Untitled - Electric Scotland

CHAPTER XIII.
THE COLONIAL CHURCH BISHOP COLENSO.
1 86 1 -66.
BISHOP TAIT had from early years been prominent in
the cause of Foreign Missions. It will be remembered
that as fellow and tutor of Balliol, he joined with three
others in founding a private society in Oxford for the
discussion of missionary questions, and, both at Rugby
and Carlisle, he did all in his power to awaken and
stimulate an interest in the subject. His one and only
appearance as a speaker upon a London platform, before
he became Bishop, was at the Church Missionary Society s
Annual Meeting in Exeter Hall in 1855. The following
letter to his sister belongs to the same year :-
"CARLISLE, 6th Aug. 1855.
"... Have you read Sydney Smith s Life? There is a
mixture in his character of earnest common-sense and
strange
fun. On the whole I think he will be thought more highly of in
consequence of the publication of the Life, though it may be
doubted whether his religion was not injured by his strong sense
of the ludicrous. I cannot forgive him for his anti-missionary
articles in the Edinburgh Review, By the way, have you read a
charming little book of Miss Tucker s, The Southern Cross and
Crown, giving an account of the wonderful progress of Christi
anity in New Zealand ? I think it does one good to see the way
in which Christianity presents itself in its simplicity to those who
have never heard of it before. Its great features stand out in
bold relief. And this is the way in which it best secures the
mind from being worried by little matters to dwell on its grand
doctrines, which are so full of comfort for those who are sincere."
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