(h) Organizations for the Special Activities of the Native Christian Community.
Every mission should encourage all forms of wise and necessary organization for the furtherance of the highest life of the community itself. And this chiefly with a view to developing self-dependence in the community. These organizations will be naturally divided into two classes.
Those Which Promote Self-Government.
The Christian Church in the mission field should be organized ecclesiastically and administratively in such a way that it may ultimately, and as speedily as may seem wise, become entirely self-governing. Every mission should aim to so teach the people that they may control and conduct successfully their own affairs. It should establish a Church which sends its roots deep into the soil of the land and which will become, in the highest sense, indigenous. One of the necessary evils of missionary life is the early Western control and guidance of everything. I should like to see the day, when the native Church can establish that polity which is most congenial to its taste and run its affairs independently and on Oriental lines, in such a way as to win more effectively the people of India to Christ. The question is sometimes asked,—“Must our Congregational missions bind, to our Congregational form of ecclesiastical [pg 260] government, the people whom they bring over from heathenism? Must our church polity, in the mission field, be Congregational, or Presbyterian, etc., regardless of its adaptation, or want of adaptation, to the people?” The affirmative answer has usually been given by all societies (and wrongly I think) to this inquiry; and thus every denomination transplants into heathen lands, with renewed emphasis, not only its own peculiar shibboleths of doctrine; it also exalts to a heavenly command the government and ritual which it represents.
Missions in India are conscientiously endeavouring, with varying degrees of wisdom and success, to lead forward their people in the line of self-government. But both love of power and a conviction of the inability of the infant Church to wisely control its affairs, combine to render this transfer of power from the mission to the native Church a very slow matter—more slow than seems wise to many besides the leaders of the native Church themselves. It is a significant fact, in India today, that the Methodist missions, by their compact organization, are able to, or at any rate do, confer more ecclesiastical and administrative power upon the native Church than any other mission; while Congregational missions—the least organized—are the most backward in this matter. A study for the causes of this would be instructive.
Those Organisations Which Promote Self-Extension.
One of the first things that a mission should do, after gathering the Christian community, is to organize, in the community, such activities as are outreaching [pg 261] and self-extending. In the Madura Mission there has been for many years a Home Missionary Society whose aim is to help support weak churches and also maintain a force of evangelists to preach to non-Christians. It is the society of the native Christians—supported and largely directed by them. It has created, maintained and increased the interest of the people in furthering the cause of Christ.
Many such societies exist in India today and they render valuable service in keeping before the mind of the people the deepest characteristics of our faith and the highest privilege of a Christian community—that of outgoing love, and self-extending enthusiasm.
Those Organisations Which Further Self-Support.
How extensively should the idea of self-support be at present urged upon the native Christian community? This is a question which we will discuss later on. There is no question however but that every mission should so organize its benevolences that the infant Church may, at as early a date as possible, cease to seek support from a foreign land; and that it cultivate at the same time a spirit of self-denial and of self-reliance. The poverty of the people is, and will long remain, a serious barrier to this consummation. But the evil of poverty may be counterbalanced by a careful system whereby the benevolent feelings, generous impulses and the sense of obligation of the people are conserved, strengthened and made fully effective. This matter should not be left to haphazard or to spasmodic appeal. Every Christian, even the poorest, should be so directed and [pg 262] inspired in his benevolence that he may effectively contribute to the worthy object of self-support.
These three desiderata of the native Christian Church—self-support, self-propagation and self-government—are to be desired above all other blessings by the missions and should be sought with a persistence and a well-organized intelligence, which will mean advance and ultimate success. When these three have been attained, missions, with all their expensive machinery, may gladly disband and feel that their end has been accomplished and that they are no longer needed.
Chapter IX.
Present Day Missionary Problems.
Every age has its own problems to solve; and so has every department of life. The problems which belong to missionary life, method and work are many. The permanence and future success of the missionary effort of the Church of God depends upon the wise solution of these problems. Nowhere is this more manifest than in India. In that land Christian effort for the conversion of the people has been made for many centuries by numerous nationalities and Christian communities with varying success or want of success. Unwillingness or an inability to thoroughly confront and master the deep problems of the field, the work and the people, with a view to adapting Christianity to them has largely been the cause of the slow progress of our faith in that land. Successive efforts by the Greek, the Syrian, the Romish and the Protestant Churches have not been prolific in marked and permanent results, simply because they have not adequately studied the novel and strange conditions of the land and the best methods of presenting Christ and His truth.
We need in India, today, highest wisdom in order to establish worthy missions, and to conduct them in the right and best way so as to attain results commensurate with the resources of the kingdom and of the great King whose we are and whom we preach.
The missionary problems of today are many.
1. The initial and preliminary question as to the right of the Christian Church to send forth its missionaries, and to establish its missions in heathen lands.
This question is now raised by many. They ask it because they believe in the integrity of the doctrine of evolution. “Why do you not,” they say, “leave those non-Christian peoples to work out their own salvation through a natural evolution of their own faiths? Let those old crude religions pass into something higher through the natural process of evolution rather than resort to the cataclysmic method of over-throwing the old and introducing a faith that is entirely foreign. Why not let the process of growth work out its own results even though it takes a long time for it?”
This objection to our work is modern and thoroughgoing. Of course it is equally pronounced against supernaturalism in all its forms and ramifications. It would be futile to reply to this by appealing to the command of our Lord to go and disciple all nations. It is enough to remind this objector that the doctrine of evolution admits that the highest altruism is a part of the evolution process. And if that is so, then the highest Christian altruism must find its noblest exercise in the work of bringing, by Christians to non-Christians, those ideas and that life which they deem the best and of which those outside of Christ stand in urgent need. The highest evolution of our race has been, and ever must be, through that Christian altruism which will not rest until the noblest truth and the fullest life are brought to all the benighted souls of our race. Is not this the last message of [pg 265] evolution to us at this present? And is it not identical with the last commission of our Lord to His followers—to go and disciple the nations? And while it is the function of Christianity to maintain the evolution principle of the survival of the fittest, it does this by indirection—by seizing upon the most unfit and unworthy and making them fit to stand before God and worthy to enjoy the life eternal in all its glory.
Moving a step forward we come to,—
Another problem kindred to the one mentioned—one which concerns the aims and the results which should animate missionary endeavour.
2. What shall a man or a mission entertain as a motive or as an aim to be attained and as results worthy of achievement in missionary work?
This question also is based upon and will cover very largely the character of the work accomplished.
There are two distinct and separate motives and aims impelling Christians, at the present time, to missionary effort. They are, in the main, an emphasis given, respectively, to each of Christ's two final commands to his disciples upon earth.
In the first instance his last commission to his followers to go and make disciples of the nations is taken as the watch-word; and this has always meant thorough, patient, all-inclusive effort for the redemption and elevation of all the races of the earth.
The other class has taken as its watch-word our Lord's last utterance upon earth—“Ye shall be My witnesses.” “Witness-bearing” has become to them the expression of the Church's great duty to the world.
There is a great difference between these two classes of aims and motives, and they are associated with two classes of theological thinking. According to the former theory the Kingdom of our Lord, under the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, is to spread in regenerating power and triumphant efficacy until all the nations of the earth shall come under its sway. This is a great and arduous undertaking. The planting of this Kingdom in heathen lands and the discipling of those people until the Church of God shall have become a living and a self-propagating church in all the regions of the earth is a work of ages, worthy of the combined effort of heaven and earth. And this consummation will surely take place. God has promised it; Christ's work involves it; the Holy Spirit came into the world for its realization. They who entertain this belief are Christian optimists. No reverses can daunt them; no opposition can discourage them. They lay broad and deep the foundations of their work and labour patiently but hopefully for the great and final consummation.
Those, on the other hand, who are pessimistic as to the triumph of the Kingdom of Christ under the dispensation of the Spirit, maintain, with exclusive emphasis, the Christian duty of witness-bearing. They claim, in Dr. Pierson's words, that our mission to the heathen world should be one of diffusion and not of concentration; that we should bear witness concerning Christ to the people who know Him not and then pass on to others, rather than remain to expand, to convert, to train and to establish living churches. They maintain that our duty is preëminently to bear witness to Christ, that we have no responsibility [pg 267] for the conversion of the people and for the building up of strong churches.
This claim that it is the duty of the Church to herald the good news of redemption to all men as speedily as possible apart from the expectation that they will accept it: does not commend itself to me either upon Scriptural grounds or upon grounds of reason.
The idea of preaching the gospel to the heathen “for a witness,” in the ordinary acceptance of that term, does not constitute a worthy Christian motive. Dr. W. N. Clark well analyzes this thought in the following words, (page 53, in “Study of Christian Missions”),—“At the outset, there is one motive, often, though not necessarily, associated with the theory of heralding, that must be rejected as no Christian motive. It is often held that in this rapid work the gospel is not to be preached mainly in order that it may be believed unto salvation, but rather ‘for a witness,’—which is taken to mean ‘for a witness against,’ the hearers when they meet the judgment of God. The hearing of the gospel marks a turning-point, both in experience and destiny. When once men have heard the gospel, they will be saved if they believe, and justly condemned if they do not. Only a few will be saved by the missionary preaching; the elect will be gathered out of the mass, and the many will remain indifferent. But the blame of their ruin will be upon themselves, not upon God or the Christian people; and it is to insure this result that the gospel is preached to them for a witness. But this is no Christian truth. Such teaching cannot truly represent the motive of God the Saviour. [pg 268] We must maintain that God acts in good faith in the offers of His grace, or Christianity becomes a delusion. We must preserve our own good faith also in conveying the offer of grace, or our hearers will rise in the judgment to condemn us. No allowance should be made for any such unchristian motive in our plans for Christian missions, and we must hold no theory of missions that implies it.”
Moreover the view is thoroughly pessimistic, so far as this dispensation is concerned, and fails to realize the power and the glory of Christian truth and of the kingdom of Christ as inspired by the Holy Spirit. A theory of missions which is pessimistic at the core can hardly be a safe or an inspiring one.
It should be remembered also that missions are not an end in themselves. They should aim at making themselves unnecessary by the establishing of vigorous churches which shall become self-extending and indigenous in all the lands of the earth. The hope of missions, and the hope of the world through missions, lies not, ultimately, in the missions, but in the churches which they establish. Therefore they should be well established and patiently developed. The Church of God must take up its missionary work with a full appreciation of its supreme greatness and difficulty. Let it not be supposed that it is called simply to “bear witness.” This heralding of the gospel of Christ, is only a part, and indeed a small part, of the great duty of the Church to the world. It is also specifically, and with greater urgency, called upon to disciple the nations—to bring them into full possession of saving truth and into joyful acceptance of, and life in, Christ.
Let us not delude ourselves with the idea that this work is easy, that we can pass over it lightly or that we have no responsibility for the conversion of the world. As I have preached for the first time to a heathen village I have felt that my obligation to its inhabitants for their salvation was thereby increased rather than fulfilled. There is no doubt that Christian missionaries realize today as never before the greatness of the task set before God's people to disciple the nations. The obstacles to it and the conflict which it involves seem greater than ever. The romance of missions has largely given way to sober work and the rush of battle has been succeeded by a great siege. This is preëminently the condition in India today. Let us not forget this in our missionary enterprise lest we lose courage by the way. But let us also remember that it is God's work. He is pledged to bring it to its ultimate triumph, and He will do it. He will fulfill His promise and give to His Son the heathen for His inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession.
This theory of missionary work is the only one that has produced, and can maintain, all the present organized activity of the missionary Church. The aim of the manifold activities and various departments of missionary effort, as witnessed in India today, can be nothing less than the ultimate conquest of that land for Christ through the establishment of a living, an ever-growing and self-extending Indian Church there.
Let us now consider some of the problems which specially exist in India.
3. The Caste Problem.
The caste problem has been, and continues to be, the most troublesome and obtrusive among all the questions which confront missions in that land. It is a more serious problem—more pervasive and intense—in Southern than in Northern India.
This is radically different from social problems in all other lands, in that it traces its source to, and gathers its authority from, religion. It enforces all that it sanctions by the most compact and relentless religious system the world has known. It maintains that men have been created into a great number of castes or classes from none of which can they, by any possibility, pass into another. In whatever social stratum a man is born there must he live and die. It is impious for him to attempt to evade or to violate this heavenly classification. His interests and all his rights are confined to that one caste of his birth. It is sin for him to marry out of it or, in any way, to transgress his natal compact with it. Neither added wealth, growing culture, a new ambition, nor anything else can enable him to change his caste. All the forces of religion are directed, like a mighty engine of tyranny, to bind him to it.
This sentiment of caste, after millenniums of teaching, of rigid observance and custom, has become even more than second nature to the Hindu,—it has grown into a sweet necessity of his life, from whose claims and demands he neither expects nor desires relief. To the ordinary Hindu a change of caste would be as unexpected, yea as impossible, as his sudden change into the lower brute, or into the higher angelic, kingdom.
When Christianity was first established in India the problem of the adoption or the rejection of caste by the Christian church had to be faced. It was rejected by the earliest Christian community in India; for we find no traces of it in the Syrian church on the coast of Malabar today. Even caste titles, that dearest remnant of that system to all other native Christians in India, have entirely disappeared from that community. It is a great pity that the history of that victory over caste has not been preserved as a lesson and a heritage to later Christians.
The Romish Church, which next invaded India, unfortunately despised the Syrian community, sought no instruction from its history, made a friend of the caste system and adopted it in all its hideousness. It did not wait to consider the terrible fact, so patent to all at present, that Hinduism and caste are convertible terms—that one cannot cease to be a Hindu who maintains the caste system in its integrity. Its intention was, no doubt, good in its way. It was an effort to make an easy way out of Hinduism into Christianity and thus to swell the tide of incoming converts. But, unfortunately, the path was made too easy; the narrow gate was sufficiently enlarged for the Hindu to enter with his burden of heathen prejudices and superstitions, and it soon became the highway of insincerity and hypocrisy. Moreover, the Romish Church has found, to its cost, that an easy way from Hinduism to Christianity is an equally easy path to return. A man who carried much of his Hinduism with him into the Christian Church was easily drawn back by the remaining old ties and affections. The consequence is that, while Romanism [pg 272] has made large inroads upon Hinduism in some places, it has only been for a time; and the back-sliders have been as numerous as the new converts; so that Roman Catholicism has made little net progress in India for many years.
This alliance which Christianity made, four centuries ago, with caste was, thus, a fatal one. It gave also a clue to the earliest Protestant missionaries—a clue which they, in a weak moment, decided to follow. For, the first Danish missionaries also made a sad compromise with this monster evil. I presume that this may be regarded as a continental failing of that day, when in Europe class differences were great and almost insurmountable. Human rights and individual liberty were not held so sacred, or so scrupulously defended, in Europe in those days as they are in Anglo-Saxon countries today. Otherwise any alliance by the Church with the caste system would have been an impossibility in India. Even today some Protestant missionaries from the European continent are found in India who defend the adoption of the caste system by the Christian Church. How different would have been the attitude of the Protestant Church towards this heathenish institution had men of the Anglo-Saxon type of today rather than Continentals of two centuries ago started its work in South India! In any case, the attitude of compromise assumed towards the caste system in those early days has led to interminable evil and to constant trouble in the Christian Church in that land.
