THE MISSIONARY IN INDIA (Continued).
It has been already stated that missionaries have an income, which
enables them to live in a way conducive to the health of themselves and
families. Things which would be luxuries at home are necessaries in
India, and all they can do is to alleviate the suffering caused by the
climate. As missionaries are often more stationary than European
officials, both military and civil, and spend much less than they do on
horses, establishments, and entertainments, their houses have an air of
comfort which is surprising to those who know their income, and has led
to much misrepresentation on the part of those who know not and do not
care to know what it is.
Not infrequently young men have gone out to India as missionaries with
the firm resolve to live to a large extent in the native fashion, and to
eschew what they conceive the undue indulgence of those who had preceded
them, but the experience of one hot season has generally brought them to
another mind. Individuals have adhered to their resolution, and the
result in one case I know was insanity, in other cases utter failure of
health, and in others speedy death. A band of Germans determined to
live, if not in the native style, at least in the simple style of the
Fatherland, as to habitation, food, and service, and with scarcely an
exception the plan was soon abandoned. The only successful case I have
heard of in our day has been that of Mr. Bowen, a devoted American
missionary in Bombay. We have had no William Burns, in Northern India at
least. I can say for myself, that so far as the mere comfort of living
is concerned I should greatly prefer a humble abode and simple fare in
England, to the finest house and the most sumptuous fare in the plains
of Northern India. It has been maintained by some that our only hope of
success lies in our becoming ascetics, and outstripping by our
austerities the Hindu saints. In other words, by acting as if we
accepted Hindu principles of religion we are to overthrow Hinduism, and
win the people to Christ. The proposal calls for no consideration.
Of late a good deal has been said about the substance of missionary
teaching. Missionaries as a class maintain and teach the doctrinal views
of the Churches whose messengers and agents they are. In these Churches
a sifting process has been going on for a considerable time, which has
led in some cases to a reversal of belief in matters of great moment,
and in a greater number to the modification and softening of views
hitherto entertained. Every one must decide for himself how far the
sifting has been wisely done, how far chaff and only chaff has been
given to the wind, and precious grain gathered into the garner.
Missionaries have unquestionably been affected by doctrinal discussion,
in a few instances, I believe a very few, to the reversal of some of
their former views, in all, perhaps, though in different degrees, to a
readjustment of their doctrinal position, to giving more prominence to
some aspects of truth and less prominence to others, under the
conviction that such is their relative position in the Word of God.
[Sidenote: MISSIONARY PREACHING.]
However much imbued missionaries have been with the views of their
respective Churches, their position among the heathen has always led
them to the constant and simple presentation of the great facts and
doctrines of the Bible. These have been set forth in the manner deemed
best fitted to commend them to the understanding, conscience, and heart
of the people. Familiar illustrations have been largely used, and
elaborate doctrinal discussion shunned. While the missionary finds much
in the narratives and teachings of the Old Testament which is helpful to
his object, he dwells chiefly on the life of Christ, His deeds, words,
living, and holy example; death to redeem men; man's urgent need of such
a Saviour, because guilty and depraved; the claims of Christ on His
love, trust, and service; the blessedness of compliance with these
claims on character and state; the misery and doom incurred by their
persistent rejection. How often have I seen the heathen greatly moved by
the parable of the Prodigal Son!
The missionary, like the home minister, has to guard against
one-sidedness, if he would keep to the Book which he professes to be his
standard. The many-sidedness of the Bible, its appeal to man's whole
nature, is one of the most marked proofs of its superhuman origin. While
it addresses itself continually to man's moral nature, to his sense of
right and wrong, while it appeals to his intellect and heart, it also
speaks to his fears and hopes. These appeals are made to all, whatever
may be their diversity in character and condition. If we were to follow
the course of many in our day who condemn appeals to fear, we should be
ignoring a large part of Scripture, including many of our Lord's
utterances, and at the same time ignoring that fear of hurtful
consequences which the Author of our nature has implanted in us as a
great means of self-preservation. To hope as well as to fear much is
addressed in the Bible, and the missionary who would approve himself to
his Master is bound to appeal to both principles, while, like his
Master, he makes his constant and main appeal to the higher part of
man's nature.
[Sidenote: MISSIONARIES COUNSELLED.]
While the missionary ought to strive to understand the people among whom
he labours, and to discover the most promising avenue to their minds,
while he ought to commend himself to every man's conscience as in the
sight of God, he is not to seek acceptance for his message by
accommodating it to the views of his hearers. He knows that between
their views and his message there is not only a marked discrepancy, but
on many points radical opposition, and the one must be displaced if the
other is to be accepted. We have here for our guidance the example of
our Lord and His apostles.
