An Archdeacon is one of the busiest men in India—­especially when he is up on the hill among the sweet pine-trees.  He is the recognised guardian of public morality, and the hill captains and the semi-detached wives lead him a rare life.  There is no junketing at Goldstein’s, no picnic at the waterfalls, no games at Annandale, no rehearsals at Herr Felix von Battin’s, no choir practice at the church even, from which he can safely absent himself.  A word, a kiss, some matrimonial charm dissolved—­these electric disturbances of society must be averted.  The Archdeacon is the lightning conductor; where he is, the leaven of naughtiness passes to the ground, and society is not shocked.

In the Bishop and the ordinary padre we have far-away people of another world.  They know little of us; we know nothing of them.  We feel much constraint in their presence.  The presence of the ecclesiastical sex imposes severe restrictions upon our conversation.  The Lieutenant-Governor of the South-Eastern Provinces once complained to me that the presence of a clergyman rendered nine-tenths of his vocabulary contraband, and choked up his fountains of anecdote.  It also restricts us in the selection of our friends.  But with an Archdeacon all this is changed.  He is both of Heaven and Earth.  When we see him in the pulpit we are pleased to think that we are with the angels; when we meet him in a ball-room we are flattered to feel that the angels are with us.  When he is with us—­though, of course, he is not of us—­he is yet exceedingly like us.  He may seem a little more venerable than he is; perhaps there may be about him a grandfatherly air that his years do not warrant; he may exact a “Sir” from us that is not given to others of his worldly standing; but there is nevertheless that in his bright and kindly eye—­there is that in his side-long glance—­which by a charm of Nature transmutes homage into familiar friendship, and respect into affection.

The character of Archdeacons as clergymen I would not venture to touch upon.  It is proverbial that Archidiaconal functions are Eleusinian in their mysteriousness.  No one, except an Archdeacon, pretends to know what the duties of an Archdeacon are, so no one can say whether these duties are performed perfunctorily and inadequately, or scrupulously and successfully.  We know that Archdeacons sometimes preach, and that is about all we know.  I know an Archdeacon in India who can preach a good sermon—­I have heard him preach it many a time, once on a benefit night for the Additional Clergy Society.  It wrung four annas from me—­but it was a terrible wrench.  I would not go through it again to have every living graduate of St. Bees and Durham disgorged on our coral strand.

From my saying this do not suppose that I am Mr. Whitley Stokes, or Babu Keshub Chundra Sen.  I am a Churchman, beneath the surface, though a pellicle of inquiry may have supervened.  I am not with the party of the Bishop, nor yet am I with Sir J.S., or Sir A.C.  I abide in the Limbo of Vanity, as a temporary arrangement, to study the seamy side of Indian politics and morality, to examine misbegotten wars and reforms with the scalpel, Stars of India with the spectroscope, and to enjoy the society of half-a-dozen amusing people to whom the Empire of India is but a wheel of fortune.