After caste had first found admission as a friend and then was discovered to be an uncompromising enemy to Christian life and principles, much effort [pg 273] was made to expel it. Nearly all Protestant missions now denounce it, root and branch, and preach against it, and in various ways try to check and to cast it out. But with no great success thus far. The false step taken at the beginning has cost the Church terribly. Today in South India more than nine-tenths of all Protestant native Christians, while they seek an alliance only among Christians, nevertheless marry not on lines of Christian affinity so much as on Hindu caste lines. It is not often that we find a man among common Christians who has courage and sense enough to seek a match for son or daughter outside of the limits of that caste to which he and his people belonged in Hinduism. This custom is found not only extremely inconvenient and troublesome to them; worst of all, it perpetuates, in the Christian fold, the old heathen lines of cleavage. And thus life in the Christian community is still running somewhat in the old channels of Hinduism and largely preserves those social distinctions of the past which should have been buried with them at baptism and forever abandoned.
Under these circumstances what should missions do? What should be their attitude towards caste spirit and customs? Through former misapprehension and neglect the evil is in the Christian Church and exercises a potent influence. How shall it be overcome or expelled? Some believe in the laissez faire method. They maintain that, if left to itself for a time, it will die out, or the general spirit of Christianity will naturally drive it out. The spirit of caste is not exorcised in that way. So long as it is perpetuated by marriage affinity, the source of the [pg 274] whole evil, and by habits of eating together on caste lines, it will not diminish very much or cease to torment the Church. A century of such waiting, in some missions that I have known, finds the evil not much diminished. It is only in those missions where it is attacked and constantly denounced and its terrible evils exposed, that progress is evident.
That which can do speedy and sure work, in the destruction of this evil in Christian missions is inter-caste marriage. And through this I am glad to see that increasing good is wrought. Missions should in every way encourage and put a premium upon marriages among their members from different castes. They should teach frequently and emphatically that membership in different castes does not constitute a prohibited marriage relationship; but rather does it furnish the best ground for marriage. In this way, and in this way only, will this wretched caste feeling speedily die a natural death and Christians come to marry, eat, sympathize, love and live on Christian, rather than on Hindu, lines. A mission which does not improve every opportunity to show its hatred of the caste system and to antagonize it positively and persistently can find no peace; nor will it find any permanent prosperity. Missions are feeling this increasingly and are acting accordingly.
4. Self-Support of Missions.
Every mission seeks, as its ever-present ambition, to attain unto independence from all outside financial aid and a thorough self-support of its own institutions. We await the day, and believe in its no distant coming, when a large number of mission [pg 275] churches will entirely support their own institutions. Indeed there are now many churches, on mission ground, that have grown into self-dependence and that maintain, at their own expense, all those normal forms of work that are connected with Christian activity.
The question is frequently asked,—how far shall missions place before them, as the supreme and immediate aim, the self-support of their separate churches? Among missions and missionaries there are two tendencies in this matter. One class, represented by the Church Missionary Society Mission in Tinnevelly, place all moneys received from their mission churches into one fund, and from this fund they pay the salaries of the pastors and catechists, so far as possible. Bishop Sargent told me that he did not think any church should be allowed to directly support its own pastor lest they consider that thereby they had a right to exercise authority over him! That mission, therefore, and for other reasons also, has relegated the direct question of the self-support of each church into the limbo of the undesirable. In the American Madura Mission, on the other hand, the responsibility is urged upon every individual church to support its own spiritual instructor; and all rules and methods are directed towards emphasizing and enforcing this. Self-support thus becomes, in that mission, its ever-present cry and the growing ambition of its every church and congregation. And the progress of the Church and of the mission is largely measured by this standard.
The self-support of a mission, as such, is a question which is not looked upon with the same urgency, [pg 276] or with the same idea of importance by all missions, or by all missionaries. One party, for instance, would make self-support the supreme end; everything else must be subordinated to it. Nothing should be undertaken, they say, which is not within the means and the desire of the people to support. For instance, they maintain that the salary of all mission agents and the support of mission institutions must be pecuniarily within the means of the Orient and within the limits of its ambitions. I ought to say that no mission, to my knowledge, carries out this principle in its integrity, although there are some missionaries who urge it and proclaim it at all times.
The other party believes that the principal duty and highest privilege of a mission, as such, is not immediately to seek self-support or to pare everything down to the capacity of the people to give; but to push forward the work energetically; with economy indeed, but regardless of expense, knowing that vigour and enterprise and a strenuous Western energy today will be both amply rewarded in results and will also set a pace for the native Church in coming years. They therefore seek the best trained agents regardless of the immediate ability of the people to pay their salary. And they establish schools and hospitals and various other institutions which are altogether beyond the present ability of the Indian Church either to found or to maintain.
We must not forget that self-support, entire self-support, is possible in any mission from the very first day of its organization, if the mission only makes this paramount and has the boldness of its convictions to shape its work according to the offerings of the people. [pg 277] And there are some advantages to that method. Many of the best missionaries have often felt that they would like to try that system in India. Bishop Thoburn, while maintaining that it would be impossible to radically change the method of an old mission, expressed the conviction that it might be well to establish in India a new mission on the basis of complete self-support from the beginning. This, doubtless, was the Pauline method; and it operated well under the then existing circumstances in those lands. And had our missions in the East been established and conducted by the Orient instead of the Occident they would have had adequate patience to pursue the method of self-support ab initio. But as we are of the West, Western, our missions must partake of the characteristics of our nature; and be imbued with that energy, push, impatience for results which distinguish us in everything. I am sure that neither the churches at home nor their missionaries abroad are prepared to limit their efforts by the poverty, slowness and apathy of the East, and thus perhaps delay for years, or generations, the results which, through the expenditure of more money, they possibly might reap today. The method which missions have adopted is the western method, characteristic of our haste and strenuous spirit, and partaking of the evils incident to that spirit and method. It is, on the whole, perhaps the best method that can be used and fully realized by us.
5. Mission Educational Work.
In connection with the increasingly important department of mission educational work in India not a [pg 278] few perplexing questions arise. We have seen that this department has conquered for itself general recognition as a legitimate part of missionary effort.
But there is a serious conflict ahead, in the not distant future. And this is in part owing to the attitude of the Government Educational Department and of the local governing bodies towards mission institutions. There is no concealing the fact that most of the English officials of the Educational Department in India deem mission schools the most serious rivals to, and regard missionary educators as quasi enemies of, their departmental schools. These men have recently assumed, and are increasingly assuming, an attitude of jealousy, if not of hostility, to mission institutions, chiefly because of their strength and excellence as rival schools, and partly because of the Bible training which is imparted to all the students of these schools—a training with which those officials have no sympathy and which they are wont to regard as an educational impertinence.
Missions must expect that the jealousy and the antagonism of that department will increase. It is true that the great State Educational Despatch of 1854 and later enunciated government policy, declare that it is not the purpose of the government to establish schools of its own, except where private bodies fail to do so; and that it is its purpose to encourage, so far as possible, private institutions. But the general declaration of the Imperial and Provincial governments is one thing and the purpose and ambition of its Educational Department a very different thing. Departmentalists find it to their interest to strengthen and increase government schools at all points; and [pg 279] as the funds appropriated for educational purposes are inadequate for all schools they seek the lion's share for their own, and grudgingly give an ever decreasing quota to mission institutions. It will be an ill day for missions when the Educational Department and its schools will become sufficiently strong to affect the policy of the general government as against private, and in favour of government schools.
Another fact, of equal significance, is the attitude of District Boards and Municipal Commissioners towards the schools of Mission Bodies. Nearly all the members of Local Boards are native gentlemen. They see the large influence of mission schools, scattered as they are through their districts and towns, and they regard them as Christian propaganda and as evangelizing agencies; and it is but natural that, under the impulse of their new nationalism and of their interest in a Neo-Hinduism, they should be jealous of mission schools which are the rivals of their own indigenous and growing institutions. And as they have the power of the purse and make and withhold grants to different schools at their pleasure; and as all the subordinate officers of the Educational Department are natives and are not in full sympathy with mission schools; it can be easily seen how our schools are doomed to suffer through an ever decreasing government aid towards their support.
Thus, there are two problems, in this connection, which will confront us. One is the question whether it be worth while for missions to conduct their schools entirely at their own expense, i.e.—without any government aid. This problem must be faced ere long; [pg 280] and it means either the curtailing of this department of work or the expending of a very much increased sum of money upon it.
The question may also be urged upon us, more speedily than we anticipate (indeed it has been raised already), whether any schools aided by government shall be allowed to be used as religious propaganda. In other words, whether mission schools shall enjoy the privilege of teaching the Bible to all non-Christian students in attendance, even against their will. This question is exercising the mind of not a few natives and others today; and it is claimed that the present practice is contrary to the Royal Proclamation of Religious Neutrality in the land. There is some reason for this contention; and, under increasing religious rivalry and jealousy, it may, at an early date, lead to a crisis in mission schools. And the problem may confront us as to whether we are prepared to continue all our schools for non-Christians under conditions which make it impossible for us to give Bible, or even any religious, training in them.
Another serious problem, in this same connection, is whether missions should conduct, to any extent, educational work apart from other indirect aims and purposes. In other words, how far, if at all, should a mission give itself to the work of education, per se, and not as a Christian training or as an evangelizing agency.
Many at present maintain that education—general education—is in itself a good and a blessing which it is the business of a mission to impart, independent of any direct religious instruction or spiritual training which might be given through it. They maintain [pg 281] that mission funds should thus be used for the intellectual advancement of the people apart from their Christianization. The majority, however, would claim that a mission's educational work should be conducted only so far as it can be the medium of communicating religious truth, or only in so far as it can be made a direct auxiliary to the Christianizing of the land. This class would claim that no work should be undertaken by a mission which does not contribute to the Christianizing of the people as a result distinct from their progress in civilization. And it is here that these two classes of missionaries take issue with each other. It is an important difference in the conception of the Church's work in heathen lands. As I shall consider this later I only call attention to it here.
Another matter, of no little consequence in this connection, is that of the amount of educational privilege which a mission should furnish to its people. President Stanley Hall has recently maintained that, even in this country, many are educated who should not be. They should, he says, be left to the hoe and shovel. He claims that not a few are, through education, spoiled for usefulness in the lowest sphere of manual labour for which they were by nature designed; while they are also disqualified for the highest sphere of service and life. If this be true in America it is doubly true in India. Many young men and women in that land have had lavished upon them the blessings of education to an extent that was unprofitable both to them and to the cause. They have received an education and training which not only carried them away far outside the social [pg 282] realm for which they were intended by nature; it also left them incapable of doing the higher thing for which they were intended by the mission.
There is adequate excuse for this in the early stages of mission progress. The greatest need of a mission is a good, strong, native agency. And in its desire to furnish this agency the mission, as well as the individual missionary, eagerly seizes upon every boy and girl who shows any signs of promise as an applicant to be trained for missionary service. This same ambition to develop, in intellectual power and in civilizing progress, the young of an infant Christian community so that they may adorn our faith and give an honourable status to the community leads many a mission to expend upon the education of its boys and girls more than it will in its later and more mature stage of growth.
6. The Industrial and Economic Problem.
During the last two decades there has been a marked and strong tendency in Indian missions, as in the home churches which support them, to still broaden the scope of missionary effort by adding to its directly spiritual, and to its educational and medical, work, schemes for the industrial, economic and social advancement of the people. This broadening of the conception of the work of the Church in missionary lands is a most interesting study. Less than a century ago nothing that was not directly and intensely spiritual in its character was regarded as, in any sense, a part of missionary effort. To preach the Gospel to the heathen, to establish and to train Christian churches and to develop and direct a suitable [pg 283] native agency—this embraced the whole work of the mission. Anything beyond this was considered illegitimate. Subsequently the medical department was introduced,—chiefly because of the example of Christ Himself as the Great Healer. Soon the educational work was begun, as a necessity in its elementary stages, and it gradually grew until it has reached its present manifold character and large proportions. Then a few missions began to touch the industrial problem and to establish schools for the training of boys and girls in manual labour. Today that work is finding much increased emphasis, and missions are beginning to take up, in all seriousness, Peasant Settlements as a means of lifting the people economically, and of training them to habits of industry, and to found villages as separate Christian communities. Schools for the blind and for deaf mutes also have been established. In fact all forms of philanthropic effort have now practically been adopted by the missions of India as legitimate forms of their activities. Indeed, it is extensively proclaimed, what has long been strenuously denied, that missions are not founded simply to Christianize but to civilize and to elevate in all matters pertaining to soul, mind and body, the people among whom they are established.
This is a broad question and an issue of fundamental importance. It belongs to the very concept of missions and is largely a question of aim and purpose. The trend of the times is doubtless in favour of the broader, humanitarian, philanthropic, civilizing purpose of missions as against the deeper and more exclusive, spiritual and Christianizing end.
It seems to me to be a question whether missions are ready for this change.
It is also a very serious problem whether, in the mission field, this modern tendency to extend and broaden out is of the spirit of Christ and is a passion to do good unto men in every department and sphere of their life; or whether it is a degeneracy—a drifting away from the lofty and exclusive purpose of soul-winning and soul-saving down towards the lower plane of earthly blessing and general philanthropy. There is certainly a sense in which this widening of missionary endeavour is a part of the broadening of the Christian life of today and is in harmony with the multiplication of the agencies of the Church at home for the general betterment of the people and for preparing them for the highest blessings of our faith; and as such it is both commendable and encouraging.
On the other hand I know of no temptation that is pregnant with greater evil to missions, at the present time, than that connected with this multiplication of what may be called the lower activities of missions. The spiritual work of a mission must ever remain its principal work if it is to succeed in the highest sense. It is also the most difficult work. It bears with it, often, serious discouragement to the worker. And in times of discouragement it is a very easy thing for a missionary, and for a mission, to relax effort at this point and, as a compensation, to seek larger results on the lower planes of social and industrial activities and humanitarian and philanthropic effort. These lower forms of activity are exceedingly absorbing and distracting; and when a mission enters extensively into them it usually means, [pg 285] and, I would almost say, necessarily means, a withdrawal of time and energy and of interest from its highest spiritual work. A man or a mission has only a certain amount of strength and money to devote to his work; and if this is increasingly and extensively expended upon the lower forms of philanthropic effort, the higher, spiritual purposes and endeavors must suffer.
The Basle Lutheran Mission of South India has done more industrial work than any other mission of that land. But the industrial department grew so rapidly and became so absorbing that it was found necessary to make a separate “mission” of it. It has flourished as a commercial enterprise and is self-supporting. But the leader of that mission informs me that its blessings are questionable, in that it tends to demoralize the people and renders little or no aid to their spiritual work.
