I
For at least seventeen centuries Christianity has found a home in India. The Syrian Church was the first to gather converts, and it still exists as a separate sect of 300,000 souls in a small part of Malabar. Roman Catholicism, also, has had here its six centuries of struggles and varied fortunes, and now claims its 1,500,000 followers. On July 9, 1906, the Protestants celebrated the bicentenary of the landing of their first two missionaries at Tranquebar, on the Coromandel coast. Ziegenbalg and Plutscho were truly men of God, and inaugurated a work which to-day has its ramifications in every part of this vast peninsula.
They introduced a new era of missionary effort for India. Former endeavours were ecclesiastical. Great men, indeed, had wrought for Christ in this land; but their chief aim had been to establish a religion of forms and ceremonies. In the matter of ritual in religion, Hinduism has little to learn from, and has much to suggest to, western ecclesiastics. The early failure of our faith to secure marked and permanent success in this land finds its chief cause here.
Ziegenbalg began in the right way. He identified himself with the people; he studied well their language, and hastened to incarnate his faith in vernacular literature; and, above all, he proceeded at once to translate into the language of the people the Word of God. Never before had the Bible been translated into an Indian tongue. After thirteen years of service, this great missionary died; but he left to his successors the heritage of a vernacular Bible, which has wrought mightily in South India for the redemption of the people. He also set the pace for subsequent missionaries of his persuasion, who, in these two centuries, have practically translated God's Word into every important Indian dialect. The Bible in his own vernacular lies open, inviting every native of India to-day; and in many vernaculars the translation has been revised more than once. This stands as a notable triumph of Protestantism during these two centuries in India.
The writer has a copy of one of the earliest Tamil books prepared by these pioneers of our faith. These books have already grown into a large library—the best-developed Christian literature in any vernacular of the East. All over the land mission presses are annually pouring forth their many millions of pages both to nourish and cheer the infant Christian community, and to win to Christ the multiplying readers among non-Christians. The press has already become, perhaps, the most important agency in the furtherance of Christian thought and life in this land.
One is impressed with the manifoldness of the work which began in so much simplicity two centuries ago. The missionary is no longer the preacher under some shady tree, addressing a few ignorant, ill-clad peasants. He is actively engaged in all departments of Christian effort. A Protestant mission is an elaborately organized activity, pursuing all lines of work for the elevation of the people. It has not only churches which engage in varied forms of pastoral effort; it has also its staff of evangelists and Bible women who carry the message of life to all the villages. In these missions there are not only 10,000 day schools, with their 375,000 scholars, besides 30,000 youth who are in the 307 higher institutions. There are also thousands of young men and women, in many institutions, undergoing careful preparation as teachers and preachers. There is also the medical host who treated 2,000,000 patients last year; there are industrial institutions under well-trained men, peasant settlements for the poor oppressed ryots, and schools for the blind and the deaf-mute. There is hardly an agency which can bring light, comfort, life, and inspiration to men which is not utilized by modern missions in India.
A Christian Village School in South India
But the progress of these two centuries has been chiefly on lines which defy the columns of the statistician and elude the ken of the ordinary globe-trotter.
The number of people that have been brought to Christ, and who now represent Protestantism in this land are, indeed, far fewer than might have been expected. A round million of a community after two centuries of effort among a population of 300,000,000 is not a thing of which to boast. And this may seem the more discouraging when it is remembered that there are now engaged in this work ninety-one different missionary societies of many lands, and supporting a missionary force of 4000 men and women. There is also a native Pastorate of 1100 ordained men, with a total Indian agency of 26,000 men and women.
So great a force of workers would, indeed, warrant us in expecting larger results in conversions.
But it should be remembered that this agency is chiefly the product of the last few decades only, and is now multiplying in numbers and increasing in efficiency at a very rapid rate. At the present time, fully 200 of the Indian agents of our missions are university graduates, and a still larger number are of partial college training.
The Indian Christian community itself, though in the main of low social origin, has made remarkable progress in education and manly independence. It is, already, perhaps the best-educated community in India. And it is feeling increasingly its opportunities and its obligations. It was only recently that its growing sense of national importance and its duties led it to organize a "National Missionary Society," which is directed by Indian leadership, supported by Indian funds, and its work is to be done by India's own sons. This society enters upon its career very auspiciously, and is not only symptomatic of present conditions, but is also pregnant with hope for the Indian Church of the future.
It took many years to lay deeply the foundation of our mission organization. Indeed, the foundation is not quite completed. And yet the work of superstructure has already begun, and more rapid results may now be expected.
But the more hidden and indirect results of Protestant Christian efforts in this land encourage the Christian worker more than all the direct results.
During the last century, at least twenty laws have been enacted with a view to abolishing cruel religious rites and removing revolting customs and disabilities, such as Hinduism, from time immemorial, has established among the people. These laws were enacted in the teeth of opposition from the religious rulers of the land, and, in more cases than one, led to serious riot and religious fanaticism. But the growing spirit of Christ in the land could not tolerate these heathenish customs; so they had to go.
