collect a great amount of
information, as well as attending to the regulation of matters at head-
quarters. He kept up more formality and state than Bishop Heber had
done; and, of course, as the one had been censured for his simplicity, so
the other was found fault with for pomp and stiffness. But these were
minor points, chiefly belonging to the character of the two men, whose
whole natures were in curious accordance with their prize performances at
Oxford,--the one with all the warmth, fire, and animation of the poet of
Palestine, sensitive to every impression, and making all serve to light
his altar-flame; the other all common-sense, sincere, deep, and
laborious, but with a narrower range of sympathies, and afraid of all
that might distract attention from the one great subject. General
literature had no charms for Wilson. He is believed never to have read
one of Scott's poems or novels; and the playful mirth that enlivened all
Heber's paths was not with him, though he had the equable cheerfulness of
a faithful servant doing his Lord's work. His daughter, soon after his
arrival, married her cousin, Josiah Bateman, his chaplain (and
biographer), and thus continued to be the mistress of her father's house.

On the Whitsunday of 1833 the Bishop baptized one of those Hindoo
gentlemen who are among the most satisfactory of Christian converts; they
are free from the suspicion of interested motives which has always
attached to the pariahs and low-caste people who hung about Serampore and
its dependent stations, and, justly or unjustly, were accused of turning
Christians when they had exhausted other resources of idleness and
knavery. A curious instance of a thorough conversion happened the same
year. A lad, educated like most other well-to-do Hindoos in the schools
of the Church Missionary at Mirzampore, when about fifteen, became
persuaded of the saving grace of Christianity, and determined to be
baptized and openly forsake his idols. His parents persecuted him, and
he fled to a friend, a Hindoo convert; but he was seized by his
relations, and the case was referred to the Supreme Court, who decided
that the father's power over the son must not be interfered with; and the
poor boy was dragged away, clinging to the barrister's table, amid the
shouts of the heathen and the tears of the Christians. The boy remained
staunch, and three years later came again and received baptism; but his
sufferings had injured his health,