Looking beyond our Benares missions we remember a number of faithful labourers, whom we knew and loved, who have joined the majority, such as the learned and kindly Owen, the venerable Morrison, the apostolic Ziemann, and many others besides. I do not use these terms in a conventional sense, but as justly applicable to the men. Those I have named laboured, and others have entered into their labours, men worthy of all esteem, love, sympathy, and help.
CHAPTER XXVI.
NATIVE CHRISTIANS.
Native Christians form so large and varied a community that right views of them can be obtained only by those who consider its component parts.
In Southern India there are thousands calling themselves Syrian Christians, still more frequently Christians of St. Thomas. Either the Apostle Thomas or some of his spiritual children went to India, and founded a Christian Church. Down through the ages the descendants of these first converts have clung to the profession of Christianity, and have kept up their connexion with their fellow Christians in Western Asia. They have the peculiarities of hereditary Christians exposed to a corrupting moral atmosphere, and possessing limited means of spiritual improvement. We are told that they have made great progress through their intercourse with European missionaries.
In Southern India and Ceylon there is a large body of native Christians, the descendants of the many baptized by Xavier and his companions. Every one who has read the life of Xavier knows how widely he opened the door of the Church; with what facility, to use his own favourite expression, he "made Christians." Many speedily relapsed into heathenism, but a sufficient number remained steadfast to form a large community, and their descendants are reckoned by tens, rather hundreds, of thousands. There is not—at least there was not a short time ago—any reliable census of their number. Protestant opinion of these native Christians is very unfavourable. It may be prejudiced, and yet it has been expressed by persons who have come into contact with them, who know them well, and who would shrink from doing injustice. Many facts have been stated in support of an unfavourable estimate. The Abbé Dubois condemned them as a scandal to the Christian name, and other Romanists have joined him in confirming the testimony of Protestants.
In Travancore and Tinnevelly, in the far south, there are large native churches, in connexion with the Propagation, Church, and London Missionary Societies, composed of Shanars, a people outside the Hindu pale and greatly despised by them, with a sprinkling of caste people. When whole villages come over to the profession of Christianity, we generally find a few who may be regarded as true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, with limited knowledge but genuine faith, while the many, though favourably impressed, simply assent to the action of their friends and neighbours, and are little changed except in name. They are on the way to a happy change by having come under new and elevating influences.
All over Southern India there are native Christian churches, the work of conversion having proceeded in some cases gradually, individual by individual, while in other cases numbers have been admitted at the same time.