From Egypt to Japan

by Henry M. Field

Seeing this, how they suffer under a power from which they cannot escape, can there be a greater object of philanthropy in all the world than to emancipate them from the bondage of such ignorance and superstition? Scientific men, the apostles of "modern thought," consider it not only a legitimate object, but the high "mission" of science, by unfolding the laws of nature, to disabuse our minds of idle and superstitious fears; to break up that vague terror of unseen forces, which is the chief element of superstition. If they may fight this battle in England, may we not fight the battle of truth with error and ignorance in Hindostan? Englishmen think it a noble thing for brave and adventurous spirits to form expeditions to penetrate the interior of Africa to break up the slave trade. But here is a slavery the most terrible which ever crushed the life out of human beings. Brahminism, which is fastened upon the people of India, embraces them like an anaconda, clasping and crushing them in its mighty folds. It is a devouring monster, which takes out of the very body of every Hindoo, poor and naked and wretched as he may be, its pound of quivering flesh. Can these things be, and we look on unmoved? Can we see a whole people bound, like Laocoön and his sons, in the grasp of the serpent, writhing and struggling in vain, and not come to their rescue?

Such is Hindooism, and such is the condition to which it has reduced the people of India. Do we need any other argument for Christian missions? Does not this simple statement furnish a perfect defence, and even an imperative demand for their establishment? Christianity is the only hope of India. In saying this I do not intend any disrespect to the people of this country, to whom I feel a strong attraction. We are not apt to hear from our missionary friends much about the virtues of the heathen; but virtues they have, which it were wrong to ignore. The Hindoos, like other Asiatics, are a very domestic people, and have strong domestic attachments. They love their homes, humble though they be, and their children. And while they have not the active energy of Western races, yet in the passive virtues—meekness, patience under injury, submission to wrong—they furnish an example to Christian nations. That submissiveness, which travellers notice, and which moves some to scorn, moves me rather to pity, and I find in this patient, long-suffering race much to honor and to love. Nor are they unintelligent. They have very subtle minds. Thus they have many of the qualities of a great people. But their religion is their destruction. It makes them no better, it makes them worse. It does not lift them up, it drags them down. It is the one terrible and overwhelming curse, that must be removed before there is any hope for the people of India.

Is there not here a legitimate ground for an attempt on the part of the civilized and Christian world to introduce a better faith into that mighty country which holds two hundred millions of the human race? This is not intrusion, it is simple humanity. In seeking to introduce Christianity into India, we invade no right of any native of that country, Mohammedan or Hindoo; we would not wantonly wound their feelings, nor even shock their prejudices, in attacking their hereditary faith. But we claim that here is a case where we cannot keep silent. If we are told that we "interfere with the people," we answer, that we interfere as the Good Samaritan interfered with the man who fell among thieves, and was left by the roadside to die; as the physician in the hospital interferes with those dying of the cholera; as one who sees a brother at his side struck by a deadly serpent applies his mouth to the wound, to suck the poison from his blood! If that be interference, it is interference where it would be cruelty to stand aloof, for he would be less than man who could be unmoved in presence of misery so vast, which it was in any degree in his power to relieve.

Thus India itself is the sufficient argument for missions in India. Let any one visit this country, and study its religion, and see how it enters into the very life of the people; how all social intercourse is regulated by caste; how one feels at every instant the pressure of an ancient and unchangeable religion, and ask how its iron rule is ever to be broken? Who shall deliver them from the body of this death? There is in Hindooism no power of self-cure. For ages it has remained the same, and will remain for ages still. Help, if it come at all, must come from without, and where else can it come from, but from lands beyond the sea?

Therefore it is that the Christian people of England and America come to the people of India, not in a tone of self-righteousness, assuming that we are better than they, but in the name of humanity, of the brotherhood of the human race. We believe that "God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth," and these Hindoos, though living on the other side of the globe, are our brothers. They are born into the same world; they belong to the same human family, and have the same immortal destiny. To such a people, capable of great things, but crushed and oppressed, we come to do them good. We would break the terrible bondage of caste, and bring forth woman out of the prison-house where she passes her lonely existence. This involves a social as well as a religious revolution. But what a sigh of relief would it bring to millions who, under their present conditions, are all their lifetime subject to bondage.

