fierce contentions of their chiefs for supremacy, rank, and power; by the fact that the Hindoos, disgusted and deceived, deserted the cause; by the perfidy of the Mohammedans in the hour of their triumph; by the heroism and endurance of the British soldiers, invincible not only against overwhelming odds, but over the difficulties of climate, season, sickness, and deficiency of resources of all kinds. Yet, after all, while gratefully and cordially admitting to the full every one of these considerations, and all the aid which they involved in the terrible struggle, even wicked men in India in 1857 and 1858 were constrained to admit, and were prompt to acknowledge, that any or all of these combined could not and did not rescue us;—that our salvation was, without a doubt, entirely due to the special interposition of Almighty God. It was the divine help that gave England's cause the victory, and gladly and gratefully did they, saint and sinner together, raise their private and public Ebenezers to Him who alone had saved them!
No attribute of the Almighty could take part with the Sepoy, the Brahmin, or the Mogul. Every hope for India was bound up with the defeat of their cruel, self-interested, and wicked purposes. Grateful India herself will yet place among her highest mercies the mighty overthrow of 1858.
Mr. Rees has truly shown that the merits of this contest, on the part of the natives, was a frantic fear and hatred of the growing influence of Christianity; that it was not a war of the oppressed against the oppressors, of a nation rising against their rulers, or of Hindustanees against Englishmen; on the contrary, that it was a war of fanatical religionists against Christians, of barbarism against civilization, of error and darkness against truth and light. Had it been different—had patriotism prompted the rebellion—had the natives, as one nation, determined to shake off the yoke of the foreigner, and had they conducted their war like soldiers and brave men, instead of acting the part of cowardly assassins, then indeed might they have enlisted sympathy for their cause among the civilized nations of the earth, and found defenders and advocates among the people of England themselves.