I have endeavoured to give a faithful description of the tenor of
missionary teaching. It appears many are dissatisfied with it. We are
told we must part with our narrow traditional views of doctrine, and
become imbued with the larger and more liberal views of our times, if we
are to hope for success. In the late Dr. Norman McLeod's "Life" we find
him saying, "The chief difficulty in the way of advancing Christianity
in India is unquestionably that almost all the missionaries represent a
narrow one-sided Christianity." I cannot conceive what could have been
his ground for this astounding statement, except his impression--it
could not have been anything beyond an impression--that missionaries
adhered to the doctrines of the Churches that had sent them out, his own
among the rest, and had not followed him in his changes. Every one who
comes out with new views, or modification of old views, assures us that
success will speedily follow the acceptance and preaching of _his_ phase
of doctrine. Some tell us we must preach the moral aspect of the
atonement, and part with what has been called the forensic aspect; we
must only speak of the love it shows to man, and say nothing of its
bearing on the Divine law and government; and then the great cause of
so-called failure will be removed. So far as I know missionaries, they
accept both aspects of the atonement; they believe both aspects are
taught in Scripture, and they are convinced that instead of enfeebling
they strengthen each other, while the doctrine thus presented meets
man's deepest wants. Others, again, tell us we must preach what is
called Life in Christ--the utter extinction of impenitent sinners, while
others say this is a shocking doctrine, and we must preach universal
restoration. This is no place for discussing the teaching of the Bible
regarding the great Beyond, which is at present exercising so many
minds. All I will say is that neither in the old views nor in the new is
there anything which a Hindu or a Buddhist will accept, while he remains
a Hindu or Buddhist. So far as I am aware, all students of Hinduism and
Buddhism are agreed that eternal conscious existence, with identity of
being firmly maintained, is alien from both systems. They do not hold
the doctrine of either eternal happiness or eternal misery. To be
extinguished, in the sense of being absorbed into Brahm and losing all
conscious personality, is the reward of high virtue, while the wicked
have to pass many miserable births before they reach this longed-for
goal. With them salvation, liberation, is not deliverance from sin, but
from conscious existence. They have both heavens and hells--heavens
supernatural in their surroundings but intensely earthly in their
character, doings, and strifes, and hells full of everything which is
repulsive and painful; but both, after vast lapses of time, will be
emptied into the great ocean of being, into the One without a Second.
Cessation of conscious existence is not with them the punishment of
wickedness, but the eagerly desired consummation of their being, the
goal which is quickly reached by the eminently good.
Let missionaries by all means listen to what is said in favour of new
views, let them modify or change their views if they think they see
scriptural authority for the change, but I am profoundly convinced no
shifting of our doctrinal position will secure success. Looking over the
whole field of foreign missions since the end of last century, it is
undeniable that God has done great things by them, for which we have
abundant reason to be glad; and we know the teaching by which the desert
has in many places blossomed as the rose. New phases of doctrine have
yet to win their triumph. We must look in another direction for a
greater degree of success--to more unreserved devotedness to Christ on
the part of both missionaries and those who send them out; closer
communion with Him; a higher degree of attainment in the mind which is
in Him; a more persuasive deliverance of our message, and a larger
effusion of God's Spirit.
[Sidenote: THE HEART'S OPPOSITION TO THE GOSPEL.]
The great obstruction at home and abroad to the acceptance of Christ as
the Saviour is moral obtuseness, a dormant conscience. Our Lord's words
throw a steady light on man's neglect of the great salvation, "_They
that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick._" Till men
know they are sick, and recognize the deadly nature of their sickness,
there will be no application to the Great Physician. In addition to the
indurating effects of sin everywhere, the people of India have been for
ages so drugged, I may say, with pantheistic and polytheistic teaching,
that if man's moral nature had been destructible it must have been
destroyed ages ago. Happily it can not be destroyed. Perverted,
stupefied, dormant, though it is, it still exists, and to it we can
therefore address the message of Heaven, while we look up to God to make
it effectual by the teaching of His Spirit. When man knows himself to be
a sinner, when he knows what sin is, then, and only then, whether in
India or in England, he casts himself with joy into the arms of the
Saviour.
