THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN EFFORT IN INDIA.
Christianity found very early entrance into India. How early we cannot
definitely say. The Syrian Church of Malabar traces its legendary origin
to the “doubting disciple,” by whose name it loves to be called. The
Romish Church also warmly supports this contention and exalts St. Thomas
to a high place as the Patron Saint and Apostle of India.
Careful historical investigation entirely overthrows this old claim. The
Thomas legends probably owe their existence to the natural desire of the
Syrian Christians to connect their history with Apostolic origin and
sanction. The name may also be confounded with a later Thomas, several of
whom were conspicuous in the annals of the India Syrian Church.
The ancient vagueness of the name “India,” has also, doubtless, had no
little influence in the formation of these legends. In the beginning of
the Christian era “India” was a term of much wider application than at
present. It included several countries in Southwestern Asia, and even a
portion of Africa. While St. Thomas may therefore have laboured and died
in “India,” it does not at all follow that his field of labour was within
the limits of the peninsula now called by that name. Indeed, many
historical incidents and facts agree in disproving Apostolic connection
with the rise of Christianity in India.
Pantænus, the saintly and learned Presbyter and Christian philosopher of
Alexandria and the renowned teacher of the illustrious church fathers,
Clement and Origen, is the first honoured name which finds historic
sanction in the grand roll of Christian missionaries to India. He visited
Malabar, South India, during the last decade of the second century. He was
a man wonderfully equipped by deep spiritual insight and piety and also by
philosophic training and metaphysical acumen to become the messenger of
Christian truth and life to the Buddhists and Brahmans who lived side by
side in South India in those days.
We know little of his work in that land. He found in Malabar a colony of
Jewish Christians who possessed a copy of the Gospel of Matthew in the
Hebrew tongue, said to have been given to them by the Apostle Bartholomew.
It is not known, however, whether this last named apostle laboured among
these Christians in that region.
Probably a century later that Christian community formed connection with
Antioch, Syria, which was the first of all Christian missionary centres;
but which, through its Nestorian faith, soon lost its missionary ardour.
1. And thus emerges out of the darkness into its long and unique history
the Syrian Church of Malabar.
It has passed through many vicissitudes and has lost much, if not all, of
its positive Christian influence and missionary character. During a recent
visit to that region I was saddened by the sight of this Christian
community which had lived all these centuries in the centre of a heathen
district with apparently no concern for the religious condition of the
surrounding, non-Christian, masses—content to be as a separate caste
without religious influence upon, or ambition to bring Christ into the
life of, its benighted neighbours.
This church has survived its own apathy, on the one side, and Roman
Catholic inquisition on the other, and appears before the world as what it
really is—the only indigenous Christian Church in the peninsula of India.
It enjoys the unique distinction of having lived more than a millennium
and a half in a heathen land, for a thousand years of which it was
entirely surrounded by a non-Christian people.
During the last half century it has been considerably influenced by the
work and example of the Church Missionary Society which is established in
that region. Through this influence a Reformed Syrian Church has come into
existence which promises to do much for the whole community in ideals and
life. The Syrian Church has hitherto been greatly cursed with the trinity
of evils—ignorance, ceremonialism and superstition. It was not until 1811
(at the suggestion of an Englishman) that it translated a part of the
Bible (the four gospels) into the vernacular. And this is the only
translation of the Scriptures ever made and published by the natives of
India.
The Syrian Church now numbers 248,741. That part of the Syrian community
which the Romish Church compelled, by the inquisition, to unite with it
numbers 322,586.
2. From the fourteenth century the ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH has continued to
send out her emissaries and missionaries to that land.
Jordanus and his brave band of missionary associates were her first
representatives.
But it was only from the arrival of Vasco da Gama and the Portuguese
conquest four centuries ago, that the influence of that Church began to be
seriously felt and its triumphs recorded.
By the sword and cruel Inquisition not only were Syrian Christians
compelled to transfer their allegiance to the Pope; non-Christians also
were, for perhaps the second time in the long history of the land,
subjected to the bitter restraints and inhuman inflictions of religious
persecution. It is a curious fact that the hideous and bloody monster of
religious intolerance was hardly known in India until, first, the
followers of Mohammed and, secondly, the disciples of the meek and lowly
Jesus began to invade the land.
