India's Problem, Krishna or Christ

by John P. Jones

(a) The Evangelistic Department.

This, as we have seen, is the oldest as it is the most fundamental, of all organized missionary activities. And it should retain its prominence in missionary effort. It was preëminently the method of Christ. He was the Heavenly Messenger proclaiming that the Kingdom of God was at hand. He was first of all the great Preacher; “and the people everywhere heard Him gladly.” The missionary of the Cross never feels that he is more directly in the footsteps of his Master than when he is preaching to the unchurched and Christless masses. There is to this work a joy and an exhilaration which are peculiarly its own, even though it is a work fraught with physical weariness. I have felt, in the prosecution of this work, more satisfaction than almost in any other. Not that I regard it as the most successful form of labour. It is not. Even as a direct evangelizing agency, I believe that it must yield precedence in India to school-work. The faithful Christian teacher is now a more successful evangelist in that land than the preacher himself. And yet the [pg 243] preacher reaches and offers light and gracious opportunity to the more benighted and the more neglected members of the community. Without making special choice of any favoured class he sows broadcast the seed, preaches the divine Word, praying that the Lord himself, who also preached to the common people, bestow his richest blessing upon the labour which he has done in his name.

This work of preaching Christ to those who know him not, must be carried on by missionaries and agents. It is usually the custom to expect that every mission agent shall devote some of his time in visiting neighbouring villages and in gathering the people together and in presenting to them, in all simplicity, the message of salvation. Frequently these teachers, catechists and pastors take with them some of the members of their congregations to help them, by song and by the influence of their presence, to present their message effectively to the people; and thus the Christians also receive a most useful training in this elementary part of Christian service.

From time to time special itineracies are conducted by a band of mission agents who will spend a week or more in traversing a whole region, preaching in every village and street as they pass along their journey. These itineracies are conducted in various ways, but are always most helpful in the evangelization of the district.

Some of the best organized missions are adding emphasis to this work by devoting missionaries specially to the conduct of it. These men gather bands of native preachers around them who spend their time and strength in preaching and in disseminating [pg 244] gospel truth in the neglected regions of their fields.

Theological seminaries also give a part of their time to this excellent work. The seminary, with which I am connected, gave, during the year 1900, five weeks to village work. Teachers and students travelled hundreds of miles among the villages of the neglected part of the field and carried the message to more than 50,000 people. This was not only a joyful service, it was also a most helpful experience to the young students while undergoing their theological training.

But, as the native Church, in a mission, grows in numbers and in intelligence, the work of evangelism becomes its special duty. If the Church does not enter, with added joy and power, into this department of its work; and if it does not voluntarily assume, with ever increasing fullness, this form of Christian activity, there is something radically wrong about it. It should be the prayer and purpose of the missionary that every church and congregation established by him become a centre of evangelistic power, whence will radiate divine light and heat into adjacent hamlets and villages. I am glad to say that, so far as my observation goes, the native Church is undertaking this work with increasing zeal and with a growing impulse from within, rather than by pressure from without. In the Madura Mission, through the Home Missionary Society and its auxiliaries, and through the organizations of the native women, at least eighteen men and women are being supported for this especial work of evangelism. And the number of members of churches, who engage voluntarily in this work, is every year growing.

The character of this preaching is a matter of importance. In India it should be, largely, if not exclusively, constructive rather than destructive. Forces destructive to a belief in Hinduism and its numberless superstitions have multiplied wonderfully in that land during the last fifty years. So that there is no necessity, today, that the Christian preacher spend any of his time in attacking the errors and evils of the ancestral faith of the people. He should give himself to the more agreeable and blessed work of imparting the living truth of the Gospel in all directness and simplicity. The destructive agencies of the civilization, knowledge and religious institutions of the West have accomplished their work and have made straight the pathway of the Gospel Messenger into the mind and heart of the people. Thus, it is not the abuse of the old, but the exposition of the new, faith which should occupy the time of the preacher to Hindus today. It has been my own custom, and I always urge it upon my students, to avoid the temptation of attacking Hinduism, and to preach a simple Gospel of salvation.