very long in the snout, very few hairs upon them, look as though they had the scrofula, and when I add that they are the public scavengers, you can imagine how low down a man must be in India before he follows the example of the prodigal son and feeds the swine. Now, the idea to this Mussulman Sepoy, or officer, that this hateful pig, that Mohammed curses from snout to tail, had been killed, and his lard employed to lubricate the cartridges he must handle! No; he, too, like the Hindoo Sepoy, would die any death, but that cartridge he would not touch. Sir John Hearsey, at Barrackpore, near Calcutta, thought he would test this. It was all talk, and would of course evaporate. So he ordered parade next morning, and the cartridges were ready. The men whose duty it was to serve them were called out, and there sat General Hearsey. He said to the first man: "Fill your pouch." The man looked in the face of his general, and said, “Never!" "What," says he, "you will not fill your pouch when I order you?" He answered, "No, sir; I will not." He attempted to load his gun and shoot his general, and had to be cut down. The men sympathized with him, and not one of his comrades would arrest him. That regiment was dismissed on the spot from the service of Her Majesty, and they went through Upper India, and wherever they appeared they were the heroes of the hour. They had defied the government and disobeyed a general on parade, and had come off scotfree.

fire to the houses, and they killed the occupants as they came out, and then marched for Delhi--the headquarters of the great rebellion. The brigade there joined them and perpetrated the same fearful cruelties. Every English and Christian life was sacrificed. The Mohammedan emperor was proclaimed, and seven thousand men stood ready to do his bidding. Fortunately for us and the rest of India, it was three weeks in advance of their plans.

Allow me here a little personal narrative. We heard of the fall of Meerut and Delhi. We were probably a hundred and eighty miles or more from them on the other side of the Ganges, north. The hope of the people in Bareilly was that the matter had ended, and that there would be no more of it. The other stations did not rise; they waited. There came a few days afterward, to my home, the adjutant of the brigade, informing me that Brigadier Troup requested me and my family to leave the place. I had been holding a Thursday evening meeting for prayer with them, and very precious influences had operated on the minds of the civilians and the military officers who attended, and one or two probably experienced a change of heart during the ten weeks before these events occurred. This good man, the adjutant, since then the most magnificent friend of our missionary labors in India, Colonel Gowan, told me that General Troup had reason to believe that our overthrow was only a question of very brief time. He said "he had ordered out of the station every non-combatant, and that none but himself and the military officers were to remain and face the result." I asked my wife what she thought about the matter, and she said if the civilians chose to leave the station, all right; we were missionaries and ought to trust Christ, and that she could not see the way clear to leave the place; that we ought to remain at our post and trust to our Heavenly Father's care. So we gave that reply to the adjutant. The general sent him back again with a more imperative message, and found we were still of the same mind (though we prayed together on the second occasion, and asked God to direct us); my wife's mind and my own being still more made up that we should stay where we were. The adjutant returned and made his report. Soon after the general himself came down to our house and said, "Butler, you are mad." Well, I said, "General, why do you say that?" And he replied, "I know these people and you do not know them, and I tell you there is a dreadful day ahead, and you can not answer to your Board in New York for your imprudence if you stay here to be cut to pieces. storm.

Go and shelter yourself from the approaching And then when it is over, come back and live and do good. Now, if that is not enough, I want you to understand that in this country military officers are absolute, and in a moment like this can do as they please, and if you refuse to act as I advise, I will order a guard to take you out of the city." Of course there was no alternative, and I made arrangements, and under the cover of night, we left Bareilly. Before we started I went to bid the kind general farewell. He had been living a very rough and rugged life, and he had learned Hindostanee so thoroughly that he could swear in it like a trooper; he knew that his roughness of language would make him a conspicuous object for their vengeance when the hour came, but he had lately turned to God, and sought grace and mercy. We sat in his window and looked out where the old flag was flying over the quarters of the artillery and cavalry and infantry. He observed: "Well, Butler, here I must stay with my officers until the bell strikes. We may not meet again, but I want you to remem

now, good-bye." The facts, which of course are too long to recount here, are narrated in my work on this subject called "The Land of the Vedas." We made our way through that fearful jungle to Nainee Tal, as is there narrated.