There is a saying in the East that in India the flowers yield no perfume, the birds never sing, and the women never smile. Of course this is an exaggeration, and yet it has a basis of truth. It is true that the flowers of the tropics, though often of brilliant hues, do not yield the rich perfume of the roses of our Northern clime; and many of the birds whose golden plumage flashes sunlight in the deep gloom of tropical forests, have only a piercing shriek, instead of the soft, delicious notes of the robin and the dove; and the women have a downcast look. Well may it be so. They lead a secluded and solitary life. Shut up in their zenanas, away from society, they have no part in many of the joys of human existence, though they have more than their share of life's burdens and its woes. No wonder that their faces should be sad and sorrowful. Thus the whole creation seems to groan and travail in pain.

Now we desire to dispel the darkness and the gloom of ages, and to bring smiles and music and flowers once more into this stricken world. Teaching a religion of love and good will to men, we would cure the hatred of races, and bring all together in a common brotherhood. We would so lift up the poor of this world, that sorrow and sighing shall flee away, and that every lowly Indian hut shall be filled with the light of a new existence. In that day will not nature share in the joy of man's deliverance? Then will the birds begin to sing, as if they were let loose from the gates of heaven to go flying through the earth, and to fill our common air with the voice of melody. Then shall smiles be seen once more on human faces; not the loud cackling of empty laughter; but smiles breaking through tears (the reflection of a peace that passeth understanding), shall spread like sunshine over the sad faces of the daughters of Asia.

But some "old Indian" who has listened politely, yet smiling and incredulous, to this defence of missions, may answer, "All this is very fine; no doubt it would be a good thing if the people of India would change their religion; would cast off Hindooism, and adopt Christianity. But is it not practically impossible? Do all the efforts of missionaries really amount to anything." This is a fair question, and I will try to give it a fair answer.

"Do missionaries do any good?" Perhaps we can best answer the question by drawing the picture of an Indian village, such as one may see at thousands of points scattered over the country. It is a cluster of huts, constructed sometimes with a light frame-work of bamboo, filled in with matting, but more commonly of mud, with a roof of thatch to prevent its being washed away in the rainy season. These huts are separated from each other by narrow lanes that can hardly be dignified with the name of streets. Yet in such a hamlet of hovels, hardly fit for human habitation, may be a large population. Every doorway is swarming with children. On the outskirts of the village is the missionary bungalow, a large one-story house, also built of mud, but neatly whitewashed and protected from the rains by a heavy thatched roof, which projects over the walls, and shades the broad veranda. In the "compound" are two other buildings of the same rude material and simple architecture, a church and a schoolhouse. In the latter are gathered every day ten, twenty, fifty—perhaps a hundred—children, with bare feet and poor garments, though clean, but with bright eyes, and who seem eager to learn. All day long comes from that low building a buzz and hum as from a hive of bees. Every Sunday is gathered in the little chapel a congregation chiefly of poor people, plainly but neatly dressed, and who, as they sit there, reclaimed from heathenism, seem to be "clothed and in their right minds." To the poor the Gospel is preached, and never does it show its sweetness and power, as when it comes down into such abodes of poverty, and gives to these humble natives a new hope and a new life—a life of joy and peace. Perhaps in the same compound is an orphanage, in which are gathered the little castaways who have been deserted by their parents, left by the roadside to die—or whose parents may have died by cholera—and who are thus rescued from death, and given the chance which belongs to every human creature of life and of happiness.

Perhaps the missionary is a little of a physician, and has a small chest of medicines, and the poor people come to him for cures of their bodily ailments, as well as for their spiritual troubles. After awhile he gains their confidence, and becomes, not by any appointment, but simply by the right of goodness and the force of character, a sort of unofficial magistrate, or head man of the village, a general peacemaker and benefactor. Can any one estimate the influence of such a man, with his gentle wife at his side, who is also active both in teaching and in every form of charity? Who does not see that such a missionary bungalow, with its school, its orphanage, and its church, and its daily influences of teaching and of example, is a centre of civilization, when planted in the heart of an Indian village?