India's Problem, Krishna or Christ

by John P. Jones

(g) Work for the Young.

Ours is preëminently the age of youth—the time when the importance of work for the young is fully appreciated, and when manifold activities are put forth by the Christian Church in their behalf. During recent years such activity has been extensively introduced into mission fields. In India at present, Y. M. C. A., Y. W. C. A., Y. P. S. C. E., Epworth League, Sunday-school Union and a host of other less-known organizations for the young have established themselves and are working with much enthusiasm. In former years little was done for the young of the infant Christian communities. The old Oriental idea that young people are of no account, and that effort in their behalf is hardly worth while, obtained in India until recent years. The consequence [pg 258] was that the children of Christian congregations were neglected and allowed to absent themselves from Christian services and to grow up in ignorance and heathenish darkness. As a result of this many of these boys and girls, when they grew up into manhood and womanhood, reverted to heathenism; and many flourishing Christian congregations of the last generation became defunct. It is now understood, with increasing distinctness, that the permanent success and growth of a Christian congregation, as of the whole Christian community, depends more upon the effort which is exercised in behalf of the young than upon any amount of labour lavished upon those of maturer years. Hence, more activity, of an organized type, is being wisely put forth in behalf of the children and of young people. The more plastic, responsive, tenacious mind of the young takes in more readily, appreciates more keenly and clings with more persistence to religious instruction and inspiration imparted to it than does that of the older members of the community. The Christian worker thus finds earlier and greater fruit to his labour among the young than among the old. Any enthusiasm imparted by him to the young people is also, sooner or later, apt to be carried by them to the older members of the congregation or church. The hope of the Church in India lies in the young people; and that missionary, or native agent, who can best organize the young into useful forms of outgoing Christian activity, will do most for the Church of the present and future. And, while so excellent an agency as the Christian Endeavor Society is available for use in [pg 259] this line of work, the missionary need not be discouraged, but may feel confident that he has within his power an organization rich in promise of blessing to his whole community.

(h) Organizations for the Special Activities of the Native Christian Community.

Every mission should encourage all forms of wise and necessary organization for the furtherance of the highest life of the community itself. And this chiefly with a view to developing self-dependence in the community. These organizations will be naturally divided into two classes.

Those Which Promote Self-Government.

The Christian Church in the mission field should be organized ecclesiastically and administratively in such a way that it may ultimately, and as speedily as may seem wise, become entirely self-governing. Every mission should aim to so teach the people that they may control and conduct successfully their own affairs. It should establish a Church which sends its roots deep into the soil of the land and which will become, in the highest sense, indigenous. One of the necessary evils of missionary life is the early Western control and guidance of everything. I should like to see the day, when the native Church can establish that polity which is most congenial to its taste and run its affairs independently and on Oriental lines, in such a way as to win more effectively the people of India to Christ. The question is sometimes asked,—“Must our Congregational missions bind, to our Congregational form of ecclesiastical [pg 260] government, the people whom they bring over from heathenism? Must our church polity, in the mission field, be Congregational, or Presbyterian, etc., regardless of its adaptation, or want of adaptation, to the people?” The affirmative answer has usually been given by all societies (and wrongly I think) to this inquiry; and thus every denomination transplants into heathen lands, with renewed emphasis, not only its own peculiar shibboleths of doctrine; it also exalts to a heavenly command the government and ritual which it represents.

Missions in India are conscientiously endeavouring, with varying degrees of wisdom and success, to lead forward their people in the line of self-government. But both love of power and a conviction of the inability of the infant Church to wisely control its affairs, combine to render this transfer of power from the mission to the native Church a very slow matter—more slow than seems wise to many besides the leaders of the native Church themselves. It is a significant fact, in India today, that the Methodist missions, by their compact organization, are able to, or at any rate do, confer more ecclesiastical and administrative power upon the native Church than any other mission; while Congregational missions—the least organized—are the most backward in this matter. A study for the causes of this would be instructive.

Those Organisations Which Promote Self-Extension.