While I believe that a certain amount of endeavour, by a mission, for the temporal good and social betterment of its people is legitimate and desirable, extreme care should be taken, in the present early stage of progress, lest this form of activity become prominent or dominant; and, above all, lest it, in any way, interfere with the conviction concerning the supreme importance and prime urgency of the spiritual training and growth of the people. This class of work can very easily, by changing the people's ideas of a mission's aim and purpose, demoralize them. It can also, with equally fatal facility, transfer the interest of the missionary from the higher to the lower realm of work, and thus become a curse, rather than a blessing, to him. If the [pg 286] work of missions is to be broadened the greatest care must be exercised lest this breadth be secured at the expense of depth of spiritual purpose and power, and height of spiritual life and experience. I must confess that this new movement, in the present stage of the progress of missions, brings to me as much fear as it does hope. For, while I see reason for taking up such work, I know also the demoralizing influences that so naturally and easily follow it. A mission that allows itself to be secularized, by giving too much emphasis to these social and civilizing agencies, becomes inevitably paralyzed as a spiritual force in its field; and woe be to any mission that gains anything at the expense of its spiritual paralysis.
7. Mission Administration.
The question of administration is an exceedingly important one to every mission. How wisely are our missions organized for large economy of money and effort and for highest efficiency? Could not missions unite, for mutual counsel and wisdom, as many officers of our societies at home now do; could not missions learn more from one another in this most important respect? The annual expenditure of more than one million dollars on mission work in South India alone is in itself a large trust which requires great care and breadth of wisdom. Hitherto not much has been done by the many missions of India to learn from one another the wisest methods of administration. There is remarkable diversity and even contrast among those missions in the methods of conducting their work and in the administration of their affairs. This is, in no small part, due to the [pg 287] different peculiarities of the several nationalities which conduct the missions; it is also in part due to their denominational affinities. But, by growing familiarity with one another's methods and by more appreciative study of the same, much could be learned by these missions which would tend to increasing uniformity of administrative method, efficiency of work and abundance of results.
Another question of perennial interest, in this connection, is that of the extent to which native Christians should be allowed to participate in the administration of the affairs of a mission. The training of some of the highest members of the native Christian community in the responsibility of missionary administration is a serious duty of every mission. The day must come when the whole administration of the Christian work carried on by missions will be in the hands of the native community itself—when missions, as such, shall have accomplished their work and shall be disbanded. What is being done by our missions today to make that consummation possible and desirable at the earliest moment? Most missions maintain that Indians should have nothing to do with the administration of foreign funds. Is this a wise position to take? Is it consonant with the best training of the highest native Christians for future control? In other words, what administrative preparation is being made by the mission for the incoming of an indigenous, self-governing Church?
It is true that Indian Christians will not, for a long time, be able to render much assistance to the missions in this line. But if they are to be, at any future time, capable of undertaking the responsibility [pg 288] of the work they must be trained for it; and this training must be conducted with patience by the mission. If they are now wanting in independence and poise of character and breadth of horizon, these can come to them only through an extended training. And it is the duty of missions to give this training to them.
There is danger that missions cling too tenaciously to their right to rule. Power is sweet to the missionary no less than to other men.
I am glad to say that progress is made by missions in this matter. Slowly but surely the native Christian is entering into their counsels and is finding increasing opportunity and responsibility there.
8. Problems Concerning New Converts.
There are many interesting and important questions connected with the reception of new converts into the Christian fold in India. Some of these have a growing interest to the Cause and have found an important place in missionary discussion. I shall refer to only a few of them.
(a) Shall polygamous converts be received into the Christian Church?
In Hinduism polygamy (more especially, bigamy) is not uncommon. It is permitted and indeed fostered by that faith and is legalized by the laws of the country. As our faith makes increasing inroads upon that religion, numbers, and yet never a large number, of those who have two or more wives will accept our teaching and, with all earnestness, seek admission into our Christian communion. What shall [pg 289] we say to such? How shall we meet them and their desire? This question has, in a few cases, been sent to the societies at home, the missions seeking from them advice and guidance. From America the instruction has been received against receiving any such into the Christian Church. This is natural enough from a country which is confronted by the Mormon question. But the problem has its Eastern bearing which is not understood in the West and which has led missionary bodies in India almost invariably to decide in favour of receiving such into the Christian fold.
In the consideration of the problem many things must be kept in mind. None more important than the claims to a cordial welcome from the Church of any man who, in true faith and Christian earnestness, seeks admittance. If it be demanded of the man that he put away all but one of those wives taken in heathenism; then we ask whether it is Christian, or even just, to cast away one to whom he was solemnly and religiously pledged according to the laws of the land and with whom he has been linked in love and harmony for years and from whom he has begotten children? And if he is to put away one or more of his wives, which one shall it be? Shall it be the first wife? Certainly that would not be Christian. Or shall it be the second wife who is the mother of his children and whom he probably married at the request of the first, who was childless, in order that he might raise seed unto himself? It is not easy, on Christian grounds, to decide such a problem as this; nor is it very Christian to put a ban upon any woman who, in accordance with their religion and their country's [pg 290] laws, has formed this sacred alliance with a man and has lived with him for years. Nor can it be right to brand with illegitimacy the children born of such a wedlock.
I would not allow such persons, received into the Christian Church, to become officers of the Church. But I cannot see why there may not be an humble place in the Church of God for such and their families.
(b) Should the baptism of a person, in any case, immediately follow his confession of Christ?
This question does not pertain to those who live in Christian communities and within the circle of Christian light and influence. It refers mainly, if not exclusively, to those who accept Christ under the influence of Christian teaching at heathen festivals and who may live far away from Christian communities. In North India, some of those who have accepted Christ under these circumstances have received immediate baptism and have been sent back to their villages professing Christians. At first sight this seems unwarranted and unwise. Men who have received and made an open confession of Christ under these circumstances have not likely received a sufficient knowledge of our faith, or attained an adequate familiarity with its truths; nor have they been grounded in its principles and life, sufficiently to warrant us in the hope and assurance that they will continue this life in their heathen homes and do honour to our cause and the name of Christ which they have professed. And yet who are we to decide adversely upon the application of such a man who may find, or [pg 291] think he finds, in that public occasion the only opportunity of making an open confession of Christ? And what right have we to conclude that he will not stand firm to his pledge and promise if we are convinced that it is made in all sincerity and earnestness, and if we are convinced that the man has really accepted Christ as his Saviour? Or, more properly, what ground have we to believe that the Holy Spirit cannot carry on to perfection the work thus begun by Him in the heart of such a man? And was not this method of immediate baptism that of the Apostolic Church, even though many thus baptized subsequently denied their new faith?
There are, doubtless, cases of this kind where baptism cannot be refused by the minister of God—where it is even imperative and may prove a blessing to the heathen audience as well as to the new convert. And yet, the ordinary method of delay and careful scrutiny and training should still be adhered to as a normal method of the Church in heathen lands. It is the safest way to lead to a healthy and a strong Church.
(c) Another question frequently asked is that concerning secret baptism.
Shall a missionary, at any time and under any circumstances, secretly baptize such as are anxious to make confession of Christ, but are debarred by family opposition, or by similar causes, from public baptism? This problem frequently arises in connection with work for heathen women. Under the influence of the work of a Bible woman, or a lady missionary, [pg 292] a woman may abjure her faith, accept Christ as her Saviour and yearn for baptism. But to be baptized publicly and to confess Christ before her people openly would inevitably result in her being driven from home, separated from her children and people, and robbed of all opportunity to influence them in behalf of her newly found faith. Moreover, by this public confession she is deprived of all family support and becomes a helpless dependent upon the mission for her daily bread. The question rises whether such a woman should be quietly baptized and thus left to pursue her way in her own home and with her family as a pledged, but secret, follower of the Lord. There is much to be said in favour of, as there is against, such a baptism. Many contend that such an acceptance of Christ would be unworthy and would be robbed of its saving power. But such are not conversant with Hindu life and some of its terrible conditions. Some would maintain, perhaps with more wisdom, that it would be better not to baptize such, but to encourage them to believe that they are accepted of Christ and to treat them in every way as Christ's own disciples.
Another problem in this connection is as to the right or wisdom of an unordained lady missionary to administer this initiatory rite to such women converts. This question, of course, will be largely decided in accordance with the ecclesiastical connection of those who consider it. There is a growing number of persons who believe that it would be well that ladies be authorized to administer this rite under such circumstances.
9. Another problem is connected with the revival [pg 293] of thought among the people of India whom we seek to bring to Christ.
This revival is really the result of western influence—largely the product of Christian teaching and activity in that land. In its last analysis it is therefore not to be deplored, but rather to be welcomed. At the same time this new awakening seems to be, for the present, connected with a reactionary and a militant spirit. It speaks in the interest of a new nationalism and a false patriotism which extols everything Eastern simply because it is Oriental. Its aggressiveness is manifest even in America. We are becoming familiar, in this country, with the yellow-robed Hindu monk who has probably been trained in a Christian mission college and who talks Hinduism with a strong Christian accent. Though he has violated a peremptory command of his ancestral faith in crossing the seas; and though, of necessity, he daily tramples in this land the whole decalogue of Hindu life and ritual, he feels competent to champion Hindu philosophy here! And he seems to find a coterie of admirers and quasi disciples in this land of light and privilege! Recently an old classmate of mine informed me, with all solemnity, that Eastern thought is now invading the West; and that he himself had become a theosophist! I have, since hearing this statement, travelled considerably over this country and confess that his statement does not seem so absurd as at first I thought. For, I have seen the recent phenomenal spread of Christian Science and of other vagaries with which we are too familiar in this land. What is Christian Science but the subtle, evasive idealism of India unequally yoked to a form of Christian [pg 294] truth and ritual. What is theosophy, but the stupefying philosophy and the benumbing metaphysics of the East, clothed in its own garb of Oriental mysticism and senseless, spurious occultism. It is a sad reflection upon our Western life that so many people who fail to find rest in the divinely inspiring teachings of Christ, sink into the depths of a credulity which will accept the inanities of Madame Blavatsky and the wild assumptions of Mrs. Eddy. Let these people go out to India and live there for years to see how Hindu thought and teachings have, for three millenniums, worked out their legitimate results in the life of the teeming millions of that land. Let them observe the debasing immorality, the hollow ceremonialism, the all-pervasive ignorance and superstition which rest, like a mighty pall, upon that people and which make life mean and render noble manhood impossible. The situation in India reminds one of the legendary house built upon the banks of Newfoundland. The foundation was completed when a dense fog swept over the place and rested upon all. After the superstructure was built and finished the fog lifted and it was found, alas, that the building was erected some two hundred yards away from the foundation, and rested upon nothing! Whatever one may say about Hindu thought and philosophy as a basis of conduct, that people have been living for many centuries in the dense fog of ignorance, superstition and ceremonialism; and their life has been unworthy and debased because it rested upon nothing.
A Brahman Gentleman.
Swami Vivekananda.
But there is another form of this awakened Eastern thought which invites our attention and which concerns [pg 295] the missionary work not a little. It appears there in a reactionary form among men of culture and leads many of them to turn away in hearty disapproval from our faith. They are wonderfully drawn towards Christ, our Lord. His praises are in their mouths, and they eagerly study his example and life. They claim him as one of the East and, therefore, as one of themselves. But these same men will have none of Christianity, because it is, as they say, of the West, Western. One of their number recently wrote an article under the following caption:—“Why do We Hindus Accept Christ and Reject Christianity?” He claims that they reject our faith because it is “not Christianity but Churchianity”; that is, it savours of the Western Church more than it does of Christ. There is a great deal that is false and foolish in this contention; and yet it has an element of truth in it. We, of the West, have not realized, perhaps we never can fully realize, the great width of the gulf which, in thought and life, separates the Occident from the Orient. Hence we have in part failed in the duty of adapting our faith, in thought and ritual, to the taste and inherited bias of that people. We forget that they and we usually approach things temporal and spiritual from opposite sides. They are deeply mystical and poetic, while we are obtrusively practical and meanly prosaic. Thus the Western colouring and emphasis which is given to our faith in that land can neither be appreciated nor approved by the educated Hindu. Even native Christians are bemoaning this fact. I shall never forget the eloquent appeal which the Hon. Kali Churn Banerjee, a leading native Christian in that land, [pg 296] made before the Bombay Missionary Conference, begging the missionaries to cease emphasizing, as he said, “adjectival” Christianity and to dwell more upon “substantive” Christianity before the people of India. It is a sad fact that we carry there our Western shibboleths, our antiquated controversies, and our sectional jealousies. Most of these are not only unintelligible in India; they weary the people and largely bury the essentials of our faith from public gaze and appreciation.
The question returns to us with a new emphasis today,—How much of our Western Christianity can we eliminate and how much must we retain in order to present to that people the gospel in its simplicity and saving power? How much of our modern Christianity is the product of Western thought, interpretation and life, and how much is of the very essence of Christ's message? We have yet much to learn and are to be overtaken by many surprises in this matter, I believe. God forbid that we should rob our message of one tittle of its essential truth. But may He enable us to discriminate more and more, and lead us to cease encumbering our gospel to the East with such unessential thought and ritual as are suited to us but not to them.
I doubt whether we of the West can accomplish this—it can be fully done only when the Christian Church in India shall have become indigenous and strong, and, when freed from Western influence and leadership, it shall do its own thinking and shape its own ritual and ceremonial on Eastern lines. Then indeed shall we behold that welcome and mighty movement which will draw completely the culture [pg 297] of India into the Christian Church. Then also, and not until then, shall we begin to see the Indian Church contributing her share to the Christian thought and life of the world. We, of the proud West, are prone to think that our type of life is all-embracing and that our religious thought is all-satisfying. Nothing can be more fallacious or more injurious than such a conceit. The East is the full complement of the West. In life and thought we are only an hemisphere, and we need the East to fill up our full-orbed beauty. The mystic piety of India will correct our too practical, mundane view of things. The quiet, passive virtues which find their perfect realization in that land we must learn from them to accentuate in addition to the more aggressive and positive virtues of the West. All this is to take place in the no distant future. The Kingdom of Christ in the East is to reach out its hand to the West and both, in mutual helpfulness, will coöperate in bringing this whole world to Christ. Then shall we see a universal kingdom and the beginning of the fulfillment of the blessed vision in which “the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever.” God hasten the day.
Chapter X.
Missionary Results.
We are occasionally compelled to read and to hear detailed and emphatic statements about “the failure of missions.” An increasing number of our countrymen spend their vacation days in hurried trips through mission fields. They are so impressed by glimpses of the strange life and institutions of the Orient that they have neither time nor inclination to study and appreciate the missionary work and organization which everywhere invites their attention. They return home absolutely ignorant of the work whose power, prevalence and progress they might easily have learned on their travels, and they are wont to hide that ignorance behind the emphatic assurance that “there was nothing to be seen” of missions; and they soon convince themselves, and not a few others, that what they did not see was not worth seeing or was, perchance, non-existent. I have long lived on one of the great lines of travel in India and have sorrowed over the fact that hardly one in ten of our travelling countrymen (and many of them members of our home churches too) turn aside for a moment from gazing upon Hindu temples to study the important work which our mission is carrying forward in that city and district.
Even the friends of missions should learn what constitutes missionary success.
In South India there is found a mission which counts its converts only by the hundreds. It is known in Christian lands only through the severe criticisms which have been heaped upon it by some good Christian men because it is an educational mission.