The new spirit which has taken possession of the classes in India is in striking contrast with the spirit of the past. The new education, imparted on modern lines, in thousands of institutions scattered over the land, has brought its revenge of sentiment upon former thinking and believing. Western philosophy has had a noble share in the achievement; and the schoolmaster has been a pioneer in the work of transforming the sentiments and ideals of the people. The holy men of India,—the ecclesiastics,—by their conservatism, have lost all influence over the many thousands who have passed through the universities, and who represent the intelligence, culture, and advancing power of India.
It is no empty boast to claim that our mission schools and colleges have had a conspicuous share in this work of enlightenment, and in the transformation of popular and fundamental thoughts and sentiments.
The religious unrest of the day is one of the most prominent features of this advance. It is true that, during the last few years, there passed over India a peculiar wave of religious reaction in favour of old Hindu conceptions and ancient rites. But these are entirely the result of a new and vigorous, though not sane, patriotism. A loud cry of "Swadesha" (homeland) has swept over the country. It demands affection and acceptance for everything that is of the East, and the opposite sentiments for things western. All that is of Hindu origin, and everything of eastern aspect, is, for that very reason, regarded as sound and delectable. Of course, this reaction has found its widest utterances in matters religious; and Hindu men of western culture to-day will applaud, though they will not practise, religious customs and ideas which were laughed at by their class a quarter of a century ago. As a matter of fact, however, this wild Orientalism is a thing which should neither be discouraged nor condemned. It needs balance and sanity; but it is a true expression of the awakened self-assertion and the dawning sense of liberty among the people. In time, the movement will become chastened, and will throw off much of its present folly. It will then render for India and its redemption more than anything else has in the past.
In the meanwhile, however, there is a quiet revolution, both religious and social, doing its blessed work in all sections of the community.
New religious organizations have sprung into existence and are winning followers among the best members of the community. The Brahmo Somaj and various other Somajes furnish, as we have seen, asylum and rest for many men of culture who have abandoned polytheism and all that pertains to it. The Arya Somaj appeals to, and gathers in, men from all ranges.
Social reform has its organizations and its gatherings all over the land where the Hindu orator finds abundant opportunity to denounce the social evils which are a curse to all the people; and, alas! then returns to his home, where he meekly submits to these same social tyrannies which dominate his own family. What India needs to-day, more than anything else, is even a small band of men who are imbued with convictions and who are willing to die for the same. India's redemption will be nigh when it can furnish a few thousand such men banded together to do something or to die in the cause of reform.
It is Protestantism which has laid growing emphasis upon the ethical, rather than the ecclesiastical, aspect of our faith; and to this fact can be attributed most of its influence in the development of this new life and thought.
Of course, the British government has politically and socially represented and promoted these ideas. It could not do otherwise and be true to its own principles. Its influence has been the most pervasive and marked in the development of what is best in thought and truest in life.
Perhaps no change has overtaken Protestant missions during these two centuries greater than that which has transformed the missionaries themselves. There is a wide gulf between Ziegenbalg and Carey. There is a still wider one between the Carey of a century ago and his great-grandson who is a missionary in North India to-day. In devotion and zeal for the Master, they are all one; but in their conception of Christianity, of Hinduism, and of the missionary motive, they are much wider apart than many imagine.
It should also be remembered that Protestant missionaries, as a body, are no longer isolated from each other and animated by mutual suspicions and impelled by petty jealousies, as in the past. Their development in amity, comity, and organized fellowship, even during the last decade, is marvellous. Federation and organic ecclesiastical union are becoming the order of the day. Four denominations of America and Scotland are now perfecting such a scheme in South India; and this is only the beginning of an ever expanding movement for Christian fellowship all over the land. No one knows what grand results it will achieve. We all know, however, that the fraternal regard, sympathy, and confidence is far removed from the sad divisiveness of the past, that it is pregnant with blessing in the coming of the Kingdom of God, and that it is far in advance of the spirit of union which prevails in England or America. In this we believe that the East is to open the way for the West.
These and many other facts encourage those who look to the speedy Christianizing of this land. And yet we cannot, I repeat, ignore the fact of the relative meagreness of the results. It is a sad truth that the total Protestant Indian community, at the present time, is only one three-hundredth part of the population!
I would not be pessimistic, however, even in this matter of numerical growth. In the past, we have too much made a fetich of figures, and our faith has been too much pinned to statistics.
But the lessons of history must be well learned and thoroughly digested, if the future of Christianity is to improve upon her past in India. For, be it remembered, Christianity never met with so doughty a foe as that which confronts it in this land. The ancient faiths of Greece and Rome, which Christianity overcame, were infantile and imbecile as compared with the subtle wisdom and the mighty resistance of Brahmanism. The conditions of the conflict in India are different from those ever met before by our militant faith. The subtle and deadening philosophy of the land, the haughty pride of its religious leaders, the great inertia of the people, the mighty tyranny of caste, the debasing ritual of Hinduism and its debauching idolatry,—all these constitute a resisting fortress whose overthrow seems all but impossible.