All

seemed quiet for a few days after, and my wife raised the question, why did we leave our position? Why not go back again? But one morning the dreadful intelligence reached us that at eleven o'clock Sunday, the day before, the Sepoys had risen, and the very first man they shot down was the senior general, who had just returned; he had gone away for a few days to inspect his province and thus furnished Brigadier Troup the opportunity to do as he did. I met him in the jungle, and the old man declared that Troup was mad to act as he did. Yet that man, who had such confidence in his Sepoys, was the first man that they shot dead. They wrought ruin all over that cantonment, and murdered right and left all that could not escape.

There was a very remarkable fact associated with Brigadier Troup's escape. When he saw them coming from the flag station (the whole place being in a crescent you could see every movement), his groom came rushing in and exclaimed, "Fly! fly!" He asked, "What is the use of flying?" The groom replied, "They are coming to murder you, Sahib. I have been watching for these three weeks, and I could not speak to you sooner, but there has never been an hour, day or night, that one of your chargers has not been saddled and bridled ready to be mounted, and I have one now at the back door, and you can save yourself. Ride right in the line of your house, and before you have to turn the road you will be out of the reach of their rifles." Encouraged by the words of his Hindoo servant, the General went out, sprang on his charger, and rode away. A half dozen rifles were soon leveled at him, but he escaped, and came to us. He lived to be the successor of General Havelock in command of the heroes that were led to the relief of Lucknow. The first member that ever joined our mission became a martyr that day. Her name was Maria. Poor girl! she was the first of her race and sex that gave her hand to our mission in the valley of the Ganges; but, although she died that martyr's death, I felt satisfied that she was prepared for the transition to the martyr's crown.

A man who was deputy judge under our dear friend Judge Robertson, drawing a pension for thirty years' service from the British government, on account of his having royal blood in his veins, was called to the head of the rebel government. He had made all his arrangements, and he told some of his friends that he was bitterly disappointed when he found the missionary had escaped, because he intended that he should hang him and his wife and children along side of Judge Robertson and the rest of the civilians in the station, whom he expected to find. I visited him ten months afterwards and tried to preach Christ to him, as loaded with chains he awaited his trial and doom.

Now, in the next place, let me say what we did for our defense. There we were, after escaping, as it were, by a miracle, our dear brothers in Bareilly hanged, their bodies dishonored and thrown into the streets. We resolved to defend our position to the last, under the lead of a noble man, who has since been a munificent friend to our mission, Sir Henry Ramsey, the governor of the hill stations. We assembled together, and everyone who had more than one weapon divided with those who had none. There were eighty-seven of us, and we found we had one hundred and thirteen ladies and children to protect. I suppose no commanding officer ever inspected such an awkward looking squad as we were. There was the old man of eighty years of age, Sir William Richards, down to the young man of eighteen, but I tell you we were all very resolute, and determined to be heroes if the opportunity was given. [Applause.] We knew that Kahn Bahadur had sent a brigade after us, and we could actually see, about six miles down and five thousand feet under us, the outlying picket of our raging foes. But, as we could be approached, so far as they were concerned, on only one road, our first effort was to cut

down that road where there was a deep precipice of some forty yards long, so that it was only a yard wide, and only one could come on there at a time. We barricaded both ends, and were ready for an emergency; so we stood together to be reviewed and receive our address from this noble Christian man. His words were few. He said: "Gentlemen, here we are, and England will remember us, and if we can only hold out a few months against these foes of ours down there, we will get relief; but, gentlemen, here are a hundred and thirteen ladies and children to protect, and the last man of us must die before one of these bloodyhanded Sepoys shall pass this point." [Applause.] I had an old musket-if it had been an Enfield rifle I should have had more confidence in it. I filled my pockets with cartridges, and, for my part, resolved in the name of God, than that awful result should come I would fire off the last shot, and then turn and lay about me with the butt end of that gun. I went home carrying the musket on my shoulder; my wife met me at the door and exclaimed, "I thought I had married a preacher, and not a soldier."

