MISSION WORK IN INDIA
Transfer of responsibility to Indians. Clergy desiring
independence. Indian characteristics will remain. Want of
tidiness; experiences in an Indian Priest's parish. English
stiffness. Indian Suffragan Bishops. The Indian Bishop's
Confirmation. Changes of head in a mission. English workers
losing sympathy; consequent loss; need for prayer concerning
this. The opinion of an old missionary; "too much of the
individual, too little of the Holy Spirit."
One of the perplexities of mission work in India is how best to
gradually transfer European responsibility and control to the people
of the country. Some of the attempts in this direction not having been
altogether a success, there have been missionaries who, despairing of
any other arrangement, went into the opposite extreme and endeavoured
to keep everything in their own hands. Their attitude also towards
their native workers, and even towards their brother priests, was not
of a nature calculated to draw out loyal and cheerful service.
Amongst Indian clergy there is a widespread desire for greater
independence and responsibility, backed up by many of the laity, and
unless it can be rightly met in some way, it might easily become a
serious danger. If people are ever to learn to run alone, they must be
given the opportunity of doing so. If some stumble in the attempt,
that is only what must be expected at first. Amongst a few failures,
there are other instances in which the experiment of leaving the
management of affairs to Indians has been all that could be wished.
Indian priests have been put in charge of wide districts which they
have shepherded with unwearied labour; and when congregations are
apparently backward in the financial support of their church, they
will nearly always rise to the occasion manfully and do all that is
required, if the management of the church funds is definitely put into
their own hands.
It is a mistake to expect to find in the government of affairs by
Indians certain characteristics which are essentially English. The
Indian Christian remains an Indian, and from some points of view it is
best that so it should be. Exactness and order and punctuality are
matters which most Englishmen think much of. Most Indians think little
of them, and few pay much attention to them. A really neat house or
field is rarely to be seen in native India. The sort of neatness and
order which an English priest thinks of importance in the church under
his care would never be found in the church of even the most
conscientious Indian priest. It usually takes a long course of
patient training before the Indian representative of the English
parish clerk learns how to lay a carpet, or to put kneelers or chairs,
straight. And though he learns his lesson at last, and then for ever
does it rightly in the prescribed way, he does not himself see any
benefit in it. And the crooked carpet and irregular row of chairs,
which would disturb the devotions of the lady workers in the mission,
would never be noticed by a single member of the Indian congregation.
I once spent a night in the village of a devout and widely-known and
highly-respected Indian priest, now gone to his rest. Evensong was
held in the open air in front of his house, because of certain insect
intruders which had taken possession of the room which, at that time,
did duty as a church. Since those days a permanent church has been
built. Goats and cattle coming home, and taking short cuts to their
quarters, were a little disconcerting to the preacher, inexperienced
in interruptions of the kind, but the regular congregation took it as
a matter of course.
The next morning I was to celebrate the Holy Eucharist, which, of
course, had to be in the church, in spite of the intruders. I went at
the appointed hour and found the Indian priest just beginning to make
preparations. Vestments and altar linen and many other things were
mixed up in a box, in complete disorder, and it took him a long time
to sort out what was needed, and when at last all was ready, the
result would have been heart-breaking to an English sacristan. Service
necessarily began long after the proper time, but that created neither
surprise nor annoyance. The fact being that defects of the kind are
not felt to be such by an Indian congregation, so that they did not in
any way diminish the influence for good of this excellent priest.
It is often the very stiffness and rigidity of English methods which
hinders their acceptability amongst Indian people. On the other hand,
the Indian priest is more patient in dealing with the people's
difficulties. Rustics in England relate the history of a quarrel, or
sickness, or death at great length. But their tale is brevity itself
compared to the Indian's story of a grievance, and he expects to be
listened to patiently till he has had his full say. This the Indian
priest readily does, and he himself is not wearied by the recital. But
the English priest, even before the end of the preface, has probably
said that he has no time to listen to all these details, and that they
must settle the matter amongst themselves.
The circumstances of the country at its present stage of development,
with a certain number of English, mostly official, gathered into
cantonments, or scattered here and there in isolated places, and a
limited but steadily increasing number of Indian Christians, who are
for the most part not in touch with the European element, make an
Indian bishop for any of the dioceses as at present constituted out of
the question. But there are certain country districts covering a wide
area in which the number of Indian Christians is very great. An Indian
suffragan bishop might well be given jurisdiction over one of these
areas. There are certainly some Indian priests fitted for such a
trust. The result would probably be a great growth of spiritual life,
and wholesome church organisation, and self-support. The tradition of
an Indian bishop for Indians getting established in this way there
would eventually, if he acquitted himself well in his limited sphere,
be no difficulty about his ministering to English congregations when
it was convenient that he should do so.