I am surprised when Christians speak as if only a modification or a new
statement of doctrine was required in order to achieve full and
immediate success, as if they had never read such passages as "_The
carnal mind is enmity against God_;" "_The natural man receiveth not the
things of the Spirit of God_;" as if they were ignorant of the facts by
which these statements are so amply and mournfully attested; as if they
had never heard of One who appeared, as ancient sages longed to see,
clothed with perfect virtue and dwelt among men, and was yet rejected
and crucified by them; as if they knew nothing of His apostles, who
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, and yet had to lament over
many hearers to whom their message was the savour of death unto death.
Musing over the controversies of the day, the wish has often arisen in
my mind: Would that the nature of sin was not kept so much in the
background! Would that it was seen in its offensiveness to God and
injuriousness to man--persistently daring high Heaven, while corrupting,
degrading, disquieting, and ruining man! Would that the scriptural view
of sin and sinfulness, which receives such ample confirmation from human
experience and history, was more considered in the adjustment of
doctrine! All readjustment in which the nature and effect of sin is not
kept steadily in view must lead to serious error--error which
misrepresents God's character and government, is inconsistent with facts
meeting us on every side, and must prove most hurtful to man. I am
convinced that while on some points there has been progress, and wise
modification of doctrine, on the subject of sin the theology of former
days was truer to Scripture and fact than the theology of our time.
[Sidenote: "IN MEMORIAM."]
I cannot conclude these remarks about the Indian missionary without
mentioning--and I can do little more than mention--the names of loved
fellow-labourers who rest from the toils of earth, and have entered into
the joy of their Lord above. A feeling of sadness and yet of
thankfulness comes over me, as I see before my mind's eye brethren of
our own Mission with whom I was associated--Buyers, with his intimate
acquaintance with the native languages, his large knowledge, and his
kindly disposition; Shurman, the keen, impetuous, plodding German
scholar, whose great monument is his translation of the Old Testament
into Hindustanee; Mather, first of Benares and afterwards of Mirzapore,
one of the most enterprising and devoted missionaries ever sent to
India, whose peculiarity of temper and urgency with new plans led in his
early years to unpleasantness, but who, when well known, was one of the
truest and kindest of men, with whom for many years we had an intimate
friendship, and whose memory and that of his excellent wife we shall
always revere; and Sherring, one of the most amiable of men and most
pleasant of colleagues, a man of marked attainments, and an
indefatigable worker. The agents of other missions at Benares call for
affectionate mention. I have in an early part of my reminiscences
spoken of Smith, the founder and for many years the sole agent of the
Baptist Mission at Benares, a quiet, diligent, Nathaniel-like man. This
mission had for years George Parsons, a man of large linguistic
attainments, of most amiable, meek, and devout character, than whom it
would be difficult to find a more conscientious labourer. The Church
Missionary Society was highly favoured in having had for a long period
at Benares two men, Smith and Leupolt, who, in their respective
departments, had, I believe, no superiors in India. For many years
Smith, with resolute perseverance and great efficiency, often with
severe strain on both body and mind, prosecuted evangelistic work in the
city and the surrounding neighbourhood. No man was better known and more
highly esteemed by the entire community. He had success to cheer him in
the form of persons avowing themselves the followers of Christ, but the
number was so small that he was often greatly depressed. I cannot doubt
that by his ministry seed was sown in many minds which will yet bear
fruit. During our later years in Benares, Fuchs was one of the agents of
this Mission, an excellent biblical scholar, a diligent labourer, who
required only to be known to be loved and esteemed, with whom we had
much pleasant and profitable intercourse. He was suddenly called away in
the midst of his usefulness, and in the prime of life. I have been
confining my remarks to the departed; but I must mention two who
survive--warm-hearted Heinig, of the Baptist Mission, now set aside by
age and infirmity, after a long life of great toil in the service of
Christ, and our greatly-loved friend Leupolt, of the Church Mission, who
is still doing good service now in England, and was for many years the
fellow-labourer of his friend Smith. His name and work at Benares will
last for many a day.
Our departed brethren had their imperfections; who of us are without
them? But I can truly say that in their general character, work, and
bearing they were the messengers of the Churches to the Gentiles and the
glory of Christ.
Looking beyond our Benares missions we remember a number of faithful
labourers, whom we knew and loved, who have joined the majority, such as
the learned and kindly Owen, the venerable Morrison, the apostolic
Ziemann, and many others besides. I do not use these terms in a
conventional sense, but as justly applicable to the men. Those I have
named laboured, and others have entered into their labours, men worthy
of all esteem, love, sympathy, and help.
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