THE MISSIONARY IN INDIA.
On reviewing these reminiscences I find there are several subjects of
interest to which I have only casually alluded, and others on which I
have made no remark. My readers will, I hope, bear with me while I
detain them by stating facts and expressing views which will make the
narrative more complete.
It is unnecessary to describe the office of missionary to the heathen.
No one has rightly entered on the office without being deeply impressed
by its greatness, arduousness, and responsibility. It is equally
unnecessary to describe the qualifications required. No one can
contemplate the demands the office makes on intellect, heart, and
conscience, on love to the Lord Jesus Christ and love to souls, on
wisdom, perseverance, and courage, without exclaiming with the great
missionary Paul, "Who is sufficient for these things?" The idea that one
unqualified for work at home would do for a missionary abroad is so
preposterous that it is strange it should have ever been entertained by
the most heedless.
There is, however, a great difference between an office and those who
serve in an office. Because an office is great and honourable it does
not follow that those who hold it have always the high character it
demands. The question may, then, be fairly asked, Are missionaries
worthy of their office? I, of course, use the word "worthy" in a
relative sense, and I remember our limited acquaintance with the human
heart. It must be acknowledged there have been a few, happily a _very_
few, who have shown themselves utterly unworthy of the office, some by
lack of intellectual fitness, and others by want of spiritual character
and by indisposition to the work. There have been cases of the utter
failure of character, but these have been extremely rare. Of
missionaries generally it may be confidently affirmed they have been
true men. I have a wide acquaintance with the missionaries of Northern
India. During our long residence in Benares we saw many of all
Societies, of all Churches, as they travelled up and down. Benares is
one of the great halting-places between Bengal and the Upper Provinces,
and residence there gives many opportunities for acquaintance with
brethren. We have the most pleasing recollection of many we have met,
and we have followed their course with deep interest.
[Sidenote: MINISTERS AND MISSIONARIES.]
I should be acting in opposition to my settled conviction if I were to
speak of missionaries as more devoted to Christ's service, more
self-denied, more ready to endure privation than home ministers. This
glorification of missionaries, as missionaries, was much in vogue at one
time, and is still sometimes heard. Our Master, the Lord Jesus Christ,
gives to every one his work, and our devotedness is shown, not by our
office, but by the way in which we do the work assigned us. Predilection
to a certain sphere, supposed fitness for it, temperament and
circumstances, have much to do in indicating to us the sphere our Lord
would have us to occupy. Tried by the test of devotedness, as shown in
daily life, I have never seen any reason for placing one class of
Christ's servants above the other. Among ministers there is, as we all
know, a great difference, not only in talent and attainment, but also in
love, zeal, wisdom, and endurance--in every quality which their work
demands. Similar is the variety among missionaries. There are many
degrees of efficiency and, it must be acknowledged, of inefficiency.
They, as well as their brethren at home, can go through the routine of
their work in a very perfunctory and unsatisfactory manner; while they,
too, can consecrate all their powers to the service of their Lord. It
would be easy to select from the home field ministers who, in unwearied
labour, self-denial, and privation for Christ's sake, greatly excel the
ordinary run of missionaries; and it would be equally easy to select
from the foreign field missionaries who greatly excel most of their home
brethren.
In several respects there is a marked contrast in the position of
ministers and missionaries. Ministers labour in their own language,
among their own people, amidst home surroundings and associations; while
missionaries have to part with loved relatives and to betake themselves
to a foreign land, where they have to learn a foreign language, often
languages, at the cost of much time and of wearying application, have
for years, as in the greater part of India, to bear a severe climate,
are called to prosecute their work among a strange, an unsympathetic,
and sometimes a hostile people, and, what is felt by family people to be
the greatest trial of all, they have to send their children to England,
and to live separate from them for years. Some of these trials
missionaries share with their fellow-countrymen, who from secular
motives go to foreign lands, but others are peculiar to their vocation.
While I mention the trials of a missionary career I cannot forget the
trials of ministerial life at home. We should require to shut our eyes
to patent facts if we were to ignore the privations many excellent men
are called to endure, and the varied difficulties they have to encounter
from the character and circumstances of the people among whom they
labour, from the peculiarities of our times, and from the abiding
qualities of human nature, as it is now constituted. Missionaries are
not rich, but they have adequate support, for good or evil are not
dependent for it on the goodwill of those to whom they minister, and
receive it as regularly as if it came from an endowment. With children
sent home for education they have times of great pressure, but much has
been done to aid them in meeting this additional expense. Viewed merely
as to the comfort of living, and ease of mind as to support, the
advantages are not all on the side of the home minister. To counteract
the advantages of the missionary's position to which I have referred, it
must be remembered the average career of service in India is short--some
returning very soon, and others after a few years. Those who return
after years spent abroad, and yet in the prime of life, are rightly
expected to enter the list of the home ministry; but the work they have
left and that on which they are entering are so different, that the
mental habits acquired in the one are felt to be a poor preparation for,
and often even an obstacle to, efficiency in the other.