Then follow the devoted and heroic labours of the saintly Xavier. He was a
man of princely extraction, of royal bearing, of Christian devotion and
self-denial. He wrought, according to his light, with supreme loyalty to
his Lord and with a divine passion for souls in South India. Many
thousands of the poor fishermen on the coast was he permitted to baptize
into the Christian faith. It is much to be regretted that, like nearly all
subsequent Romish missionaries, he gave himself, all but exclusively, to
the ceremonial salvation, rather than to the ethical transformation and
the spiritual regeneration, of the people. It has always been a much
easier thing, in India, to gather the people for the reception of the
mystical ordinances of our faith than it has been to prepare them, by
patient teaching and guidance, to exemplify its precepts by their lives.
After Xavier came the accomplished and wily Jesuit, Robert de
Nobilibus—the nephew of Cardinal Bellarmine. A believer in the Jesuitical
principle that the end justifies the means, and ardently desiring to bring
the Brahmans over to his faith he proclaimed himself, and in every way
assumed the rôle of, “the Western Brahman.” He lived scrupulously as a
member of that haughty caste and, until recalled by the Pope on account of
his deception, wielded much influence over the Brahmanical hierarchy in
Madura.
Men of great power and supreme devotion to their faith followed as
representatives of that great Church in India. Such names as de Britto,
Beschi, the Abbe du Bois are a crown of honour to that community. Many
like them spent lives of great self-denial for the cause of Christ and
faithfully wrought for the redemption of the people; so that at present
the power of the Romish Church and the devoted energy of its leaders are
known in every section of the Peninsula. After nearly six centuries of
effort its community in India has reached the total of 1,524,000 souls.
For a long time, it has not enjoyed much increase in its membership. In
many places it finds numerous accessions; but not a few of its people
backslide and return to their ancestral faith. The marked defects of
Romanism in that land have been its concessions to, and compromise with,
the religion of the land both on the side of idolatrous worship and of
caste observance. I have discussed the subject with Indian Roman Catholics
in the villages and find that to them the worship of saints, through their
many obtrusive images, is practically the same as the idolatry of the
Hindus—the only marked difference being in the greater size of the Romish
images! In like manner the Jesuit has adopted and incorporated into his
religion, for the people of that land, the Hindu caste system with all its
hideous unchristian divisions. All this makes the bridge which separates
Hinduism from Roman Catholic Christianity a very narrow one; and it
reduces to a minimum the process of “conversion” from the former faith to
the latter. But an easy path from Hinduism to Christianity means an
equally facile way of return to the ancestral faith. If the Hindu has
little to surrender in becoming a Christian, neither has such a Christian
any serious obstacle to prevent his return to Hindu gods and ceremonies
when it suits his convenience to do so. Hence it is that the new
accessions to Romanism hardly exceed the number of those who leave it in
order to resume their allegiance to the faith of their fathers.
3. PROTESTANT MISSIONARY EFFORT began late. In India it was introduced
with the Dutch conquest in the early part of the seventeenth century. But
the proselytizing methods of the Dutch in those days savoured too much of
the Romish inquisition under the Portuguese. When the pressure of
religious compulsion by the civil government was removed, consequent upon
the English conquest in Ceylon and India, the people apostatized in a
body.
(_a_) It was not until the truly Christian King, Frederick IV. of Denmark,
took, himself, a religious interest in that land at the beginning of the
eighteenth century, and sent, at his own expense, the first two Protestant
missionaries to Tranquebar on the east coast, that really consistent
Protestant effort for the redemption of India began.
Zeigenbalg and Plutschau, the two pioneers who were sent to Tranquebar,
arrived in 1706. They inaugurated the great work of Protestant
Christianity for the spiritual regeneration of India, and will always find
an honoured place among the heroes of the cross.