And yet I sincerely believe that that abused mission is doing a work not inferior to that of any other mission in India for the permanent growth and highest achievement of the Kingdom of God in that land. Its leavening influence upon Hindu thought and institutions is hardly surpassed by that of any other mission. In the wonderful turning of the educated classes of India towards Christ, and the acceptance of him as their Ideal of life, that mission has a position of power. Many of the native Christians of greatest influence, culture and character in South India trace their conversion or highest efficiency to the work and influence of that educational mission. The best educated pastor in the Madura district came from and was trained by that mission; as also its highest and best Christian teachers received their final course of training and discipline there.
That mission is largely ignored and even despised by the too common statistical reckoning of results and success. And yet the illustrious name of Dr. Miller, the leader of that mission, will be cherished in India and in the world a century hence as a chief among those who were instrumental in bringing that great people to Christ.
The mighty and unparalleled revolution which is going on in India at present, as a result of missionary work, is not to be tabulated in our statistical reports. [pg 300] The deepest currents of those great moral and spiritual forces of the India of today are not found within the realm of figures. They defy tabulation; and yet they bring to the keen Christian observer in that land more encouragement, because they have more significance, than all the facts and figures usually found within the covers of an ordinary mission report.
A great deal of the discouragement and pessimism about missions today is born of this statistical craze.
Let us therefore take a broad view of the work of our missions and study some of the results achieved—results which are almost entirely the harvest of the labours of the last century.
These results are threefold.
1. Present Missionary Appliances.
(a) Protestant missions in India have created a plant and have developed appliances which are not only an assurance and a prolific source of encouragement for the future; they are also monuments of the industry and wisdom of those who have passed on, and definite signs of God's guidance of, and blessing to, the work.
In the first place, consider the buildings and other property erected and owned by the missionary societies and utilized for the maintenance and furtherance of their work in that land.
Few people realize the enormous store of wealth which is thus treasured in this elaborate mission plant. Nor can they appreciate the equivalent of this in terms of moral efficiency and spiritual power in the regeneration of India.
The thousands of acres of land and the many [pg 301] thousands of substantial edifices erected and dedicated to the cause of Christ in connection with these missions represent an investment of at least ten million dollars; and this money not only represents the generosity of Christians in the West, it also includes the self-denying offerings of Indian Christians, who from their poverty have given liberally to build up the cause which is dear to their hearts.
Mission educational institutions are housed in a legion of substantial and beautiful buildings ranging, from the massive imposing structures of the Madras Christian College, downward; churches there are of all sizes and architectural design, from the magnificent and beautiful stone edifice which accommodates its thousands and which was erected by the Church Missionary Society in Megnanapuram, Tinnevelly, down to the unpretentious prayer-house of a small village congregation. A host of suitable buildings for hospitals, presses and publishing houses, residences for missionaries and native agents, school dormitories, gymnasia and lecture halls; Y. M. C. A. and other societies' buildings—all these represent that power for service, incarnate in brick and mortar, which is invaluable and even indispensable to the great missionary enterprise in that land.
(b) Nor must we overlook or fail to estimate adequately the results achieved in the form of a Christian literature. Though our Protestant missions have not cultivated, as extensively as they should, the press and the publishing house as a missionary agency, they have not been insensible to their power and have utilized extensively the printed page.
In the first place a translated and a well-circulated [pg 302] Bible has been the aim and pride of our missions from the beginning. The humblest native of that land can find, in his own vernacular, the Word of God, and read for himself the message of God in Christ Jesus to his sin-burdened soul. Who can realize the work involved in all this, or the achievement which it represents?
Then the Christian hymnology of India is already a rapidly growing power. Every important vernacular has one or more Protestant Christian hymn books, which reveal to what a large extent our faith has inspired and made vocal the praises of Zion in that land. Nearly all of these Christian hymns in South India and many in North India are the compositions of native Christians and manifest considerable poetic power and high sentiment. Though many of them are worthy of translation, only two have thus far found place in our American hymn books. One is a Tamil hymn composed by Yesuthasan, catechist, and translated as below by Rev. E. Webb,—
1. Whither with this crushing load
Over Salem's dismal road,
All thy body suffering so,
O, my God where dost thou go?
Chorus:—
Whither Jesus goest thou,
Son of God what doest thou,
On this City's dolorous way,
With that cross, O, Sufferer say?
2. Tell me fainting, dying Lord,
Dost thou of Thine own accord
Bear that cross, or did thy foes
'Gainst thy will, that load impose.—Cho.
3. Patient Sufferer how can I
See thee faint and fall and die,
Pressed and peeled and crushed and ground
By that cross upon thee bound?—Cho.
4. Weary arm and staggering limb,
Visage marred, eyes growing dim,
Tongue all parched, faint at heart,
Bruised and sore in every part!—Cho.
5. Dost thou up to Calvary go,
On that cross in shame and woe,
Malefactors either side
To be nailed and crucified?—Cho.
6. Is it demon thrones to shake,
Death to kill, sin's power to break,
All our ills to put away,
Life to give and endless day?—Cho.
Besides this there is an ever-growing mass of Christian literature in all the vernaculars used by our missions; and this is becoming increasingly available as a power for the uplifting of the people who are, in growing numbers, learning to read. Beyond almost every other appliance for the Christianization of that people there stand high in usefulness and pervasive influence these books, tracts and magazines of the missions; and the aid which they furnish to all Christian workers in that land is beyond computation. Missionaries may go and come, and mission policy may change, but this Christian literature will quietly and mightily work out its own benign results throughout the land, enlightening the people and appealing to the best that is in them.
(c) In like manner the missionary educational institutions, which cover the whole land as a great network, [pg 304] are a noble product of missionary ideals and efforts in the land. They are in themselves an achievement which not only has cost millions of rupees for its creation and maintenance, but is also the product of some of the best thought and highest wisdom of many choice spirits during the last century. These schools constantly furnish to the Christian Church in India, for intellectual upbuilding, for moral guidance and for spiritual regeneration, nearly a half million of the brightest youths of the land. These institutions are the product of a century of endeavour; and it can be truly said that without them the Protestant mission of India would be shorn of much of their power and more of their promise.
In the present organized activity of missions there stands nothing in higher esteem than these institutions for what they have done in the life both of non-Christians and of Christians alike.
(d) In connection with missionary activity in that land one of the most encouraging, as it is also the most monumental, of results, is the large army of well-educated and thoroughly equipped men and women who have been taken from among the people and have been trained and placed as their leaders and guides.
Perhaps 20,000 such (there are 10,550 in South India alone) are at present giving all their time and strength to the spiritual training of the Christian community, to preaching to non-Christians and to the instruction of the young in the schools.
India is to be brought to Christ and his religion, not through the efforts of the foreigner, so much as through the life and activity of men and women of [pg 305] the soil. They are to be the essential factor in the future prevalence and in the character of our faith in India. Therefore it stirs one to deepest emotion to behold this mighty army of native workers, who are praying and working daily in that land for the conversion of their own people and for the upbuilding of the Christian community in all that is characteristic of our faith. As I have been permitted, for years, to train and to send forth into that great harvest field young men to preach the gospel of Christ and to guide the churches and congregations into spiritual truth and life, I have felt that it was the highest and best opportunity that could be granted to any missionary worker in that land. This work of training an adequate spiritual agency is occupying the serious thought of all missions. There are 110 theological seminaries and normal training schools in the country; in these, 4,305 students, of both sexes, are undergoing training.
Many of the agents now employed are men and women qualified to clearly expound the truths of our faith to believers and unbelievers. They are well fortified against attack as rational defenders of Christianity and are prepared to remove doubts which may arise in the minds of sincere inquirers and wavering believers. Not all of them are such as we could wish in intellectual equipment or in strength of character. But the poorest of them are gradually being replaced by better ones; and the intellectual, moral and spiritual tone of the whole force is constantly improving. The ordained native clergy are a body of men who are rapidly growing in efficiency and power. There are 406 of them in South India alone—nearly [pg 306] as many as there are ordained missionaries in the same area.
A comparison, in South India, between this force of 406 native pastors and the 585 native priests of the Romish Church shows how well, relatively, the Protestant Church of South India is supplied; there being one native pastor to every 1,500 of the Protestant community, while the Romish priests are only one to every 2,000 of their community.
Some of these pastors are university graduates, and all are men of good professional training. They are faithful workers and are increasingly worthy, and enjoy the confidence, of their missionary associates. Among the native agents of our Protestant missions in South India alone there are about 100 university graduates, 200 First in Arts (the degree granted after two years of college work) and 600 university matriculates. This thorough utilization of a strong, cultured, native agency is one of the most striking results of the last century's work in that land. And it is the more remarkable in the case of the women, since a generation ago hardly any of the weaker sex were in mission employ, while today the missions of South India alone employ 3,000 of them. It is practically the creation of a mighty and most faithful and devoted agency in one generation.
What may we not expect from this great army of native brethren and sisters, as they shall continue to grow in numbers and in general equipment, and as they shall be filled with the Spirit of God and be fully used by our Lord in the redemption of their own people!
2. The Native Christian Community.
Recent statistics give the total number of Christians in British India as 2,923,349. This is a growth of about 640,000 in ten years, four times more than the rate of growth of the whole population. And yet there are people who tell us that the kingdom of our Lord is not coming in that land!
CENSUS OF CHRISTIANS IN INDIA, MAY 2, 1901.[12]
| Total of all denominations | 2,923,349 |
| European and other races | 258,990 |
| Natives | 2,664,359 |
Total Returned. Natives.
| Anglican | 453,612 | 305,907 |
| Baptist | 220,863 | 216,743 |
| Congregationalist | 37,876 | 37,313 |
| Lutheran and allied denominations | 155,455 | 153,768 |
| Methodist | 76,869 | 68,451 |
| Presbyterian | 53,829 | 42,799 |
| Friends | 1,309 | 1,275 |
| Roman Catholic | 1,202,039 | 1,122,378 |
| Salvationist | 18,960 | 18,847 |
| Syrian | 571,327 | 571,320 |
| Scattering | 131,210 | 125,558 |
Of the above number of Christians 2,664,359 are natives of India. This is an increase of over 630,000, or about thirty-one per cent, of Indian Christians during the last decade. And during this time the general population of India has increased only about two and one-half per cent.! Analyzing this aggregate of all Christians we find that 970,000 of them are native Protestant Christians. This represents an advance of sixty-four per cent, during the last ten years in that community; while the Romish and Syrian [pg 308] native Christian communities have gained hardly three per cent, in the same time. Thus it will be seen that the rapid progress of our faith in that land of the East depends almost entirely upon the remarkable advance of Protestantism among the people of India. This is certainly a result most encouraging to Protestant Christian workers in that land. That this decade's growth is not abnormal is attested by the fact that the native Protestant Christians of India are more than ten times what they were fifty years ago.
In view of the fact that the whole Christian community of India is only one per cent, of the total population, one may be inclined to feel discouraged. And yet if the relative growth of the whole population and, say, of the Protestant Christian community for the last decade be maintained for one hundred and thirty years more, the whole population will be found Christian of the Protestant type.
These figures indicate the magnificent development of our work in that land. And when we remember the splendid equipment and wonderful modern appliances of the missionary organizations of today we can easily believe that, even within another century, Christianity will become the prevailing faith of India.
A large number, in our Christian community, has been gathered through mass movements, where certain castes and classes have, in large bodies, sought the blessings of our faith. In Tinnevelly, for instance, the Shanar caste was early influenced by Christian workers; and, as they are a very clannish community, many thousands of them have embraced the Christian faith and have been wonderfully transformed and elevated through their contact with it.
One of the most marvellous manifestations of the power of the Gospel is presented today in that district by this people, who, under missionary influence and Christian training, have risen from great depths of ignorance and social degradation until they stand among the highest of that land in intelligence and in the spirit of progress. Most of the Christians of Tinnevelly belong to this once despised class and are, in many respects, full of vigour and enterprise.
In the famous Telegu Baptist Mission we find a similar movement. That American Mission laboured for twenty-five years without much encouragement. After those years the outcastes of the community began to appreciate the advantages of our faith and to apply for admission into its congregations. It gathered them in by thousands until it has become by far the largest mission in the country. It represents nearly one quarter of the whole Protestant Christian community of India.
During the last few years a similar movement has overtaken the American Methodist, and other missions in North India. Many thousands of the depressed classes, within its area, have sought a refuge from their ills and a Saviour for their souls in the Christian fold; so that it taxes all the energies and resources of the mission to keep pace with the movement and to instruct adequately, in Christian truth, these ignorant masses who flock unto it. Bishop Thoburn says that more than 100,000 of this class are now waiting to be received into their community; but that their mission has not the men or means to instruct them.
In other missions, also, reports are being received [pg 310] of similar movements now going forward on a smaller scale. Some missionaries of these fields have written to me stating that the only limit to the growth and development of their missions is that of men and money wherewith to instruct and properly direct the people who come seeking for light and help.[13]
In the great majority of missions, however, growth has been general and normal; people have come as individuals and as families, separating themselves, after much thought and prayer, from those who are dearest to them upon earth, and passing through a sea of tribulation and persecution into the Christian life.
It has been claimed by Hindus, and by some others, that Hinduism is a tolerant faith—that it does not resort to persecution. In one respect this is true. As we have before seen, it will permit its members to hold any doctrine and to accept any teaching that they please. It has no punishment nor even a voice of disapprobation to its member who is a rationalist, an atheist, or a Christian so far as acceptance of such belief or non-belief is concerned. And, so far as conduct is concerned, a man may be a libertine, a robber or a murderer, and yet maintain his religious status. But when it comes to the violation of caste rules it is very different. Hinduism will tolerate anything but caste insubordination. So that when a man, in becoming a Christian, severs his connection with his caste and becomes, socially, an alien to his people, then Hinduism steps in and brings to bear [pg 311] upon him all the bitter penalties of caste infliction, and persecutes him in a thousand social ways such as make life a burden unto him. The engine of caste is the most complete and mighty instrument of religious persecution the world has known, as many thousands of our native Christians have learned to their bitter cost.
When a man decides to become a Christian there is very little opposition to this purpose among his people so long as his decision involves only his belief, conviction and private devotion and prayer. But when it leads him to a public confession of Christ and to baptism, which is regarded as his renunciation of caste rules, affinities and obligations, then all the spite of caste tyranny is showered upon him. He is boycotted thoroughly. None of his caste people, not even his own Hindu family, will eat with him. The family and caste washerman is no longer permitted to serve him; their barber will not shave him, and the blacksmith, carpenter, mason and other village servants decline to render him their wonted service. So that he is absolutely helpless. It requires a very strong man to face all this kind of annoyance and deprivation, and to stand firm in the new life upon which he has entered and continue loyal to the new faith which he has embraced.
It must be admitted that such rigours of persecution are not carried out in all cases at present. Though this is the spirit and method of caste, yet the influence of home ties and family affection and the social position and influence of a new convert may be such as to mitigate this public opposition to his Christian decision. But the engine of persecution is there, always ready for use.
