India's Problem, Krishna or Christ

by John P. Jones

Lord Harris, the Governor, of Bombay, a little more than a decade ago, also said publicly, of the work of the American Board Mission among the Maharattas,—“I do not think I can too prominently say that our gratitude towards this American Mission has [pg 188] been piling up and piling up all the years of this century.”

4. Our record of the efforts of Christian countries in behalf of India were not complete without a reference to the hearty coöperation of Protestant Canada in this work. Several missions have been established there by Canadian Baptists and Presbyterians; and these are flourishing and are adding daily to the number of those who are being saved.

Looking at the whole force of Protestant Christian missions in that land today we are impressed with the magnitude of its organization, work and success. Nearly two and a half million dollars are devoted annually by the Christians of the West to this work of saving this great one of the East. It is a great financial investment, but not to be compared with that of the thousands of choice men and women who go forth and give themselves unto death that they might enable Christ to see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied among the millions of that land.

Comparing present missionary agency and methods in India with those of past ages it may be well to consider the differences and gather therefrom assurance for the coming of the Kingdom of our Lord in the East. These differences are numerous and radical. I need only refer to a few of them:—

(a) The spell of an ecclesiastical, and the glamour of a ceremonial, Christianity is being increasingly substituted by the moral and spiritual characteristics of our faith in that land. The conversion of India is less and less regarded by Christian workers in the land as a change from the ceremonial and ritual of the old, to those of the new, faith. Ever increasing [pg 189] emphasis is given to the fact that to be a Christian is to live the Christ-life and to be loyal to Him in all the ethical and spiritual teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. And these missionary workers care less to touch the life of our converts on the surface and more to grip it at its centre and to transform character. And this is a work which is most enduring in its results.

(b) Christian workers in India are learning mutual sympathy and appreciation in their work. Instead of the old jealousies, suspicions, antipathies and misunderstandings of the past, there is found a developing sense of oneness, of fellowship, of comity, amity and mutual helpfulness among the missionaries of that land. The watchword of to-day is coöperation. The distracting spectacle of a divided Christianity, of hated and mutually hating Christian sects in a heathen land is surely passing away and the dawning of the day of peace and harmony and fellowship in Christian work is upon us. And India will enjoy the wonderful results of this.

(c) The serious mistakes of method and standpoint in missions of former centuries are now avoided. The compromise which they made with Hinduism in caste and in other matters is no longer possible in Protestant missions. We know, as they could not, the irreconcilable antagonism of caste to Christianity.

On the other hand we know Hinduism and other non-Christian faiths better than our fathers did. We are not so anxious to trace all these back to Satanic origin. We are learning the sympathies as well as the antipathies of religions. The translators of God's [pg 190] Word into the vernacular of India two centuries and one century ago largely avoided the use of popular terms because they were popular and the common-vehicles of Hindu thought, which (they said) was of the devil. We see the folly of such an avoidance and the need of using and rehabilitating the religious terminology of the people that we may the more surely come into touch with them, and the more easily convey to them the deepest truths of our faith. Formerly, missionaries declined to use the music of Hinduism because it enriched the temple services and “was of the devil.” Today these same sweet and plaintive songs are wedded to beautiful Christian hymns, prepared by native Christian poets, and are the appropriate and very popular vehicles of the best Christian thought and sentiment to Christian and non-Christian natives alike.

This only illustrates the fact that the Christian message and work are finding greater power over the people because conveyed to them in more intelligible terms. It can come home to them in their common life as it did not formerly.