Auckland, another Governor General, offering 2,000 rupees ($1,000) at the Muttra shrine, and being highly praised in a native newspaper for his piety! Lord Ellenborough, in 1842, ordering the gates of the Temple of Somnath (carried off by a Mohammedan conqueror eight hundred years ago) to be carried back hundreds of miles, with military honors, and his issuing a proclamation, announcing the heathenish act, “to all the Princes, Chiefs, and People of India.” They also refer to the conduct of Lord Dalhousie, later still, paying reverence to an idol, by changing his dress on entering the heathen temple of Umritsur, and making an offering to it of 5,000 rupees, ($2,500.) These things were done by Indian Viceroys, while Government servants were required to collect pilgrims' tax, administer the estates of idol temples, and pay allowances to officials connected with heathen shrines; and even military officers had to parade troops and present arms in honor of idol processions!
These things were so. The writer has seen (and could give the name of the place, and of the commanding officer responsible) British cannon loaned, and ammunition supplied, to fire a salute in honor of a heathen idol, and that on the holy Sabbath day! Christian Englishmen in India groaned over these acts, officers in the army threw up their commissions sooner than obey such orders, and men in high positions protested against them as sins of the deepest dye, fearing that God would “visit for these things,” and appealed to the British public to stop the madness of the East India Company and their servants in India. When I entered India there was not over one native Christian in Government employ in all the North-west Provinces. While that very year the only Sepoy who, up to that time, had ever become a Christian (save one, mentioned by Heber, who was also dismissed) was, by order of the Governor-General, removed from the army because he had become a Christian, and the commanding officer and the civil judge who attended at the baptism were reproved by his Excellency for doing so! His object, in this mistaken policy, was to prevent the discussion and prejudice which would result, and convince the Sepoy