Zeigenbalg was a man of great piety and of intellectual resources. He died
in 1719 after a most successful service of unremitting toil. He gathered
hundreds of converts into the Christian fold, established schools and
erected a beautiful church edifice which stands today as the oldest
Protestant Mission Church in the East. Above all, he felt that an open
Bible in the vernacular was essential to the conversion of India; and he
therefore gave himself to the translation of God’s Word. He was not able
to complete this work; it did not issue from the press until 1725. This
Tamil version of the Bible was the first translation of God’s Word in
India and in all the East; and it stands today as a monument to his
intelligent labours and to those of his worthy successor, Schultze. It
also represents the beginning of a new era of missionary effort in the
country. The Roman Catholics, during all their stay in that land have done
nothing towards giving to the people the Bible in their native tongue. It
was not until the year 1857 that, stirred by Protestant example, they
published their first and only translation of any portion of God’s Word in
any of the South India vernaculars—that of the Tamil Gospels and the Acts
of the Apostles.
Schultze spent fifteen years in Madras and left a congregation of 700
persons there. From Tranquebar, as a centre, missionary effort spread
extensively throughout the Madras Presidency. This was done through German
missionaries supported mainly by English funds furnished by the Society
for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge.
Perhaps the most commanding figure connected with that work and century
was Frederick Schwartz, the missionary statesman and apostle who arrived
in India in 1750. His efforts extended throughout the Kingdom of Tanjore
and even to the Madura and Tinnevelly districts. Through all these regions
his power was felt and, in company with a few other worthy souls, he
laboured with distinguished faith, wisdom and heroism. The Protestant
Native Church which has so flourished in Tinnevelly and Madura found its
origin and first success under his guidance. He spent forty-eight years in
unremitting effort, influenced powerfully all missionaries who came in
contact with him, and passed on to his reward in 1798.
Thus, before the close of the last century, at least 50,000 Tamilians had
been baptized in connection with this Protestant effort. When we bear in
mind the fewness of the agents, and the very limited tract of country
which they occupied, it is a matter of considerable astonishment that so
many converts were every year baptized in the various missions. In
Tranquebar alone, in nineteen years, there were 19,340 persons baptized;
and during the century, the entire number of converts was nearly, if not
quite, double this amount. In Madras, as many as 4,000 natives were
received into the Christian church. The Cuddalore Mission, notwithstanding
its great troubles, yielded between 1,000 and 2,000 converts; the
Trichinopoly Mission, more than 2,000; the Tanjore Mission, about 1,500;
and the mission established at Palamcottah in Tinnevelly in 1785, also a
few.
It is impossible to know exactly the number of the native Protestant
Christian churches and congregations existing at the beginning of the last
century, or the number of the Christian community in the Presidency.
Probably only a few thousand remained to await the dawn of the new
century.
From Madras, down South as far as Palamcottah, infant Christian
communities existed. But they did not largely flourish until new
missionary societies were organized and a larger force of missionary
workers were sent to strengthen and push forward the work established.
And it is very unfortunate that, with much good, not a little evil was
found among these few Christians whom the eighteenth century bestowed upon
the nineteenth. Mr. Sherring truly says,—“That many of the converts were
sincere and genuine, we cannot doubt. Yet it is certain that the
permission to retain their caste customs and prejudices throws
considerable suspicion on the spiritual work accomplished among them. The
Danish and German missionaries soon perceived the formidable influence of
caste as an opponent of the Gospel, unless they were ready, like the Roman
Catholics, to enlist it on their side, by permitting it to be retained in
the Christian churches established by them. They chose to make caste a
friend rather than an enemy. In doing this, however, while they made their
path easier, they sacrificed their principles. They admitted an element
into their midst which acted on the Christian community like poison.” And
this poison is still exercising a potent influence upon a no small portion
of the Protestant Native Church in South India. A bad beginning in this
respect has facilitated an evil continuance.
The closing years of the eighteenth century carry our interest to North
India and are notable as the beginning of the organized missionary effort
of the English people for the redemption of India.
(_b_) The Anglo-Saxons seem to have been the last among Christian peoples
to awake from the lethargy of a self-centred, self-seeking Christianity,
and to enter upon the great missionary campaign for the conquest of the
world for Christ. It is true that the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel received its first charter in 1701. But for more than a century of
its history it did not concern itself about carrying the Gospel to the
heathen races. It seems strange that, up to that time, both the Protestant
clergy and laymen of Great Britain and America felt little or none of that
sense of obligation for the conversion of the non-Christian world to
Christ which has now become so universal a conviction and a passion among
them.
[Illustration: American Church In Southern India.]