The rainy season came on. We were nearly out of provisions and nearly starved; we had no credit, until Sir Henry Ramsey created a credit by actually making money from pieces of paper, which he signed for so much, to be redeemed at seven per cent. when Delhi fell, and the people had so much confidence in him that they took that paper and accepted it as cash.

The famine of news was worse than the famine for food ever was. For five months not a ray of light from the outside world ever reached us. We were even told that we were the last of the Christian life in India, and the probability was, if that was so, our own end was only a question of time. There we stood, with nothing to do but think and watch, and consider the circumstances under which we were placed, given up for dead. Dr. Duff wrote a biography of me during this time, he being in Calcutta ; two years afterwards I had the pleasure, over his tea-table, of thanking him for the singular satisfaction of knowing what my friends would say of me if I was dead and gone. [Applause.]

I come now to the painful part of my narrative. If hell was ever let loose on earth it was let loose in 1857. IfI were to read you the proclamations on the subject—some of them are in my book, already referred to-proclamations so atrocious, issued by the Nana Sahib and the Great Mogul, it would curdle your blood. They invoked the aid of all the powers of heaven and hell to help them.

[Dr. Butler here showed the audience two or three of the knives and instruments used by the Sepoys in their terrible work, and explained how one was used for decapitating human beings at a single stroke, and the other for ripping open the bodies of men and women, and then proceeded as follows:]

Now I come to the interposition of Almighty God in this work; I am sure I will have your sympathy, even if I tax your patience a little longer. After I have related the circumstances, I ask you to look at them and see if you can account for the result, in the face of those circumstances. on any other ground than the certain interposition of Almighty God.

First of all--His providence had prepared grand and good men to work out our redemption; men as rulers, generals, commanders, men like Havelock, Montgomery, and Ramsey.

Second-He kept the Punjaub quiet, that northwest province, and instead of the soldiers joining the Bengal Sepoys and wiping us out, they stood fast to the British government, and sent troops and munitions to Delhi, to help the little English army there that was trying so hard tɔ conquer the rebellion at its own headquarters.

Third-He held the Newab of Rampore, and the Rajah of Nepaul to their allegiance; the result was that our two roads on the north and west, held by those respective parties, were never assaulted, and we had only to defend the one leading to Bareilly.

Fourth-He confounded the Sepoys, as to the intended commencement and combination of their purposes.

Fifth-He demented those counsels by fierce contentions for place and power and plunder, until they distracted the unfortunate emperor himself, and he cursed the day that he ever called them to his aid.

Sixth-He left them without a competent leader all through the struggle.

Seventh-So demented were these Mohammedans, that they could not wait even for the consummation of their authority, but they must go into the Hindoo temples, and desecrate and destroy them and their idols, so that the hundred and eighty millions of the Hindoos fell off from the conspiracy, disgusted with the perfidy of their Mohammedan allies.

Eighth-He opened a way for our escape, so that not more than one in ten that they had intended to doom were actually cut off.

Ninth-He closed the Persian war so that Sir James Outram and Sir Henry Lawrence were able to leave the Persian Gulf and come round to Calcutta, even without knowing of our terrible condition, just in time to work out our salvation. [Applause.]

Tenth-Lord Elgin, formerly Governor-General of Canada, was on his way to China to impose certain obligations on that government. Just in the hour of our emergency, that fleet was off Cape Comorin, and our governor general was enabled to intercept it and turn its force in for our relief.