The question has often been asked as to the motives which animated those of our Christian community who denied their ancestral faith in order to become Christians. In this land many have an idea, in some cases expressed but in many unexpressed, that most of the Christian converts in India are what are denominated “rice Christians.” This charge against the adherents of our faith in that land is as unworthy as it is untrue. That some embrace our religion and take upon them the name of Christ from unworthy motives we know—perhaps this is a thing not confined to India. But it has always been a surprise to me, not that so many, but that so few, join our missions from worldly or unworthy motives. For they soon learn that the missionary of their district is a friend of the poor and the oppressed; and they are constantly suffering from the injustice and the rapacity of Brahmans and of other members of their own faith who are above them. Outside of slavery there are few people who are subject to grosser injustice at the hand of men of wealth and of power than are the poor, down-trodden people of India.
Most of them are also groaning in the deepest pit of poverty. Poverty is a relative term. As compared with India, America knows absolutely no poverty. The poverty of India is crushing, over-whelming. When we remember that according to government statistics, the average income of a man for the support of his family in India is less than $1.50 a month we get a glimpse of what abject poverty means.
And when we further remember that, during many months and seasons of his life, even this is partly [pg 313] denied him, owing to frequent droughts and other unpreventable evils, we know in part how an unsatisfied craving, and pinching distress overwhelm a large proportion of that population. Government statistics show that one-fifth of the population are in a chronic state of hunger.
And yet I heartily bear testimony that comparatively few of our people have become Christians in order that they might receive physical and temporal blessings. We dare not say that this motive does not exist; but we are confident that in three-fourths of our converts it is not the prevailing or the dominant motive. There is a soul-hungering and a heart-thirsting in India such as are not in any way satisfied by their ancestral faith. And Christianity appeals to the people increasingly as a soul-satisfier and as a power of God unto salvation; and they more and more realize this fact and are impelled more by that motive than by any other in transferring their allegiance from Krishna to Christ.
And even when some do come with prevailingly low and sordid motives and seek to be enrolled as members of the Christian community, we dare not discourage or deny them; because we hope soon, after they have united with our community and have placed themselves under Christian instruction, to impart to them loftier conceptions of life and of truth. And even should we fail to reform them and to give them worthy views of our religion and of their relationship to it, we entertain the hope that their children will become worthy and genuine Christians. Many of the best and most honoured members of our community, today, are the children and grandchildren [pg 314] of very unsatisfactory Christians of the past.
I might say here that missionaries are being frightened less and less by the charges so frequently made, by those who know the situation least, concerning the unworthy motives of those who become Christians. Indeed, to be frank, the question of motives is, in my opinion, one of very little consequence, save as it may involve down-right hypocrisy or gross deception.
Ordinarily we do not expect, from a people who have been brought up in so selfish and so debasing and sordid an atmosphere as that of the common Hindu of today, a highly spiritual, or a purely ethical motive in becoming Christians. If such be the prevailing motive, or even if we are convinced that it is not absent, we are satisfied. Nor can there be anything wrong if a man in India seeks alliance with Christianity in order to better his earthly circumstances. This may mean a purpose to secure an education and the blessings of civilization and culture for his children; or it may reveal a desire for relief from injustice, or protection from gross tyranny; it may signify merely a vague hope that, by becoming a Christian, the general circumstances both of himself and family will be improved. There is nothing intrinsically evil in any of these ambitions nor in seeking Christian affiliation largely with a view to obtaining these, provided always that there is also a conviction of the moral and spiritual excellence of our faith and of its ability to satisfy the soul's need. And this we may generally assume in a man who voluntarily severs his connection with the faith of [pg 315] his ancestors, and from a religion which was a part of his own deepest life.
Nor should the deep ignorance of many of those who become Christians lead us hastily to conclude that, because they know so little about our faith, they therefore are unable to appreciate or enjoy any of its spiritual blessings. I have often been surprised to see how many very ignorant Christians, and those who greatly try our patience at times, both by their stupidity and their crooked lives, nevertheless often reveal beautiful touches of a genuine faith and of a most direct and simple trust; and they stand nobly firm under the most trying and worrying persecution which Hinduism knows too well how to inflict upon those who desert and deny it.
It has often been charged, with a view to discredit missionary effort in India, that the converts gathered into the Christian fold have been from the lowest social stratum, and not from the higher and ruling classes of society. Even if this charge were entirely true, I can see in it nothing reflecting upon the success of our cause in that land.
It has, indeed, in all ages and lands, been the normal process of Christian conquest, to gather in the lower classes first. It is not by filtering downward but by leavening upward that Christianity has been wont to enter and to transform nations. As this was the initial method in apostolic days, so has it continued through all the history of the Church. It has been by the weak and despised things of the world that our Lord has brought to nought and then won the mighty. It is so in India. Perhaps three-fourths of the native Christians of that land are from [pg 316] the non-Aryan community—from the aboriginal classes over whom the sway of Hinduism is less complete than it is over the Aryan races. This is doubtless one reason why two-thirds of all the Christians of India are found in Southern India—among the Dravidians, who, as we have seen, are more the children of Demonolatry than they are of Brahmanism. And yet, let it not be supposed that the Turanians of the South are far inferior to the Aryans of the North; or that the salvation of the so-called “aborigines” of India, of whom there are more than sixty millions, is unworthy of our highest ambition.
Neither let it be thought that Christianity has not made glorious inroad upon the middle classes and even upon the highest class in that land—the Brahmans. It is true that, thus far, not very many of that high and haughty caste have openly professed Christ. It is equally true, however, that some of the best members of our Christian community are converted Brahmans. The Indian Christian community is proud of such men as the Hon. Kali Churn Bannerjee, Dr. K. M. Bannerjee, Rev. K. C. Chatterjee, Rae Maya Das and the Hon. N. Subramanien, not because they were Brahmans, but because they have consecrated to the Lord all their distinguished ability, and because they excel in their possession of Christian graces.
These names, and many others like them, reveal the growing power that our faith is wielding over men of position in that land. At the coronation of King Edward, in London, twenty representatives of the Indian Christian Church were present. Of these, six are ruling princes; perhaps the most distinguished [pg 317] of them is Sir Harnam Singh Ahluwalia, K. C. I. E. He is a man of culture—“a true representative of educated India.”
He was entrusted by the Indian Christians to convey their address to the king upon the occasion of his coronation. Sir Harnam Singh's usefulness and success largely depend upon the support, which he receives, in all good things, from his wife, Lady Singh, who is the daughter of Rev. Golak Nath.
The devout Henry Martyn, nearly a century ago, with mingled discouragement and yearning, declared that to see one Hindu a real believer in Jesus would be something more nearly approaching the resurrection of a dead body than anything he had yet seen. The illustrious Jesuit missionary, the Abbe Du Bois, mourned that, even after a long period of faithful work, he believed he had seen no genuine convert to Christianity in that land. How would those two great friends of India rejoice today were they to see the glorious harvest which Christianity has been permitted to gather during the last century from that great people! And among the best of them are to be seen not a few representatives of the haughty Brahman caste and also members of the crushed and despised outcaste Pariah community.
It is well to remember that it has been the ambition of missionaries in India, not so much to gather in numerous accessions from the social and intellectual aristocracy of the land, as to create out of the Indian Christian community, however degraded may have been its origin, an aristocracy of character and of true culture. And in this they have achieved remarkable [pg 318] success. For the native Christian community is being most rapidly transformed in these respects. Remember, please, the condition, previous to their embracing our faith, of those outcaste people who now constitute three-fourths of the Christian community. They were not only socially ostracized, and therefore wanting in all traits of manly assertion, of independence and of self-respect. They were also in deepest ignorance. Not five per cent, of them could either read or write. Moreover they were under serious religious disability. Though nominal Hindus, they had no right to enter purely Hindu temples nor to approach in worship any strictly Hindu deity. The most sacred of Hindu religious books were denied them, and the most cherished of Hindu rites and ceremonies they were deemed totally unfit to observe.
All that they could claim was permission to appease the demons of their ancestral worship. I have seen these outcastes, who, while absorbed into Hinduism, nevertheless live constantly under its ban. They erect fine halls and shrines in Brahmanical temples, but are not permitted to enter them after the day of their dedication to Hindu worship. Hinduism has never declined any pecuniary offerings from these despised ones; and yet it has never deemed it its province or duty to impart its religious blessings to them. It has denied to them instruction, comfort and salvation. Is it a wonder that most of the people were almost on a level with brutes so far as thoughts of the highest interests of the soul are concerned? These are the people whom Christianity has delighted to rescue from their [pg 319] thralldom and to build up in religious thought, ambition and spiritual blessings.
It has applied itself to the task of raising them from their low estate. It has erected buildings for their instruction. In most cases its prayer-houses have been daily used as schoolhouses where the young have been instructed; so that today this community stands distinguished among the other communities in the land for its intelligence.
For example, the total number of Christian youth in mission schools in South India is 62,000—two-thirds of them being boys and one-third girls, which represents a percentage to the total of school-going-age of 68.7 for boys and 33.7 for girls; and this while, in the general community, only twelve per cent, of those who are of an age to be at school are attending school. Among the Brahmans only is literacy more common than among Indian Christians. And even that caste, which has for thirty centuries represented the cultured aristocracy of India, must look to its laurels; for, though their males are preëminent in culture, the females are as illiterate as any class in India, only six in 1,000 being able to read. In the Christian community, on the other hand, the women are not far behind the men in the race for culture. It is therefore not difficult to prophesy that the day is not far off when the Indian Christians, among whom both sexes find equal opportunity and inducement to study in the schools, will outstrip the Brahmans and stand preëminent as the educated and cultured class of India.
This is as true in the higher as in the lower grades of education. There are today living 418 native [pg 320] Christian graduates of the Madras University. Last year twenty-seven of these Christian youth received the B. A. degree in that Presidency alone, and the only three Indian ladies who have seized the difficult and much coveted prize of Master of Arts from that University are Christians. These facts are significant and reveal the marvellous progress made by this once despised community.
As to the character of these Christians the testimony of Sir Alexander Mackensie, a distinguished Anglo Indian statesman of large experience, may be of interest:—“The advance made (in missions) during my time,” he says, “have been substantial and encouraging, and it is my firm belief that the day-spring of still better things is very close at hand, while the simple faith and godly lives of many native Christians, might put all, or most of us certainly, to the blush.”
It may be well to add emphasis here to the position of woman in the native Christian community as a direct result of mission endeavour in that land.
The new womanhood of the infant native Christian community has begun to impress itself upon the land. There are nearly five hundred thousand women and girls connected with the Protestant missions of that country today. They are being trained for, and introduced to, new spheres and opportunities such as the women of India never dreamed of before. Thousands of them are engaged as teachers and as Bible women. Some practice medicine; others adorn and cheer the homes, beautify the lives and strengthen the work of pastors and preachers, of teachers, doctors and other professional [pg 321] men. They grow into the full bloom of womanhood before they leave their school training; and they go forth well equipped intellectually, morally and spiritually for the manifold duties of life.
The last few years have not only helped the Christian women of the land, as a class, they have also brought into distinction many of them who are worthy to stand among the eminent women of the age and world.
The first of these, both on account of the remarkable career which she has led and of the noble work which she is performing, is the well-known Pundita Ramabai. Herself a Brahman widow, who lost her father in the tender years of childhood and who subsequently entered into the joys and blessed power of a Christian life, she dedicated herself to the work of redeeming her unfortunate Hindu sisters from their sad lot. To this noble work of philanthropy and of heroic Christian service she has given herself absolutely; and through distinguished administrative skill and a triumphant faith she has achieved marvellous success. Beside her well-known institution for child-widows at Poonah—the Sharada Sadan, which the writer visited and greatly admired—the recent famine inspired her to a new effort to save the waifs and orphans of that region. So that, today, she has under her care more than two thousand of the unfortunate ones of her own sex whom she is not only protecting and wisely training for worthy positions in life, but is also bringing forward into the joys of a true Christian life. Few women, in any land, have found a more useful, or more honourable, career than this noble woman of the East. She combines, in a [pg 322] rare degree, large capacity for work, the highest sanity in her methods and the deepest love for those whom she has given her life to bless.
The Sorabjis, also of Western India, have achieved distinction beyond most native Christian families. Mr. Sorabji was one of the few Parsees who have embraced Christianity. One of the daughters of the family, the widow of an Englishman, lives in London and has delighted the Queen by her exquisite rendering of Persian songs. One sister is an artist, whose paintings are exhibited in Paris and London. One is a surgeon of distinction. It was another daughter of this family who was the only representative of her sex from the Orient at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago. The most distinguished of these seven sisters is Cornelia Sorabji, the barrister. Her graduating paper on “Roman Law,” at Oxford, was classed among the best papers produced by the pupils of that famous institution. She is the first lady barrister of India, and is not only a powerful advocate, but also a brilliant writer, as her book and her articles on the woman question in “The Nineteenth Century” amply testify.
Toru Dutt, of Calcutta, one of the brilliant young stars of India, was versed in French, German and English. At twenty-one she published “A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields.” It is a skillful and able English translation of the works of famous French authors. She and her sister, Aru, were remarkably talented. It is sad that she, who was so full of intellectual brightness and so beautiful in Christian life, should have been taken away by death in the bloom of life.
Miss Goreh is the only Indian Christian who has [pg 323] thus far added to our popular English hymnology. Her beautiful hymn:
“In the secret of His presence how my soul delights to hide;
Oh, how precious are the moments which I spend at Jesus' side.
Earthly cares can never reach me, neither trials bring me low;
For when Satan comes to tempt me to the Secret Place I go,”—
has been a blessing to many in this land of ours.
Mrs. Sattianathan of Madras (the wife of a distinguished Indian Christian) was another bright young woman who showed marked evidence of talent as an English writer. Her books, descriptive of the life both of Hindu and of Indian Christian women, have had deservedly large popularity. They created in many of her friends a hope for even greater results from her. But, alas, these hopes were soon shattered by her sad and premature death.
The second Mrs. Sattianathan, herself an M. A. of the Madras University, has entered upon a brilliant career as a writer, and has established the first English monthly magazine for her Indian sisters—a magazine which is full of attractiveness and promise.
These ladies are only a few of those who illustrate the ability, devotion, beauty and promise of the women of India. Such are preëminently the hope of that country.
It was while looking upon one of these Indian Christian ladies that the late Benjamin Harrison, Ex-President of the United States, remarked that if he had spent a million dollars for missions and had seen, as a result of his offering, only one such convert as Miss Singh he would still have considered his offering a most profitable investment.
These women are creating their own opportunities and will, ere long, achieve much in all the ranks of life and especially in their own peculiar sphere of womanly activity and influence. Woman will do more for the progress and development of the country than the sterner sex, as she has hitherto done more than he to conserve and dignify the past. And it is safe to conclude that the womanhood of India will discover its chief glory as it now finds its largest opportunity in Christianity. And I may add that the mission of Christianity to, and in behalf of, the women of that land may almost be called its chief mission, as the results which it has achieved, and will yet achieve, in this line, will constitute its chief glory.
At large centres the Indian Christian community is already beginning to feel its power and is organizing in behalf of its own highest interest.