In the work of rousing the English to this grand world-wide enterprise
William Carey acquired well-earned distinction. Though of humble origin
and wanting in early training, his spiritual vision and contagious
enthusiasm made him a leader of power. Thus, God chose a cobbler youth to
lead the Christian hosts of England out of the bondage of narrow religious
sympathies into a world-wide conquest of souls for Christ. Carey’s efforts
in England were unremitting, and the contagion of his burning altruism
spread everywhere notwithstanding much opposition and contempt met from a
certain class.
His early efforts at home were supplemented by a missionary life in India
so remarkable in its self-denying devotion, so characterized by
distinguished ability and linguistic genius, and so notable in wisdom and
persistence under the greatest difficulties that his name will ever stand
preëminent in all the annals of missionary effort.
But it was very sad that, while _Christian_ England was waking out of her
lethargy to her spiritual opportunities and duties in India, _commercial_
England threw herself across the path and denied the right of Christian
service for the Christless people of that land.
Carey found no welcome or even permission to work in British India. He was
compelled to flee from the territory of the East India Company and to find
refuge and opportunity for missionary work under the more enlightened and
progressive rule of the Danish in Serampore. It was from that place that
he directed his missionary effort in India and found the long-sought
opportunity to serve his Master in that heathen land. It was there that,
in company with his worthy associates, Marshman and Ward, he built up a
Christian community and translated and published the Word of God into many
oriental tongues. The success and achievements of Carey would be regarded
as phenomenal in the case of any missionary. But when it is remembered
that he was compelled to support himself and his mission, in considerable
part, through his income in secular pursuits; when it is also known that
his wife was, for many years, a wreck, mentally, and therefore a source of
great care and anxiety to him, how wonderful must have been his faith, his
persistence, his intellectual endowments and his love for the people of
India to have led him to accomplish so much for the cause of Christ in
that great land!
Carey’s life and example wrought wonders in its influence upon others of
his countrymen. Among a noble band of followers is found the devout and
pious enthusiast Henry Martyn who, during his too brief career as a
chaplain in India, found time to commend his Master and His Faith to many
in that land of darkness and death. Martyn was a worthy example of what a
consecrated chaplain can do for the Christian cause, beyond the strict
performance of his priestly functions—an example which was perhaps never
more needed in India than at present when so wide a gulf is found between
the ordinary chaplain and the missionary.
As a result of this missionary revival there also came into existence not
a few hopeful, vigorous missionary societies. First among them was the
London Missionary Society which entered, in 1795, upon its grand career of
world-wide endeavour. After that, was organized (in 1799) the Church
Missionary Society. Both of these organizations, at the opening of the new
century, began to put forth their best energies for the salvation of
India. Then a host of other lesser, but equally determined, agencies
followed in their train and made India their special field of activity.
In addition to distinctively English societies there were organized, also,
separate Scotch, Irish and Welsh movements for work in the land—each
nation vying with every other in the work of upbuilding there the Kingdom
of Christ.
Among the British societies the Church Missionary Society, the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel, and the London Missionary Society have done
most extensive service and have been markedly blessed with growing
communities and effective organizations for work among the people.
Each nationality also represents a separate type of life and activity. The
English missions, for instance, are strong in their wise organization and
effective administration. The Scotch, on the other hand, have a genius for
thoroughness in everything, especially in educational work. The names of
the greatest missionary educators of India are, almost without exception,
Scotch. They have dug deep foundations and have aimed, by means of their
splendid schools, to excel in the work of directing the thought of, and
imparting a new philosophy to, the rising generation of Indians. If their
results have not been statistically impressive, so far as converts are
concerned, they have had preëminence in the task of transforming the
thought and of leavening the institutions of the land. For instance,
Alexander Duff—the father of the higher educational work of missions, a
man mighty in thought and kindled with a sublime faith and a Christian
enthusiasm—did not number many converts as the result of his college
training of the young. But every convert under him counted for something
in the Christian Church. It is said that, of the forty-eight educated men
who were won to Christ through his mission in 1871, nine were ministers,
ten were catechists, seventeen were professors and high-grade teachers,
eight, government servants of the higher grade, and four, assistant
surgeons and doctors. Similar to the work of Dr. Duff in Calcutta was the
work of Dr. Wilson in Bombay and is the effort of Dr. Miller, at present,
in Madras. Mission results must be weighed as well as measured.