[Sidenote: SPIRITUAL CHARACTER INDISPENSABLE.]
In their duties, joys, and trials, ministers and missionaries have much
in common. We have to deal with the same human nature, manifesting the
same characteristics, though in different forms. We have the same
message to deliver. We have the same great end in view, the salvation
of those to whom we minister, their restoration to the character and
joys of God's children. Whether we labour at home or abroad, we are
required to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. If we have
not entered on our work from love to Christ and love to souls, with an
intense desire to spend and be spent in Christ's service, with a belief
that He has called us to it, and given us a measure of fitness for it;
if we are conscious of being dominated by inferior motives; if we have
not delight in our work, even when there is great pressure on both mind
and body; if we do not long for the success of our work, it is obvious
we have missed our vocation, and it would be better for us to sweep the
street, I would say it would be better to walk the treadmill than occupy
our position for an hour. This I must say for myself, I am deeply
thankful for having been privileged to labour in the foreign field, and
consider it the highest honour which could have been conferred on me.
With my brethren I have had many trials to endure, some privations to
bear, some perils to encounter, but I have never for an hour regretted
my early decision to give myself to Christ's work among the heathen. I
am sure I here speak the feeling of my missionary brethren.
I have endeavoured in my reminiscences to give such a representation of
a missionary's position and work in Northern India, that home ministers
who may read my narrative can have no difficulty in comparing and
contrasting ministerial and missionary spheres. It will be seen how
varied are the duties devolving on the missionary, and how great are the
demands on thought and effort for their proper discharge. They have, in
many cases, to attend to harassing and perplexing secular work. A number
give their time and strength to teaching, and I know enough of this
department to testify that those who give themselves to it in a climate
like that of India lead very laborious lives. I have said little of the
translation of the Scriptures, and the preparation of Christian books
and tracts. This is a department in which there has been much exhausting
effort of both body and mind, as all know well who have done even a
little in it. In the prosecution of direct evangelistic work the
missionary finds much to interest and encourage him, but also much to
grieve and depress him, especially if he has a sensitive nature, and has
no natural love for debate. Even to those who do not shrink from
discussion there is often not a little which is very trying. I have a
vivid recollection of times when I have returned from Benares to my home
in the suburbs, so wearied in body and grieved in spirit by the
opposition I had encountered and the blasphemies I had heard, that I
have felt as if I could never enter the city again. But I went again,
and perhaps the next time was much encouraged.
Missionaries at the same station are much more closely associated than
ministers at the same place at home. The management of the mission, the
policy to be adopted, and the respective places to be filled, are under
common arrangement and control, subject to the district committee, and
through them to the home directors. Many perplexing questions come
before missionaries thus associated, and human nature in them must have
parted with its usual infirmities, and put on peculiar excellence, if
difference of judgment and consequent variance of feeling had never
appeared. We cannot plead exemption from human imperfection. It cannot
be denied that at times there has been strong diversity of judgment and
painful alienation of feeling, when missionaries have too closely
resembled Paul and Barnabas in their sharp dispute at Antioch; but it
can at the same time be most truly affirmed that with very rare
exceptions discord has soon come to an end, and those who have differed
widely have become attached friends, as we know Paul and Barnabas did.
The normal state of things is that of mutual love, respect, and
helpfulness.
Missionaries have also had their differences with the Societies that
have sent them out and supported them. The respective position of home
committees and foreign missionaries are so different, that a difference
of judgment is in some cases unavoidable; but confiding as they have
done in the goodness of each other's motives, full harmony has been soon
restored. I must be allowed to say of the London Missionary Society,
whose agent I was for so many years in India, that my warmest
acknowledgments are due to it for all the kindness and consideration
shown to me and mine. If I were now to begin my career with my knowledge
of the past, there is no Society with which I could so confidently
connect myself.
[Sidenote: INTERCOURSE AND CO-OPERATION.]
All have heard of the friendly intercourse among missionaries of
different churches. They, too, when near each other have had occasional
differences; but with rare exceptions they have been on terms not only
of courteous bearing, but of affectionate intimacy. There is nothing in
our Indian life to which we look back with greater pleasure than our
intercourse with Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, and Episcopalian
brethren. With the Episcopalian and Baptist missionaries at Benares we
were on as warm terms of friendship as if they had been members of our
own Mission. For many years we were in the habit of meeting weekly with
them for the study of the Scriptures, prayer, and Christian communion.
Most Europeans take no interest in missions, look on missionaries as
good men engaged in a Quixotic enterprise, and know almost nothing about
their work, but still they treat them with courtesy. There are, however,
some of our own countrymen who take a deep interest in our work, visit
our schools, occasionally attend our native services, and contribute
liberally to our mission schemes. These do much to cheer our hearts and
promote our success. Again and again my work would have been at a
standstill but for the help given me by European Christians, and our
intercourse with some has resulted in close and enduring friendship. If
persons have a temperament preparing them for friendship, I cannot
conceive any position more favourable to its formation and strength than
that of a missionary in many of our Indian stations.
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