The “Madras Native Christian Association” is perhaps the strongest organization of the community. It unites hundreds of the best members and gives them a corporate existence and furnishes opportunity to render articulate the ideals, ambitions and needs of the Christian community. It has recently undertaken several enterprises of importance, such as The Twentieth Century Enterprise and the Indian Christian Industrial Exhibition. It discusses, with much sanity, the most serious problems of the community and creates a worthy sentiment which will increasingly spread until it reaches the remotest parts of the country.
All this tends to show that the community is growing conscious both of its strength, its responsibility and its opportunity.
Rev. S. Sattianatha, LL.D.
Mrs. S. Kruba Sattianatha.
For the furtherance of this purpose weekly and monthly magazines, both in the English language and in the vernaculars, are being conducted by them. The Christian Patriot, the best organ of the community, is published in Madras, is conducted with much ability and represents the best sentiments of its constituents. It has done much to develop the consciousness of life and power in the community and has always urged worthy ideals upon its readers.
The seriousness with which all the native Christians of India regard their calling and the gratitude with which they enjoy their faith is clearly attested by their offerings.
Perhaps nothing can render more satisfactory reply to those who charge the native Christians with worldly motives than to show how far they deny themselves in behalf of their faith. In other words the benevolence and offerings of the native Christians may be taken as a fair test of their sincerity and of their spiritual appreciation. It is a good test in any land. I have said that they are very poor. A few years ago I investigated carefully the economic conditions of the most prosperous and largest village congregation of the Madura Mission. I discovered that five rupees (that is $1.66) was the average monthly income of each family of that congregation. And that meant only thirty-three cents a month for the support of each member of a family! We have congregations whose income is less than this. And yet, the Christians of that mission contributed over two rupees (seventy-five cents) per church member as their offering for 1900. For all the Protestant Missions of South India the average offering per church member during [pg 326] 1900 was one rupee and nine annas (fifty-two cents). For South India this represented an aggregate sum of R 248,852 ($85,000) or about seven and one-half per cent, of the total sum expended in the missions during that year. An American can easily realize how much this offering is as an absolute gift; but he cannot realize how much of self-denial it means to that very poor people; nor how large an offering it is as related to the best offerings of our home churches today. If our American Christians contributed for the cause of Christ a percentage of their income equal to that of the native Christians of India they would quadruple their benevolence. And if, in relation to their income, the Christians of India contribute four times as much as the Christians of America, in relation to their real ability, after supplying the most primitive needs of their bodies, they contribute a hundred times more than do their brothers and sisters in this great land of luxury and abundance. Who in America, today, in contributing to the cause of Christ, denies himself a convenience or a comfort; yea more, who on that account fails to meet the craving of bodily appetite? And yet there are many Christians in India who suffer in both these respects in order that they may add the widow's mite to the treasury of the Church and their loving offering to advance the Kingdom of the Lord.
In this way the infant Christian Church of India, in its poverty of this world's goods, is revealing a wealth of spirit and a richness of purpose such as are worthy of emulation in Christian lands today.
The organized effort of the Indian Church for self-extension is rapidly multiplying. Every endeavour [pg 327] is put forth to train them out of that spirit of dependence which is one of the necessary evils incident to modern missions.
In nearly all well organized missions in India are found, as we have already seen, Home Missionary Societies, which are conducted and maintained by the people, and which constantly direct their thoughts to their privilege to further the cause of Christ in their own land and among their own people.
Work by the young for the young, also, is being conducted with increasing prevalence, zeal and success throughout the land.
Indeed, all departments of a healthful, normal life and activity are vigorously prosecuted on mission territory with a view to imparting to the Christians, not only a knowledge of the highest type of Christian altruism, but also for the purpose of making them partakers of the same.
And the Indian Christian community at present, notwithstanding all its faults and weaknesses, which I would not conceal, furnishes us much encouragement as a product of past effort and as a growing power which is to be used by God in the speedy upbuilding of his Kingdom in that great land of the East.
There are, indeed, not many forms of organized Christian activity conducted by Indian Christians themselves—apart from Western missions. There are some, however, which are worthy of note and commendation. Such are Pandita Ramabai's Mukti Mission for Widows; Miss Chuckerbutty's flourishing Orphanages; Mrs. Sorabji's High School for Women; the Gopalgange Mission started by the Rev. [pg 328] M. N. Bose, and Dr. P. B. Keskar's Orphanage and Industrial School at Sholapur.
Recently a novel enterprise was inaugurated in the American Mission, Jaffna, Ceylon, in the form of a Foreign Missionary Society, which sends forth, to a region in Southern India, its missionaries to carry the gospel of Christ to the non-Christians of that place. It is chiefly conducted and supported by the young people of the mission and is prophetic of a movement which will, ere long, spring up throughout India as a result of a growing sense of responsibility and opportunity among the Christians of that land.
It is with no spirit of boasting that I wish to dwell upon the share which America has had in producing these results. Other people have done in some respects, better than we. But there is no doubt that India is much influenced by our land. America has, for a century, lavishly given her sons and daughters and expended her wealth for the salvation of India. Her sacrifices have not been in vain. None have found more hearty response among that people than the American Missions. Among the many Protestant Missions now at work in that Peninsula less than one-fourth are American; and, yet in connection with these missions have been gathered and are found nearly one-half of all of the Protestant Christians of that land. In South India the mission which has found much the largest success in gathering converts is an American Mission. In North India, again, one of our missions stands preëminent in the multitude of its Christians, and another, in the excellence of its educational power and leavening influence. In Western India, also, America stands first in the acknowledged [pg 329] power and preëminence of one of its missions.
In the organized movements for the young, America again stands conspicuous in that land. As we study the wonderful activity exercised by Protestant Christianity in behalf of India's youth, we are at once impressed by the leadership of American workers as we are by the American methods used.
The finest Y. M. C. A. building in the Orient is mostly American, both in conception and in the organized energy and princely offering which made it possible. It stands today in the city of Madras, as one of the noblest and the most beautiful tributes of western Christian enterprise to that great land.
The only theological seminary which has been adequately endowed for the training of Protestant Christian workers in India, is an American one.
Perhaps the best, because the most sane and enterprising, Christian weekly newspaper in the land is American.
The only Quarterly Review conducted in that land by Protestant Christians was founded by an American.
And, in the same line, it is interesting to note that American presses and publishing houses are multiplying and are exercising an ever-widening influence in the redemption of that country.
So largely have all these American agencies been used for the furtherance of Christian truth and light; and so much have they been welcomed and appropriated by the people, that it may well be spoken of as “an American Invasion.”
The Bishop of Newcastle, England, referred to this in his last annual sermon. “So far,” he says, “has [pg 330] America realized the need of winning India to Christ that a hundred years hence, if the last thirty years' proportion continue, India will owe its Christianity more to America than to Great Britain and Ireland combined.” These words are no less significant in their truthfulness than generous in their appreciation. England has been entrusted with the work of leading that great people of the Orient, politically and socially, into a larger and higher life. This, by a strange Providence, has been entrusted to her in consequence of her conquest of that people seven thousand miles away and seven times her own population. So also has America been favoured with a fair share of opportunity and of influence as the moral supporter of England in this unique and unprecedented work. And, while England by the nature of her compact, or conquest, is somewhat handicapped in this task, so far as her religious influence upon the people is concerned, America has free access and ample entrance into the heart of the community because of her disinterested and unrestrained relationship to them.
Her voice to India has always been the voice of a constraining altruism. All her endeavours in that land have been the outgoings of a world-wide philanthropy and of Christian self-denial. Therefore, she has been free and unencumbered in all her ambitions for the uplifting of that people; and she has found the heartiest response and warmest appreciation from those whom she has sought to bless. Consequently, that noble band of 1,000 of her sons and daughters, who are today giving themselves to the salvation of India; and the one million dollars [pg 331] sent forth annually to maintain her work in that land, are fruitful in the highest good and in the richest result in all parts of the land.
While all this means a great achievement, it means also, and preëminently, a stirring opportunity. The widest door of opportunity is open to America among her antipodes in that historic land. Christian effort can nowhere else find heartier welcome or results more encouraging and telling in the great gathering of eastern nations into the Kingdom of our Lord.
Chapter XI.
Missionary Results—(Continued)
1. The Leaven of Christianity.
Our Lord compared his Kingdom to the mustard seed which grew into a tree. This wonderful growth and development of his Kingdom we considered in the last chapter. He compared it also to the leaven which was placed in the meal and which leavened the whole lump. We shall now consider the leavening or assimilating work of his Kingdom as at present witnessed in India.
If a man were to ask me, “wherein do you find the most encouragement as a Christian worker in India?” I would doubtless reply:—not in the Church and community gathered by the missions, but outside of the Christian fold, in the institutions, and among the non-Christians, of the land. It is not in the fields already harvested (though much of joy and promise we certainly find there), but in the fields whitening for the harvest, that we see the largest hope for the ultimate conquest of that great people by Christ.
There are in India, at present, a thousand results, movements and tendencies which, to the thoughtful, watchful, Christian worker, bespeak the rapid coming of the Kingdom of Christ, even though their testimony is not heard through mission statistical [pg 333] tables, and though their activity is found mostly outside the visible pale of the Church.
I appreciate the fact that, when we begin to consider these results which lie outside the life and organization of the Christian community, we need much discernment and discrimination, lest we ascribe to Christianity alone an influence and an efficiency which it only shares with Western thought and civilization. But it is not only impossible to separate these forces, in our endeavour to estimate the share of each in the results achieved; western thought and civilization, both in their origin and development, are themselves as much the product as they are the expression of Christianity; so that we need not hesitate much in ascribing to our faith all the results which the combined energy of these have produced in that land.
Another discrimination is here necessary. In the last chapter we dwelt, almost exclusively, upon Protestant missionary activity and results. These we were able to measure chiefly through the concentrated activity and published statistical reports of Protestant Missions. But, in considering the more indirect and general results there achieved we must not forget that they must be ascribed to all the Christian agencies at work in that land. I believe that Protestant Christianity is much the largest Christian power among all the forces that make for the redemption of India. And yet it would be presumptuous and unjust not to recognize the strenuous activity and pervasive influence of Roman Catholicism in the land. I am convinced that that great historic Church, with all its errors and false methods, is [pg 334] nevertheless a positive and a mighty power in the dissemination of Christian thought and principles in India. In the results which I am about to mention, this and all other Christian agencies have had their share.
Some of these activities, indeed, seem to come directly from none of the organized agencies of Christianity in the land. But they are only apparently so. They are among the thousand subtle influences which work in a quiet way in the minds and life of the people and which suddenly, from time to time, break upon our sight through their results. An illustration of this kind occurred not long ago. It is said that one of the vernacular versions of the Gospels accidentally fell into the hands of a Mohammedan Moulvi, or teacher, in North India. It had been prepared and published by the Bible Society. The Mussulman read the book with eagerness, chiefly with a view to find new arguments against the divinity of our Lord and the heavenly source of our faith. But, as he read, he was so impressed with the wonderful narrative and the unique beauty of the character of our Lord, that he surrendered himself to him as his Saviour and found in him peace and rest. Sometime later he met a Hindu fakir, named Chet Ram, who was earnestly in search of the truth. The Mohammedan convert joyfully told him of his newly found Saviour and gave him his copy of the New Testament that he might find for himself the same blessing. The Holy Spirit carried the Gospel message of life into his heart also, and he accepted Christ and at once began to preach him unto his friends and neighbours. This work he performed faithfully; and [pg 335] he gathered around himself many who accepted his following, short creed;—“I believe in Jesus Christ the Son of Mary and in the Holy Ghost and in the Father to whom prayer should be made and in the Bible through which salvation is to be received.” Chet Ram died some time ago; but there are today found, scattered through the villages of North India, thousands of his followers who subscribed to his brief creed and who always carry upon their persons a copy of the Scriptures. So far as I know, these people have never come into contact with Christian workers, but have been led simply through a study of God's Word, under the guidance of God's Spirit, unto Christ the Saviour of the world.
It is one of the most encouraging facts connected with Christian influence in India that one so often and unexpectedly meets its manifestations in individual life and institutions. Suddenly he comes across little streams of influence whose source may be unknown, but which do a great deal towards fertilizing thought and producing a harvest of religious results throughout the land.
The general subject of the influence of the West upon the East has been recently raised in the very interesting and thought-provoking book on “Asia and Europe” by the English writer, Meredith Townsend. He stiffly maintains that the West never has, and, probably, never will, seriously and permanently influence the East in thought and life. While there is a semblance, yea an element, of truth in his contention, so far as the past is concerned, it fails to apply to the India of the present and must fall far wide of the mark in the future. Many years have elapsed [pg 336] since the author of “Asia and Europe” left India; and he is not conversant, at first hand, with the mighty revolution which is taking place there at present. He fails, for one thing, to appreciate the wonderful influence of modern scientific discovery as a unifier of all peoples and as the handmaid of western life and thought and of Christian conquest. I need refer only to one of these modern agencies—the telegraph. The election of Mr. McKinley as president of the United States was known to me in India before it was known to nine-tenths of the population of this land.
The calamity which recently befell Galveston, Texas, was not only known to Hindus, the very next day; the price of cotton went up in South India villages as a consequence of that sad event. The generous offerings recently contributed in America for the famine sufferers in India were actually distributed to them in food the next day after they were offered! Can these things, and a thousand like them, which enter into the every-day transactions of East and West, have no permanent influence upon the relations of these once remote but now neighbouring people? Isolation has everywhere given way to intercourse and mutual dependence; and that means community of life and thought which produces fundamental action and reaction.
Under these new and marvellous conditions the former “mental seclusion of India,” so unduly emphasized by Mr. Townsend, is rapidly yielding and must utterly pass away. It will, however, not pass away simply because of the influence of the West upon the East, but rather because of the mutual action [pg 337] and reaction of East and West. The East will approach the West because, to a large extent, the West will have learned to appreciate, and to draw in sympathy towards, the East. Herein lies the secret of the future oneness, or at least of the communion, of the two great hemispheres.
India is, therefore, in this matter, facing today such conditions as never before existed there; and these are to further considerably the work of revolution which our religion is bringing to pass in that land, and which such pessimists as Mr. Townsend are wont to ignore.
That keen philosopher and high authority upon India, Sir Alfred Lyall, is right in his anticipation when he claims that India “will be carried swiftly through phases which have occupied long stages in the lifetime of other nations.”
Considering, then, the leavening influences and the general results of our faith in that land we shall see them in many institutions and departments of life.
(a) In laws which the government of India has enacted during the last century.
There has been a steady conflict between the enlightened government of the white man and the inhuman customs of the people of that land. The Christian sentiment of the members of the government, and of other Christians outside of that circle, has ever rebelled against and sought to put down the grossest evils which obtain there.
And the fact which we need to emphasize here is that these evils have been directed and protected by Hinduism itself and are an integral part of its ceremonies and teachings. Whenever the government [pg 338] has sought, by legislation, to do away with these inhuman rites and customs it has been bitterly opposed by Hinduism and has been met by a general uprising of its followers against what they have called religious interference and persecution. Thus the suppression of Thuggism was a definite attack upon a religious institution, for the Thuggs never committed a murder, save as a part of their worship of the goddess Bhowanee to whose service they had dedicated themselves and to which the blood of the innocent traveller (as they thought) was the most welcome sacrifice its devotee could offer. Hence the difficulty which faced the government in bringing these religious murders to an end.