As a contrast to this thought-directing and leavening work of the Scottish
Churches may be placed the work of the Salvation Army in India. This
unique organization invaded that great land nearly a quarter of a century
ago. Believing that existing missionary organizations and methods of work
were too dignified, staid and inadequate for best results, the leaders of
this movement introduced its cyclone methods and proposed to take India by
storm. They began by insisting upon all their European officers conforming
to native custom, in clothing and diet. Their appeal was simple even if
their work was narrow and noisy. It was a call upon all to immediate
repentance and to a belief upon the Lord, Christ, for salvation. They
ignored the Sacraments of the Church and, for a while, even emulated the
Hindus by daubing their religious emblems upon their foreheads.
But their appeal fell flat upon a people who had no Christian heritage or
training; and their genuine forms of self-denial and methods of
adaptation, instead of producing popular admiration and attachment, soon
produced pity and even contempt. If the officers were men of spiritual
ardour and were kindled with a passion for the salvation of India, they
were also, on the whole, untrained and uncultured. They not only disobeyed
their Lord in neglecting the Sacraments, they did not and could not
understand the people and their religion. By ignoring all sanitary rules
many of them vainly sacrificed their lives to the Cause.
Considering the money expended, the precious lives sacrificed and the
efforts exhausted during this quarter of a century the results achieved by
this organization have been painfully, though not unexpectedly, small. It
clearly illustrates and emphasizes the fact that India is not to be won
for Christ by a campaign of ignorance and noise, however largely it may be
enforced by altruistic fervour. And it should not be forgotten that the
army officers have not scrupled to enter territory already occupied by
Christian missions, to cause unspeakable annoyance to workers on the
field, and to fill up more than half the ranks of their “soldiers” with
people who already claimed allegiance to Christ in connection with
well-established missions.
(_c_) Australia has recently fallen into the ranks of those who carry the
Gospel to India. One Faith Mission in Western India is almost entirely
conducted by men and women of that country. A Baptist Mission also is
maintained by them there. And not a few of the strong members of British
missions are Australians; these, with their work, are supported by the
churches which sent them forth.
(_d_) Protestant Europe has not been conspicuous for its missionary
effort. And yet India owes a large debt to the Christians of the
Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Sweden for their effort to present to
them the message of life. As we have seen, the Dutch, upon their first
conquest in the East, sought to introduce their faith among the people.
The first Protestant missionaries who gave their life for India were
Danes. They were supported by the private resources of their own king. In
early times Danish settlements in India were the refuge of Gospel
messengers to that land. They protected them against the unchristian
narrowness and persecution of the East India Company. The Danish
settlement of Serampore gave the only opportunity to Carey and his
associates for a home and for missionary work.
The Bible was the first time translated into an Indian vernacular (Tamil)
by our Continental brethren, and the first vernacular Christian books were
printed in Germany.
At the present time they are giving themselves more fully than ever before
to the work of India’s redemption. There are eight Continental Missions
conducted there, some of which have achieved considerable success. The
Leipzig Evangelical Lutheran Mission has fallen heir to the first Danish
mission established at Tranquebar. It has at present a strong force of
workers, and they are scattered through several Districts in South India,
are doing solid and substantial work and have gathered a numerous
Christian community.
Perhaps the most successful of these European missions is the Basil German
Evangelical Mission, which is established upon the southwestern coast. It
is well organized, has a thorough educational system and is embued with a
strong evangelistic spirit. Connected with this mission is an extensive
and prosperous Industrial Mission. With the German spirit of thoroughness
they have developed, more largely than any other mission in India, the
industrial department, until it is now well established and fully
self-supporting.
All these European missions are systematic and painstaking in the work
which they are carrying forward. In some respects this gives them
well-earned distinction. But, on the other hand, they labour under a
serious disability in having to acquire the English as well as the
vernacular of the people after arriving in the land. They are also
extremely conservative, not to say antiquated, in their methods; and they
have not, in most cases, learned to hate and antagonize, as they should,
the terrible caste system of the country.
