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.