Eleventh-He covered the heads of our rescuers in the day of battle, and showed, in the experience of General Havelock, that he could save by a few as surely as by many. I want to utter a few words of justice to this heroic and saintly man. The whole force of his command was only 3,211 men. In the worst season of the year he had to pass through his great struggle, when he had more to fear from sunstroke than from the bullets of the enemy. I have gone over the roads that he marched on for nine years, and have wondered how, at such a period of the year, he could lead his heroes on such a mission. Nine hundred miles through a hostile country, three cities to take and seventy-five thousand men to face, more than twenty-one to one, and yet Jehovah of hosts gave him the victory. We talk of Thermopylæ, and its deeds of classic fame, but history will yet do justice to the heroes that Sir Henry Havelock led. His objects were two-fold. He had to relieve the station of Cawnpore. .In that station was only half a regiment of British soldiers under the command of General Wheeler; two hundred and fifty ladies and a very large number of children had gone to him for protection from the surrounding stations because he had a handful of English troops that could be relied upon. They were exposed for four months to the fire which Nana Sahib and twenty-five thousand Sepoys brought to bear upon their defenseless position, for unfortunately the general made a mistake in leaving the fort and going to the open, and throwing up a few breastworks about two unfinished barracks. He fought there, and there the ladies were defended under a wall not higher than this platform, during those June and July months, under the dreadful sun of India, its fierce rays pouring down upon them day by day; living on a handful of corn and a gill of water (drawn at night at the risk of a human life), until those ladies were denuded of their very clothing, for they had to puli off strip after strip to bind up the wounds of the noble men who were fighting and dying to save them. [Applause.] General Havelock wanted to reach them in time, and beyond them,

forty-three miles further in, was the residency of Lucknow, the center of a city of four hundred thousand people, defended by another Sepoy army. The seven hundred British soldiers under Sir Henry Lawrence, who commanded that defense, were reduced to a mere handful by the time Havelock reached them, and he in passing through that city lost 535 men and had also to surrender his wounded; yet he won his way and forced his passage until the thunder of the approaching cannon announced to the beleaguered men and women that relief was coming. It is true that he was shut in and had to remain until November, until the larger army, under Sir Colin Campbell, relieved them all and brought them forth. What an hour that was! Noble General Outram, though senior in command, refused to take the honor of the command of the evacuation of that residency, and conduct them out into the open, where the English army were waiting to hail those rescued men and women, and so Sir Henry Havelock conducted it, though he was dying on his horse; only five days after the evacuation he laid down in his tent and yielded up his life. When dying he called for his companion in arms, and said he, "Sir James, we have fought together on many a hard battlefield, and now I have to meet the last enemy that man has to meet upon earth, and, Sir James, I want you to see how a Christian man can die." [Applause.]

"There rests that noble warrior, Rests from the two-fold strife, The battle-fields of India,

The battle-fields of life. Victorious first at Futtypore, Victorious at Lucknow,

The gallant chief of gallant men,

Is more than conqueror now!"

I know I am taxing your patience, but I want to give you one fact more.

I went up to imperial Delhi, the head of all this terrible rebellion. I entered its gates at midnight, and when our driver knocked on the door the English sentinel looked out and seeing a white face, threw the gate open and we drove in. I.did not know that the city was empty, but with the exception of that fortified palace all the rest was deserted, from six in the evening until six in the morning, and when we reached the traveler's rest-house I took my lantern in my hand and went out to see the besieged city. But one year before the "street of silver" was probably the most splendid street in the East. Everything that was beautiful was found there; a broad and shaded boulevard. But I saw as I passed down to the palace at the dead hour of night that every door and window was opened and with the exception of the wretched cats and dogs, as they prowled among the ruins, there was not a sign of life. I came to the Katwalli, the place where they collected the Christians on the 13th of May and killed them in the presence of the raging multitude of blasphemers, and as I stood on the ground that drank their blood and realized that I was there alone, with the darkness of midnight about me, no light but the lamp I held, oh! how my very flesh seemed to creep! Early the next morning I went to the palace to look for a friend who took me to show me the thrilling scenes around us. We went in and saw the emperor awaiting his trial. He was sitting on a native bedstead, with his legs tucked under him, eating his dinner out of brass vessels with his fingers in Oriental fashion, and two English soldiers, each with a drawn bayonet in his hand, were standing one at each side of him. To one of them I remarked, "Why do you stand with your bayonets drawn? That man can't run away." "Oh, we are not here to take care of him so much as we are to protect him," said he. I asked, "What do you mean?" "Well, sir, every hour in the day women come to see the man in whose name their husbands were sacrificed; and husbands come too to look into the countenance of the man