(_e_) The American participation in the Christian conquest of India began
early. It was the perusal of the Life of David Brainerd, the American
missionary saint, which kindled the missionary zeal of William Carey in
England. On the other hand, the Life of Carey had no small influence, at
the beginning of the nineteenth century, in giving irresistible impulse
and definiteness of purpose to that noble band of American missionary
pioneers—Mills and Nott, Newell and Judson. And their consecrated
enthusiasm and purpose to labour for the conversion of the heathen
nations, in its turn, led, in 1810, to the founding of the first foreign
missionary society in the United States—the American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions.
The first field chosen by this society for its activity was India. It
represented to them both the greatest need and the best opportunity for
Christian work.
Thus the first organized attempt of the Christian Church of America to
reach and to redeem the heathen world was directed towards the land of the
Vedas. And the first band of missionaries which that, now venerable, Board
sent forth into the harvest went, with eager anticipation and earnest
prayer, to that ancient and benighted people.
But how great must have been their disappointment and sorrow, upon their
arrival, to be refused permission by the Honourable East India Company to
land in Calcutta. With sad hearts they turned their faces towards Bombay,
hoping that God would open the way to their entering upon missionary
service there. This again was denied them and they fled to Cochin, but
were seized and brought back to Bombay to await the arrival of an American
ship to convey them home. It was just then that their prayer was answered
and the Lord of Hosts came to their succour and opened wide the door of
that land to the missionary labourer. A new charter was granted by the
British Parliament to the East India Company. In that, insistence was made
that the Christian missionary be permitted to prosecute his work for the
heathen of that land unmolested. This charter was granted in 1813, while
the Americans were still held in durance in Bombay.
It was the Magna Charta of missions for India; and from that time until
this the Christian missionary has found permission to preach his message
in that land. He has also enjoyed there ample protection in the exercise
of all his religious duties and work as a messenger of Christ. By this
charter missions received State sanction to obey heaven’s command, and
missionaries of all lands came to enjoy, on British territory in the East,
the undisputed right to carry the gospel of our Lord to heathen people.
The impatient little band of missionaries were therefore released at
Bombay; and from that day until this America has found joy in her effort
to convey her spiritual blessings to that land. Adoniram Judson, having
become a Baptist, was directed by Carey to Burma where he laboured for
many years with apostolic zeal and with distinguished success. The nearly
150,000 native Christians of Burma today owe their conversion largely to
Judson’s wise initiative, resistless energy, grand Christian faith and
inspiring example.
Mills, who was the leader in the early band of students whose zeal led to
the organization of the American Board, found his field of service on the
West coast of Africa, whence also he was early called to his heavenly
reward.
The saintly Harriet Newell, wife of another member of this distinguished
company, died on the Isle of France, and her sorrowing husband returned to
Bombay and rejoined his brethren Hall and Nott. These three, therefore,
were the founders of this first American Mission in India—now called the
American Mahratta Mission. Bombay, Ahmednaggar and Sholapur are its
principal centres of work; and it covers a field whose population is
between three and four millions. It has had distinguished success and has
gathered the largest native community among the Protestant missions of
Western India.
In 1834 the same society established its South India Mission at Madura.
This was an offshoot from the Jaffna Mission which was founded in 1815 in
that northern corner of Ceylon. The Madura Mission has prospered, has
18,000 in its Christian community, and is regarded as one of the best
organized missions in the country.
In 1834 the American Presbyterians, while yet connected with the American
Board, established in the Northwest their large and successful mission.
Its centres of work are Lahore, Lodiana, Futtegarh, Dera-Dun and
Allahabad. This mission has done excellent work and has attained high
eminence among the missions of North India, both for its educational work,
its leavening influence and for its evangelistic zeal. A number of its
missionaries suffered martyrdom during the terrible Sepoy Mutiny of 1857.
It was from that mission that the first call to universal prayer for the
conversion of the world was sent forth. And thus was founded the Week of
Prayer which now finds such general observance among Protestant
Christians.
[Illustration: College Hall Of The Madura Mission.]
In 1836 the Baptists established for Telugu people, on the southeastern
coast, the famous “Lone Star Mission.” It has had such phenomenal success
that, though established only in 1840 in a purely heathen field, and
notwithstanding the fact that the first twenty-five years of its efforts
were barren of outward results, it is to-day by far the largest mission in
India, having 53,790 communicants and a community of 200,000. Its chief
centres of work are Ongole and Nellore.