Suttee was also regarded as a high type of religious devotion. For the widow to immolate herself upon the funeral pyre of her dead husband was not only the supreme test of wifely devotion, it was also preëminently the highest religious act possible to her; and it brought to her a future bliss which was painted in glowing and attractive colours by the sacred books of her faith. It was not strange, therefore, that the State hesitated, for a long time, to abolish by law this hideous custom, whereby in the year 1817, for instance, two widows were burned daily in the Bengal Presidency alone.
It was in the face of extensive protest and threats by orthodox Hindus that the government abolished it. “Previous to 1857, 150 human sacrifices are said to have been annually offered in Gumsur, a city in East Central India; and the abolition of that horrible custom raised such a storm of opposition among the Hindus that an eight years' war was the result. More [pg 339] than 2,000 victims were rescued from sacrifice and handed over to the care of the missionaries.” In like manner infanticide was encouraged for centuries in the land as an act of religious devotion which was possessed of great efficacy. In the name of religion and with the promise of its highest blessings mothers were led to feed the crocodiles of the sacred Ganges by throwing to them their own infants.
It seems hardly possible that human beings could regard the prohibition of that inhuman and unnatural act as a piece of injustice and an interference with the rights of conscience. And yet it was so regarded!
Not fewer than twenty laws have thus been enacted in that land, during the last century, with a view to putting an end to religious customs which robbed thousands of people, annually, of life itself and deprived many thousands more of the most elementary and inalienable rights of human beings. So it has become penal to do any one of the following things, all of which were regarded as expressions of the highest religious devotion and were committed with the sanction of the ancestral faith and under the inspiration of its benediction: to burn widows; to expose parents to death on the banks of the Ganges; to offer up human sacrifice; to murder children, either by throwing them into the Ganges, or by the Rajpoot secret method of infanticide; to encourage men to throw away their lives under temple cars and in other ways of religious devotion; to encourage various forms of voluntary self-torture and self-mutilation; to outrage girls under a certain age.
How much hath the Spirit of Christ wrought in that land during the century by saving the lives of [pg 340] millions of poor innocent creatures from the ravages of a savage faith and an inhuman religious devotion!
Thus, in India today the laws protect the people, old and young, from the old murderous customs of its religion, and gives a sanctity to life and a protection to the innocent and a check to the mad, suicidal tendency of the religious fanatic, such as India never before knew. And all this has been done in the teeth of their religion and notwithstanding the persistent cries and protests of the religious leaders of the people.
I have already mentioned the fact that the obscene and the impure have in many ways been fostered by that faith, and that the government has thus far been unable to find courage to apply to religious temples, symbols and rites that legislation which it has enacted against the obscene in literature and in the ordinary life of the people. And yet, we are encouraged to find there this anomaly today,—that men, for translating and publishing obscene portions of the Hindu scriptures, have been punished in accordance with this law. The day will, doubtless, soon come, it must come, when this legislation against obscenity will be enforced without exception in favour of temple cars and sacred objects and rites.
In reference to caste observance the State has been more courageous and has absolutely ignored class distinction among its subjects. No one who has not lived in the East can realize how radical and important this policy is in that land of class distinctions based upon religious injunction and revelation. It seemed absurd and unrighteous to that people that the august and sacred Brahman and the unclean and [pg 341] outcaste Pariah should be regarded as equal before the law, and that a pauper should enjoy, with a prince, the same protection and blessings from the State. Regardless of immemorial custom and religious injunction, the government has become the great leveller—it has ignored entirely, in all the rights and privileges which it has to confer, every caste distinction and class privilege and disability which Hinduism had created and sacredly maintained for centuries. And it adheres stiffly to its Christian principle of the equal rights of all its subjects.
(b) Moreover, Hinduism itself is being gradually transformed under the search-light of a present Christianity.
Not only has it been compelled, from without, to give up some of its inhuman practices, it has also voluntarily, from very shame, relinquished some of its grossest evils.
There is a very interesting conflict now going on in Hinduism—between the ultra-conservatives and the progressives. This latter class is composed almost entirely of men who have been educated in mission and government schools, and who have been influenced by Christian light and life.
I do not expect much from a Christianized Hinduism any more than I do from a Hinduized Christianity. And yet we cannot be unmindful of, nor ungrateful for, that growing sense of shame which leads that faith to conceal, if not to abandon entirely, some of its worst crimes against man and to adorn itself in such a way that it may not too violently shock the sensibilities of a people who are living under the growing light of a Christian civilization.
This is what the ancestral faith of India is now intent upon doing, at least so far as the changing situation compels. The influence of educated Hindus upon the pundits and other religious guides of the land is increasing annually, and is steadily in favour of religious reform and of a broad and enlightened interpretation of Shastraic deliverances upon religious customs. For example, a few years ago, sea voyages were strictly prohibited to all Hindus. No exceptions were allowed and excommunication was the inevitable penalty for the violation of this religious injunction. Today hundreds of Hindus, impelled by an ambition for the best education and for a broad culture, annually travel to England and to other foreign lands. Though some of those men are punished for their temerity in defying this sacred injunction of their faith, it is remarkable how many pundits arise to defend such travel and to reduce the opprobrium which overtakes a sea-travelled man. Indeed, every year adds to the ease with which such a man can avoid punishment for going abroad.
Until recently, Hinduism had no way of reinstating a man who had deserted his ancestral faith and had thereby broken caste. Today this subject is up for discussion, and many of the religious leaders are pointing to passages from their Scriptures which justify such a reinstatement and are showing methods by which it can be effected. In consequence of this not a few back-sliding Christians have recently found an open door to reenter their ancestral faith. This is an important move; but I doubt whether it will cause Christians to lose any converts save those who are [pg 343] not sincere and who would therefore be better outside than within the Christian Church.
A generation ago few Hindus in the villages of the land would fail to defend polytheism and idolatry as an essential part of their faith. At present the Christian preacher, as he travels among these same people, finds universal assent to his declaration concerning the unity of God. I have hardly met one villager in the land who maintains today that there are really “gods many.” Polytheism is not defended but explained away, and idolatry, it is claimed, is only an accommodation—a kind of religious kindergarten—for the sake of the very ignorant, and “for women and children.” But of course, pantheism is the Hindu's conception of the divine unity.
Whenever an educated Hindu defends his faith, in an argument with a Christian, he never quotes as scriptural authority the more recent writings of their faith—the Tantras and Puranas, which are the storehouse of legend and myth, of myriad rites and customs and are the refuge and joy of the orthodox and conservative pandits;—he discards these and falls back upon the most ancient writings, which are the exponents of nature worship and of vedantic philosophy. Or he will extol the Bhagavat Gita, which is an eclectic attempt to unify and approve the conflicting philosophies of Brahmanism.
In these, and in many other ways, Hinduism finds today new presentation and defence. It is not the thing it used to be. And yet in matters of fundamental importance it is and will remain unchanged. In some respects these changes make that ancient faith less vulnerable to attack. In the words of Doctor [pg 344] Robson,—“The influence of Christianity upon Hinduism has been rather to strengthen its rival by forcing it to abandon certain positions which weakened it, and bringing it more into accordance with natural religion. But Hinduism remains the same. The contest is coming to be between the ultimate principles of the two religions, and these are irreconcilable.”[14] Yes, it will be a good day for Christianity when the great contest is thus narrowed down, and when the deepest teachings of the two faiths will be placed in clear and simple juxtaposition.
One serious source of danger in this controversy lies in the Neo-Hinduism which interprets Hinduism in the light of Christian truth and modern thought. Hindus formerly maintained that the teachings of Christianity were false. Now they tell us that most of its truths were taught by their own faith even before the Christian era! Through the allegories of their Shastras, and under the guidance of the fertile imagination of that Englishwoman, Mrs. Besant, they find equally the best Christian truth and most recent results of modern scientific discovery taught by their ancient scriptures! Mrs. Besant has even discovered that the ten incarnations of Vishnu are based on strict evolution principles and follow that order.
She claims, indeed, that many of the most recent discoveries in the physical universe were anticipated and promulgated three millenniums ago by Hindu rishis. This of course is a method of insanity which will soon give way to a newer craze. For the present it helps to evade or confuse the issue in certain [pg 345] minds; but as it is in itself a substitution of nonsense for argument and reason it will not long deceive any one, not even the poor Hindu.
And just as, under the present Christian régime, Hinduism is rapidly being transformed, no less truly does the Mohammedan faith undergo change. There is a new Islam arising in India. That faith cannot be preserved in its rigid integrity under the ægis of a Christian government; therefore in India the faith of the great Arabian prophet has undergone marked transformation during the last century and a half. Its religious leaders there are rationalists who scrutinize and criticise the Koran with the boldness of the higher critics of the Bible. They both urge that the Koran has no permanent authority on moral questions, and also insist upon progress in all religious matters.[15]
This young Mohammedan party of progress have found a vigorous leader in Judge Amir Ali Sahib, a brilliant writer, who hesitates not to explain away or antagonize all those teachings of his faith which lie athwart the path of progress and enlightenment.
He avows, in his book on “The Spirit of Islam,” that his purpose is to assist “the Muslims of India to achieve intellectual and moral regeneration under the auspices of the Great European Power that now holds their destiny in its hands.” “The reformers,” he further writes, “are congratulated that the movement set on foot is conducted under a neutral government.” Thus a Mussulman writer declares that the highest [pg 346] reforms can best be conducted under a Christian government!
All this is illustrative of that leavening influence of our faith as it comes into contact with and permeates the spirit and teaching of these and other religions of that land.
(c) Another marked result of Christianity in that country is seen in the attitude of many thousands of Hindus who live contiguous to the Christian communities found there.
In the first place we see it among the common people. I have already referred to mass movements which have largely helped to strengthen the Christian Church in the past. Those movements have only just begun; they will continue and increase in the land. Day by day Christianity is commending itself to the people in a thousand ways. In times of famine, when the old religious leaders of the people—the Brahmans—render no help and manifest no sympathy, yea more, are as rapacious as ever, the loving sympathy of Christians there and in far off lands, and their outgoing charity and their substantial help to the famine stricken and the suffering—all this does not fall in vain upon the susceptible mind of the people.
This work of Christianity in uniting the world through brotherhood and sympathy seems wonderful to a people who are crushed and robbed by the wretched divisiveness of their own terrible caste system. They recognize also the truth and the life which Christianity presents in contrast with the debasing idolatry and the senseless, all-pervasive ceremonialism which haunt them.
It is not surprising therefore that we see, not only [pg 347] certain mass movements towards our faith but also, on the outskirts of the Christian community in every district, a growing number of doubting, halting ones—those who have done with their ancestral faith and who are attracted by the religion of Christ, but who are so much afraid of the terrible demon, caste, that they dare not openly accept Christ and unite with God's people through baptism. They linger on the outside, hoping for some great tide of influence to come, soon, to carry them, without persecution, into the kingdom. Their attitude of mind is encouraging, and the missionary hopes for the day which will furnish the strength and opportunity for this great host of weak and doubting ones to make its decision for Christ and to enter, in ever-increasing numbers, into His Kingdom.
I have come into daily, close touch with many men and women of this class. They, at the same time, encourage and exasperate one. They give evidence of the strong influence of our faith upon them—they have ceased to visit Hindu temples, they decline to worship the family and tribal gods, they lose no opportunity to denounce the idolatry and superstitions which have debased them, and they always speak to their friends a warm word for Christianity and often attend its meetings in their village. But there they continue to stand. They are the slaves of caste fear and of social inertia. While, however, they stand and wait they often say the word and give the encouragement which enable others to accept Christ openly and to enter the Christian fold.
They are also always glad to send their children to our schools and are willing to have them instructed [pg 348] in the truth and guided into the life of our faith. They often contribute towards the support of Christian pastor or teacher, and in various other ways evince their sympathy and reveal their intellectual assent.
For instance:—In Tinnevelly there is a hall built by such a Hindu to commemorate the late Queen Victoria, in which lectures and entertainments are held. Christian ministers are frequently asked to pray at these gatherings; and former years have witnessed requests by the donor for prayer, from well-known ministers and bishops. Such appreciation of Christian worship is very pleasing, particularly as the proprietor is a member of a committee that has the oversight of nearly 300 Sivite temples in the district.
They also show their appreciation of the medical work of Christian missions. In the city of Madura stands one of the finest hospitals in the country. It is the property of the American Board, but was erected, at an expense of $14,000 by members of the orthodox Hindu community as a monument of their appreciation of the mission physician and of their confidence in the mission and its work.
(d) Another marked feature of the religious life of India, at present, is the existence there of several new cults or religions. They not only add picturesqueness to the religious situation, they also reveal the unrest of the people and their desire for something better than the orthodox faith of their fathers furnishes them.
Sacred Tank In Madura Temple.
Hospital For Men, American Madura Mission.
Having become dissatisfied and disgusted with their ancestral religion, they are striving in every possible way, short of being Christians, to seek for [pg 349] something better and higher. This is what we should expect. In the many schools and colleges of the land the subtle metaphysics of the East is supplanted by the modern philosophy of the West; their own bewildering ancient rules of logic are replaced by the more rational processes of the West. So that every university matriculate and graduate of India is today crammed with ideas, and trained in methods of thinking, which make a belief in practical Hinduism and in much of its philosophy an impossibility, if not an absurdity.
Thus we see in that land today a number of movements and organizations which are a protest against orthodox Hinduism and are carrying the people, in thought and sympathy, from the past to the present, from the old to the new. Most of these movements are merely half-way houses between Hinduism and Christianity. They are with faces more or less turned towards the light and possess the progressive spirit which, in some cases, cannot fail of landing their members, at no distant date in the Christian fold. For instance, we have in western India the Prartanei Somaj (prayer society); in north India the Arya Somaj (Aryan society), and in Bengal the Brahmo Somaj (society of God).
These are healthy movements, away from a general, old-fashioned view of religious things. Take, for example, the Brahmo Somaj. Though not as large in membership as the Arya Somaj it represents more culture and power. Nearly all the members are men of education and of western training, and represent much more influence than their number (4,000) would suggest. Their new faith is an eclecticism. [pg 350] It has adopted a little of Hinduism and of Buddhism and of Mohammedanism and a great deal of Christianity. The movement, especially that progressive branch which was under the leadership of Protab Chunder Mozumdar, is largely Christian in drift and spirit. Mozumdar accepts Christ, though not in the fullness of belief in His divinity or in His atoning work; nevertheless with an amount of appreciation, affection, devotion and loyalty not met even among many Western Christians today. His book on “The Oriental Christ” is full of appreciation and reveals a wonderful knowledge of the eastern Christ from an Eastern standpoint. I shall not be surprised to see the members of this society landing, at an early date, through a full confession of Christ, in membership of the Christian Church.
In the meanwhile it is disappointing to find this organization divided, already, into so many mutually antagonistic sects. It is also a reason for regret that Mozumdar, who is a man of great culture, intelligence and deep spiritually, has recently relinquished the leadership of the movement. Having retired to the Himalayas, he communicates his reasons in these truly oriental, pathetic and pessimistic words:
“Age and sickness get the better of me in these surroundings, I cannot work as I would—contemplation is distracted, concentration disturbed, though I struggle ever so much. These solitudes are hospitable; these breadths, heights and depths are always suggestive. I acquire more spirit with less struggle, hence I retire.