But it should be observed that the Indian bishop must be allowed to
retain his own individuality, and to do his diocesan work in his own
Eastern way. Very possibly he will arrive for his Confirmation long
after the appointed time, even if he does not send a message at the
last moment to say that he will come to-morrow. If, by any misfortune,
there should be a European in the expectant congregation, he will say
indignantly that this is what comes of appointing Indian bishops. But
the Indian congregation will be quite undisturbed. Those who happen to
have come punctually will sit about in the church compound, in the
sun or shade according to the time of day, and chat happily till the
bishop arrives. His lateness would not create the least shade of
annoyance. He himself will probably have to wait in his turn for the
candidates from a neighbouring village who were vague about the time.
But he will do so with the utmost cheerfulness. Except that
unpunctuality means waste of time, it will have no other drawback.
When the actual Confirmation takes place after these possible delays,
it will be carried out by the Indian bishop with the greatest
solemnity. He and the candidates will have the fullest faith in the
wondrous Gift bestowed by means of the imposition of the Apostolic
hands. His address will be powerful and persuasive, and given with
full knowledge of the characteristics of the people of his own
country. Everyone will return to their homes happy and thankful, and
in telling their tale of the wonders of the day it will not probably
occur to anybody to mention that the bishop arrived late.
Now and then mission stations suffer, somewhat in the same way as a
parish here and there in England does, from the change of policy
brought about by a change of head. It is in practical, rather than in
religious matters, that a new head is sometimes the cause of unrest.
Missions being at present chiefly worked by societies which have their
own theological bias, the new-comer is generally of the same way of
thinking as his predecessor. But anyone coming to India for the first
time, in spite of everything being new and strange, is apt to think
that he sees his way clearly, and that the work has got into a rut and
that a general upheaval is necessary. The tendency of the Indian is to
be conservative of established traditions. He does not say much, but
he has his own way of showing the new head that he does not approve of
his changes. Some resign office, of others it is decided that they
have been too long at their posts, and the result is that a certain
number of old and faithful workers cut themselves, or are themselves
cut adrift. The new head ultimately establishes his position, and many
of his changes are probably improvements, but this has been
accomplished at considerable sacrifice. Missions worked by communities
are not wholly free from the same defect, though they suffer less than
others.
English workers do not always retain the spirit of sympathy and
graciousness with which they began their ministry in India. The
defects of the Indian character are particularly galling to some
Englishmen. The sort of faults which the average Englishman is least
willing to condone are unpunctuality, untidiness, promises not kept,
inexact answers and false excuses, forgetfulness of favours received
but fresh favours asked for, slovenly work, laziness, and obstinacy.
When the missionary first meets his flock he sees pleasant and
courteous manners, and readiness to please and to obey, a certain
aptitude and handiness in work, a real spirit of devotion, and many
such-like qualities. The dark skin, the picturesque dress or absence
of dress, the bare feet and light graceful walk, all these things
appeal to the new-comer.
As time goes on he has to deal with the realities of things.
Difficulties, failures, disappointments have to be faced. A reaction
sets in. He thinks that the people need a firmer hand, that they have
been dealt with too lightly. He no longer keeps the good side
uppermost, and begins to see only the defects. He gets the mission
possibly into good external order, but much of the grace and beauty of
his ministry goes out in the process, and there will be no attractive
force at work to draw in the heathen. The worker in India needs to
pray constantly that the spirit of love and sympathy, and the yearning
to help souls with which he began, may never be allowed to grow less;
that he may retain his spirit of buoyancy; that he may keep hopeful
and expectant; and that while firm and strong with the people who need
his support, he may only love them the more when he has learnt really
to understand and know them.
A missionary in India of long and wide experience wrote that he had
often pondered as to the reason why the Church in that land has never
become a real indigenous plant. He went on to say--"Even if we were to
put aside the tradition of St Thomas having preached here, we know
that, at any rate from the eighth century onwards, with only a few
intermissions, there has been Christian effort at work in the
country." The conclusion that he came to was that "there has been too
much of the individual and too little of the Holy Spirit. St Francis
Xavier baptized thousands of children, and then went his way. The
Church has always depended on foreign aid, and when left to itself has
either died away or kept itself alive by maintaining a sort of
Christian caste. The Eastern people are, to a certain extent, pliant
and easily led. The somewhat masterful foreign missionary had bent the
people to his will and his ways. The house has been built square and
solid, and finished in appearance. But it is a building, not a plant.
It has not within it the power of life and growth. There has been more
building than sowing. It depends on the force of the individual, and
but little room is left for the power of the Holy Spirit to make it
really fruitful."