The Rev. Samuel Day was sent out by the society in 1835 to Chicacole, but
in 1837 removed to Madras. After three years’ labour there he resolved to
establish a mission among the Telugu people, and so removed to Nellore and
commenced work there in March, 1840. The unproductiveness of the work in
the early history was such that the abandonment of the mission was several
times under consideration. But in 1866 prosperity dawned. Later followed
the great accessions which have, up to the present, continued in greater
or less degree and which have been on a larger scale than in any other
field in South India. “The history of Christianity, in all ages and
countries, shows nothing which surpasses the later years of this mission
in spontaneous extension, in rapidity of progress, in genuineness of
conversions, in stability of results or in promise for the future.” The
church organized with eight members by Dr. Clough at Ongole in 1867
numbers now its thousands. The great famine of 1877 presented a large
Christian opportunity which was eagerly seized by Dr. Clough, himself a
civil engineer, in the conduct of large famine relief works under
government and in the Christian instruction of many thousands who laboured
under him. This itself created a wonderful movement which has been
marvellously used of God in the conversion of the people. Nearly all of
these converts have come from the lowest class of society. But at present
the higher classes are beginning to consider the claims of the Gospel. It
is natural that the most serious problem and principal concern of this
mission has been to keep pace with the movement, and to train suitable
agents for the guidance and instruction of the incoming thousands. It has
also been largely blessed in this line, as its various and growing
institutions testify.
As the Madura Mission was the daughter of the Jaffna Mission so the Madras
section of the Madura Mission, in the year 1851, became the mother of a
vigorous daughter. For the members of the Scudder family—a family famed in
missionary annals—were appointed to the District of Arcot, some seventy
miles south of Madras, and there began a work under the American Dutch
Reformed Church which has rapidly grown into power and promise.
In the year 1856 the Methodists of America entered upon their great work
in that land. With their wonted zeal and evangelistic fervour they carried
forward a vigorous campaign in North India. They early found an opening
among the outcaste people as the Baptists had found among the same in the
South; and they eagerly entered the open door and vigorously prosecuted
their endeavours for that class. Their success has been signal. More than
100,000 people have been gathered into their Christian community and an
equal number of others are desirous to place themselves under their
spiritual care and guidance. They have also entered seriously into the
work of training an agency and of educating the densely ignorant members
of their community. In addition to their village schools they have a large
theological and normal school, besides two colleges, one of which is
perhaps the best college for women in Northern India, if not in the East.
Their work has now spread to many parts of the land and even to Burma and
the Straits settlement. They have also wisely cultivated the press and the
publishing department as an important auxiliary in their work. In this
department they are perhaps doing more than any other society now at work
in India.
The great success of this society in India is largely owing to the wise
leadership of that missionary statesman—Bishop Thoburn. I doubt whether
many other missionaries, if indeed any other, have wrought more for the
redemption of that people than this sturdy American of ample common—and
uncommon—sense, of wide vision, of sublime faith and of masterful
generalship.
Several divisions of the American Lutheran community have also wrought
much for India and are justly proud of their prosperous missions,
especially in South India.
In like manner American “Faith Missions,” not a few, have planted the
banner of the cross in that land of the trident and are prosecuting their
mission and proclaiming their message with singleness of purpose and
exemplary zeal. The “Christian Alliance” is the most pretentious
organization of this class which does work in that land. Its efforts are
chiefly confined to the Bombay Presidency where it has a goodly number of
earnest workers.
Organizations for the young—the Y. M. C. A., Y. W. C. A., Y. P. S. C. E.,
S. V. M.,—while they are not in any sense distinctly American, are
nevertheless dominated by the American spirit and methods, and are, to a
large extent under the guidance of American youth. These Christian
movements are doing royal service for the Kingdom of Christ in that
stronghold of error. They bring cheer to the missionaries, youthful
inspiration to the churches, a wide opportunity to the young life of the
Christian communities and a new pace to all the messengers of Christ in
the land. The Y. M. C. A. is also doing an excellent evangelistic work
among the educated non-Christian youth of India—a work that is appealing
mightily to their deepest spiritual instincts and is impressing them, as
nothing else does, with the combined sanity and spirituality, the
reasonableness and the saving power of our faith.