“My thirst for the higher life is growing so unquenchable that I need the time and the grace to [pg 351] reëxamine and purify and reform every part of my existence. The Spirit of God promises me that grace if I am alone. So let me alone.
“The rich are so vain and selfish, the poor are so insolent and mean, that having respect for both I prefer to go away from them.
“The learned think so highly of themselves, the ignorant are so full of hatred and uncharitableness, that having good will for both I prefer to hide myself from all.
“The religious are so exclusive, the sceptical so self-sufficient that it is better to be away from both.
“Where are the dead? Have not they too retired? I wish my acquaintance with the dead should grow, that my communion with them should be spontaneous, perpetual, unceasing. I will invoke them and wait for them in my hermitage.
“What is life? Is it not a fleeting shadow, the graveyard of dead hopes, the battlefield of ghastly competitions, the playground of delusions, separations, cruel changes and disappointments? I have had enough of these. And now with the kindliest love for all, I must prepare and sanctify myself for the great Beyond, where there is solution for so many problems, and consolation for so many troubles....”
This seems an unworthy ending to a very worthy life. And yet a movement which has created two such men as Chunder Sen and Protab Mozumdar is a compliment to Christianity and has a mission before it. But it must undergo many changes ere it can exercise a commanding influence in the land.
A much more popular movement is the Arya [pg 352] Somaj. The recent census reports 40,000 members of this organization. If Brahmo Somaj represents the working of that Hindu mind which has been imbued with European culture and Christian thought towards a solution of its religious doubts and problems; the Arya Somaj represents a strong Theistic movement springing forth out of Hinduism itself. This latter movement is possessed of unwonted vigour and has a future before it. The founder of this Somaj was Dyanand Sarasvati, a Brahman who was born about the year 1825. He was a man of much thought and of deep religious interest. He was entirely ignorant of the English language. He broke with orthodox Hinduism after reading the Christian Scriptures. And yet he also attacked the character of Jesus. He accepted the Hindu Vedas as Scriptures, but interpreted them so freely that he was able to find in them all that he desired of religious reform. He vigorously opposed caste.
The following are some of the principles of the Arya Somaj:
1. God is the primary source of all true knowledge.
2. God is perfect in all His attributes and should be worshipped.
3. The Vedas are the books of true knowledge.
4. The caste system is a human invention and is evil.
5. Early marriage is prohibited.
The movement has assumed the aspect of a sect of Hinduism. But some of its fundamental contentions are so directly antagonistic to most cherished institutions of Hinduism that it is a mighty disintegrator of that religion in the land.
It must be confessed that the Arya Somaj is, in its present spirit, anti-Christian. It champions the cause of home religion in the East as against the aggression of the great rival, Christianity. But the teachers of our faith in India find encouragement equally in the hostility of this movement and in its coöperation in a common attack upon modern Hinduism. Any movement, that effectively calls the attention of the people to the weakness and defects of its ancestral religion, cannot fail, in that very process, to invite their attention to the claims of its rival, Christianity.
The chief function of all these movements is to reveal the general religious interest of the people. Indeed, they forward greatly the spirit of discontent towards the ancestral faith. And while they do this, they themselves furnish a no more satisfying or soul-inspiring substitute. And in this way they emphasize the need of a new faith and draw the thought of many to the new supplanting religion of the Christ. Chunder Sen, even twenty years ago, declared that, “None but Jesus, none but Jesus, none but Jesus is worthy to wear this diadem, India, and He shall have it.” Yes, even through such movements as the Brahmo Somaj, Christ is winning India for himself.
The educated classes of India are largely permeated and influenced by Western thought. They may not be inclined to join any of the reform movements which I have mentioned; but they are now thinking on absolutely different lines from those of their ancestors fifty years ago. The dissemination of Western literature, and especially the conduct of so many Christian schools have done more, perhaps, than any [pg 354] other thing to create an intellectual ferment and to produce a revolution of thought in all parts of the land.
One cannot unduly emphasize the importance of Christian schools in India. The government schools and the Hindu institutions of learning are acknowledged to be the hot-beds of rationalism and of unbelief. They not only furnish no religious instruction to the youth, they too often give the impression that all religion is a mere superstition and is unworthy of being taught.
To such an extent is this trend and influence observable that the government experiences much concern, coupled with an expressed, though vague, desire, that this evil be arrested by the introduction, into all public schools, of some method of imparting at least the fundamental principles of religion. But to discover the method of accomplishing this, without violating the principle of religious neutrality, seems beyond its power.
In the meanwhile mission schools have a grand sphere opened to them on this line. They are not only a common agency, with governmental and all other higher institutions, in the work of undermining and destroying vain credulity and the whole brood of superstitions which are legion in India; they are also a positive and constructive force in the impartation of those principles of morality and teachings of religion which will ennoble life here and hereafter. And in this connection it should not be forgotten that all mission schools—higher and lower—enjoy unlimited opportunity to teach, daily, to all their students God's Word and to apply its principles and its saving message [pg 355] to the minds of the half million students who are being trained by them.
I desire to emphasize again the importance of all these schools as the most potent agency, apart from the native Church itself, in the transformation of the thought and life of India. It is a noteworthy fact that the only statue erected to a missionary in India was that recently unveiled by the Governor of Madras in the city of Madras to Dr. Wm. Miller. This noble missionary educator has wrought mightily, through his great institution in Madras, for the upbuilding of Christian truth in the minds of Christian and non-Christian youth alike. And this statue is a unique tribute of gratitude from his “old boys”—most of them still Hindus, indeed—to the man who has been instrumental in opening before them the broad vistas of Western thought and of Christian truth and life. But more enduring than marble will abide the blessed results which he and his colabourers have wrought in the thought and life of the more than 2,000 graduates who have been educated by them. Of these there are 1,800 who represent the Hindus of thought and culture in South India at present. Such is the influence of one Christian school.
If the work of the thousands of village Christian schools is more humble in its aim it is much more pervasive in its reach, and it marvellously directs thought and inspires life in remote villages.
Twelve years ago I opened one little primary school in a small unlettered heathen village. Ten bright Hindu boys sought instruction at the hands of the devout old Christian teacher placed there. Today these boys have grown into manhood and, with one [pg 356] or two exceptions, have entered into the Christian life and have been formed into a Christian congregation. They are not only intelligent, but firm and beautiful in their new-found Christian hope. Moreover, the whole village is permeated with Christian truth and it resounds with the appeal of our faith. In this way have come into existence many of the best and strongest congregations of the Christian Church in India.
But, to return to the educated class in India. We have considered already its attitude of mind towards the supplanting religion of Jesus.
Madras Christian College.
Bombay Railway Station.
Their opposition to Christianity, as it is now presented to them, I can appreciate. They are beginning, for the first time, to think seriously and philosophically about religion. They are, more than ever before, impatient with their past, and annoyed with the inadequacy of their present faith. It is not strange if this feeling is shown in their attitude towards the only supplanting faith. In this matter they are on the way to light and truth. The under-current is strongly right and in the direction of an enlightened and an enlightening religion. They are more earnestly in quest of truth than ever before. Moreover it is not substantive Christianity, but adjectival Christianity—the too Western type of our faith—which arouses their antagonism. And I must again express my belief that, before Christianity is to gain universal acceptance by the people of India, it must be dissociated from many Western ideas and practices which seem to us essential even to its very life. When we learn to forget our antecedents and prejudices and to study well the Hindu mind and its [pg 357] tendency, then perhaps shall we be prepared to present a Christianity which will commend itself universally to that land. The Rev. G. T. E. Slater in his new book, wisely emphasized this same need.
“The West,” he says, “has to learn from the East, and the East from the West. The questions raised by the Vedanta will have to pass into Christianity if the best minds of India are to embrace it; and the Church of the ‘farther East’ will doubtless contribute something to the thought of Christendom, of the science of the soul, and of the omnipenetrativeness and immanence of Deity.”[16]
But the most encouraging aspect of this question is the present attitude of the mind of educated India towards Christ himself.
Listen to the words of an orthodox Hindu in a recent lecture delivered to his fellow Hindus:—“How can we,” he says, “be blind to the greatness, the unrivalled splendour of Jesus Christ. Behind the British Empire and all European Powers lies the single great personality—the greatest of all known to us—of Jesus Christ. He lives in Europe and America, in Asia and Africa as King and Guide and Teacher. He lives in our midst. He seeks to revivify religion in India. We owe everything, even this deep yearning towards our own ancient Hinduism, to Christianity.”
All former antipathy to, and depreciation of Jesus, our Lord, have given way to appreciation and admiration. They vie with each other in a study of His life and regard Him as the only perfect Exemplar of [pg 358] man. That great land which has never found in its old faith an ideal of life is now finding it in our blessed Lord. This movement towards Him is remarkable. They are enthroning Him in their imagination and are drawing Him to their hearts.
A Braham friend of mine—a devout Hindu, a university graduate, a barrister and a leader of the Hindu community, requested me to purchase for him a pocket copy of Thomas a Kempis' “Imitation of Christ.” He possessed a large copy, but desired a small one which he could carry with him and could use for devotional purposes on his journeys. Some of his friends sought other copies through him. Thus they bought all the copies that I could find for sale in South India. He also asked me to buy for him a copy of Dr. Sheldon's book, “In His Steps.”
I bought four dozen copies and sold all to Brahmans and to native Christians. One of our pastors bought a copy. He soon handed it to a Brahman friend—a government official and a university graduate—requesting him to read it. This he did, and, returning with the book a few days later, he earnestly said—“Sir, why don't you bring us more such books as this. We also want to know more of Christ and to follow ‘In His Steps.’ ”
Indeed, I find a wonderful eagerness among Hindus of culture to know all that can be known about the life and teaching of our Lord, even though they are not prepared to accept his atonement as their salvation. The same fact is true among the common people. There are not a few who believe that the tenth—that is, the coming—incarnation of Vishnu (Kalki avatar) refers to Christ. A Hindu Saivite devotee [pg 359] told me once that they proposed soon to place in their monastery an image of Christ (as they had one of Vishnu) and thus render to Him worship in common with the others. I am confident that Hindus, all but unanimously, would, today, vote to give him a place in their pantheon and a share in their worship, if Christians would accede to this. “Did we not,” they say, “thus appropriate Buddha, the arch-enemy of Brahmanism, twenty-five centuries ago, and make him the ninth incarnation of Vishnu? And why should we not regard Christ, also, as the tenth ‘descent’ of our beloved Vishnu.”
I deem this trend towards Christ, and it is marked especially among the educated in all parts of India, as the greatest encouragement to the Christian worker in that land today.
I care not so much whether they accept our faith in its Western form and spirit, so long as I see them growing in their appreciation of, and devotion to the Christ. Through Him I am sure they will pass on to some outer expression or other of their faith in Him—an expression which will doubtless correspond with their own oriental turn of thought and life.
Conclusion.
Thus, whether we look at the growing Christian community and its many cheering features of life and of activity; or whether we study the non-Christian community and all the social and national institutions of that land, we find large encouragement and a rich assurance of the speedy coming of the Kingdom of our Lord.
Nearly a century ago—the very time in which [pg 360] America, through the America Board, sent its first missionaries to that great land—the Directors of the East India Company placed on record their sentiments in the following words:
“The sending of Christian missionaries to our Eastern possessions is the maddest, most expensive, most unwarranted project that was ever proposed by a lunatic enthusiast.” This was, at that time, the conviction and the confession of the English rulers of India. It was the voice of unbelief and the declaration of defiant opposition. How different the attitude and the words of Sir Rivers Thompson; the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, near the close of that same century. “In my judgment,” he says, “Christian missionaries have done more real and lasting good to the people of India than all other agencies combined.” Certainly, a no more competent witness than he, and a no more conclusive evidence than his, could be desired.
In my compound in South India, for a quarter of a century, a date palm tree grew and flourished. Years later a seed was carried by a bird and dropped at the foot of this palm tree. It was the seed of the sacred boh tree. It also sprouted and its slender, subtle shoot wound round the sturdy palm. Every year it grew higher until it finally towered above the date palm; and the higher it grew the more its winding stem thickened; and as it thickened it began to tighten its grip upon the other tree. That grip, so weak and innocent at first, soon became to the palm tree a grip of death. For every day so added to the encircling power of the boh tree that, about three years ago, it completely enshrouded and killed [pg 361] the palm. Today that boh tree stands alone, indicating, by its spiral form, where the unfortunate palm found its death; and it stretches forth its beautiful branches in rich verdure and in welcome shade to all who seek refuge from the heat of the tropical sun.
This is only a parable of the struggle which is witnessed in India today. For many centuries the tree of Brahmanism has flourished. It covers that whole land. But at its very root has been sown the seed of God's Word and there is growing out of it, in its beauty and strength, the sacred tree of our Faith. Already it has the old tree in its almighty grip. The work of death is progressing and the final issue is sure.
But it will not transpire in a day. The victory will come, is now coming.
But the resources of Hinduism are legion, and its strange fascination, to some extent, continues. India, which is increasingly becoming Christ's in thought and ideals, will become his in worship and ritual, when his name shall be heard in every home throughout the land. But we need patience; and the grand result to be achieved is worthy of the noblest endurance and of the most patient waiting.
Christian workers in that great land are faithfully labouring and hopefully waiting until the fruitful branches of the sacred tree of Christianity shall have spread over the whole land, so that its shade may be the refuge of all souls in distress and its fruit shall abound for the healing of all the nations of India.
The resources and the agencies of our Faith, which are now utilized for the furtherance of the truth in that land, are already wonderfully varied and potent; [pg 362] but they are also increasing annually in prevailing power as in bewildering variety. Every Christian drawn from Hinduism and added to the fold of Christ becomes, in himself, a force to draw and to win others to Christ. This power has already become the main agency in the growth of the church, and its efficiency is to grow in geometric ratio as the years increase.
The great need of India today is the power of the Holy Spirit of God. His people must bring themselves much more into subjection to his Spirit, that they may, the more fully, be the vehicles of His grace to others and the channel of His power in the land. The dangers of God's Church are, and will preëminently be, dangers from within rather than from without. It is Hinduism, godlessness and sin within which must be fought with an eternal vigilance and an uncompromising hostility. And for this a larger baptism will mean a mighty fire of God kindled in the whole Church such as will burn all its dross and consume all opposition. And then shall we speedily witness the great desire of our heart—a happy, prosperous India, because it will be Emmanuel's land—a part of the great Fold of Christ.
This consummation is as sure as God's own promises, for, in all his work, the missionary is not only encouraged by results achieved and by assurances given, but also by the double promise of God. First he has the promise of the Father to the Son:
“Ask of me and I will give to thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” The Son has asked and is seeking the possession of the earth; and in the confidence [pg 363] of his assurance he exclaims, “All authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth.” And, to his waiting disciples, he adds, “Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations.” And with this all-embracing command he coupled the all-satisfying promise, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” Amen.