India, Its Life and Thought

by John P. Jones

CHAPTER XIV

THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA

I

For at least seventeen centuries Christianity has found a home in India. The Syrian Church was the first to gather converts, and it still exists as a separate sect of 300,000 souls in a small part of Malabar. Roman Catholicism, also, has had here its six centuries of struggles and varied fortunes, and now claims its 1,500,000 followers. On July 9, 1906, the Protestants celebrated the bicentenary of the landing of their first two missionaries at Tranquebar, on the Coromandel coast. Ziegenbalg and Plutscho were truly men of God, and inaugurated a work which to-day has its ramifications in every part of this vast peninsula.

They introduced a new era of missionary effort for India. Former endeavours were ecclesiastical. Great men, indeed, had wrought for Christ in this land; but their chief aim had been to establish a religion of forms and ceremonies. In the matter of ritual in religion, Hinduism has little to learn from, and has much to suggest to, western ecclesiastics. The early failure of our faith to secure marked and permanent success in this land finds its chief cause here.

Ziegenbalg began in the right way. He identified himself with the people; he studied well their language, and hastened to incarnate his faith in vernacular literature; and, above all, he proceeded at once to translate into the language of the people the Word of God. Never before had the Bible been translated into an Indian tongue. After thirteen years of service, this great missionary died; but he left to his successors the heritage of a vernacular Bible, which has wrought mightily in South India for the redemption of the people. He also set the pace for subsequent missionaries of his persuasion, who, in these two centuries, have practically translated God's Word into every important Indian dialect. The Bible in his own vernacular lies open, inviting every native of India to-day; and in many vernaculars the translation has been revised more than once. This stands as a notable triumph of Protestantism during these two centuries in India.

The writer has a copy of one of the earliest Tamil books prepared by these pioneers of our faith. These books have already grown into a large library—the best-developed Christian literature in any vernacular of the East. All over the land mission presses are annually pouring forth their many millions of pages both to nourish and cheer the infant Christian community, and to win to Christ the multiplying readers among non-Christians. The press has already become, perhaps, the most important agency in the furtherance of Christian thought and life in this land.

One is impressed with the manifoldness of the work which began in so much simplicity two centuries ago. The missionary is no longer the preacher under some shady tree, addressing a few ignorant, ill-clad peasants. He is actively engaged in all departments of Christian effort. A Protestant mission is an elaborately organized activity, pursuing all lines of work for the elevation of the people. It has not only churches which engage in varied forms of pastoral effort; it has also its staff of evangelists and Bible women who carry the message of life to all the villages. In these missions there are not only 10,000 day schools, with their 375,000 scholars, besides 30,000 youth who are in the 307 higher institutions. There are also thousands of young men and women, in many institutions, undergoing careful preparation as teachers and preachers. There is also the medical host who treated 2,000,000 patients last year; there are industrial institutions under well-trained men, peasant settlements for the poor oppressed ryots, and schools for the blind and the deaf-mute. There is hardly an agency which can bring light, comfort, life, and inspiration to men which is not utilized by modern missions in India.