I must also allude to that unique American Institution—the Haskell-Barrows
lectureship—which has already done no small good to the educated of the
land, and has within itself the possibility of largest blessing to the
country. It was founded in connection with the University of Chicago; and
it appoints and sends to India once every two or three years a
distinguished lecturer to present the excellence of our faith in its
philosophy and life in such a manner as shall best commend it and appeal
to the thoughtful non-Christians of the Orient. Every effort of this kind
which shall emphasize to Hindus the harmony of Christian truth and the
best thinking of our age and shall reveal to them Christ as the Redeemer
and Exemplar of our race and as the only “Name under heaven given among
men whereby we must be saved,” is to be cordially welcomed among God’s
best forces for India’s redemption. And America is to be congratulated
because she is the first to endow and to inaugurate such a helpful agency
for the glory of God and the salvation of India’s men of culture.
It is comforting to the American worker in India to be assured that the
modern rulers of the land are amply atoning for the unchristian and rude
incivility of their predecessors in office ninety years ago. For they not
only cordially welcome the Christian worker from the States; they also
reveal full appreciation of his labours, render him every protection and
are not averse to praising him for his arduous endeavours. Listen to the
words of Lord Wenlock, while Governor of Madras,—“Our cousins in America,”
he says, “are not, as we are, responsible for the welfare of a very large
number of the human race; but seeing our difficulties and knowing how much
there is to do, they have not hesitated to put their hands into their
pockets to assist us in doing that which is almost impossible for any
government to achieve unassisted. They go out themselves, their wives and
their sisters; they enter into all parts of the country, they send a very
large amount of money and they spend their time and their health in
promoting the welfare of those who are in no way connected with them....
In all Districts I find our American cousins joining with us in improving
the system of education and in extending it wherever it was wanted. To
their efforts we owe a very great deal. It must be recognized that their
great object is the advancement of the Christian religion.”
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 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 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 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.
[Illustration: Village Christian Church, South India.]
[Illustration: High And Normal School For Girls, Madura.]
(_d_) Educational work is increasingly utilized. Formerly missionary
effort was mostly the work of the preacher—it was the direct Gospel
message and appeal. To this has been added the no less necessary, indeed
the deeper, work of transforming the thought of the land and of
introducing everywhere a Christian philosophy and a process of thinking
which will undermine the old methods and foundations of Hinduism. This
Christian education, which is now being imparted in India to nearly half a
million youth in our schools, is a leavening power the extent of whose
influence no one can compute. And it carries within itself untold
possibilities for the conversion of India. By these institutions, Sir
William Muir truly tells us, “the country has been inoculated with
Christian sentiment.”
Sir Charles U. Atchison declares that, in his judgment, “the value of
educational missionary institutions, in the present transition state of
Indian opinion, can hardly be overrated. It is more than ever the duty of
the Church to go forward in its educational policy.”
In other ways also, medical and industrial, Christian work has broadened
out so that it reaches the people at all points and lifts up the Christian
community into a self-respecting power which will abide and grow in
influence.
In modern missions the Word of God, translated into all the vernaculars of
the people, has become the mightiest instrument of progress in Christian
life, and the most ubiquitous messenger of Christian truth. The Bible was
almost a sealed book to the people of India when William Carey arrived at
the close of the eighteenth century. The Roman Catholic and Syrian
Christians had done nothing to bring this blessing to the people. The
Danish mission, as we have seen, had translated it into the Tamil tongue.
And that was all. How wonderful the work of the last century whereby this
blessed Word has been translated into every language and many dialects of
polyglot India. Among its 300,000,000 inhabitants there are few who cannot
find God’s own Word translated into their own speech, published and
brought to their doors. Can any one realize how great a leverage this is
in the work of overturning that land religiously and in bringing Christ
into the life of India?
* * * * *
Thus the history of Christian effort in India has not been without its
many lessons. And these lessons have brought wisdom and, with that wisdom,
confidence and growing efficiency to the Christian forces now at work in
the land.
For this reason the progress of the Kingdom of Christ in India will,
during the present century, be much more marked and its triumphs more
signal than in the past centuries. And for this well-founded assurance we
thank God.