NATIVE CHRISTIANS (Continued).
I suppose there is no community of any extent that has not unworthy
members, persons that may be called its excrescence and blots, who have
increased its size, as a tumour increases the size of the body, but are
actually its weakness and disgrace. Such were the unworthy persons of
whom I have been speaking. Very different is the general character of
the native Christians connected with the various missions in Northern
India. Some of our converts have made sacrifices, by avowing themselves
the followers of Christ, to which persons in our country are never
called. They have literally left father and mother, houses and lands,
wife and children, for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever may
have been the position of our converts, they have, as a rule, parted
with much which is highly valued by their people. Caste standing, even
when the caste is not considered high, secures many advantages, and is
greatly prized. Its loss is deemed a dire calamity, and this loss our
converts are called to endure. They join a despised and hated community,
are called vile apostates, and are charged with the most sordid motives.
I have heard the charge advanced against converts who, to my knowledge,
had left their place in native society under the power of the profound
conviction that Christ was entitled to their hearts and lives, though
the conviction required of them the most painful sacrifices, and exposed
them to the bitterest reproach. During my first years at Benares, one of
the catechists of our Mission was a Brahman, who had been baptized by
Mr. Ward of Serampore. He was stripped of the property to which he was
the heir, of which the annual rental, according to an official document,
was 5,000 rupees (£500), because he could not perform the funeral rites
of his father. His income as catechist was small, but I often heard him
charged with the lowest mercenary motives by those who knew not, and did
not wish to know, anything about his antecedents. He bore the charge
patiently, deeming it an honour to be reproached for his Master. He was
far from being a perfect character, but no cloud ever seemed to come
over his belief that Jesus was the Saviour of the world. When he was on
his death-bed I asked him if he regretted the life of comparative
poverty and of great reproach he had led because he had become a
Christian. He tried to raise himself on his pillow, and said with an
energy that startled me, "If I had a thousand lives, I would give them
for Him who died for me." In reference to him and others, the remark was
often made by our hearers, "We are willing to listen to you--you are a
good man and have kept to your religion; but we do not wish to hear
these, for they are apostates."
In all communities there are so many varieties, that the most successful
attempt at characterization on the part of those who know them well can
only claim an approach to correctness, and must be received with
deductions. Those who look at a community from a distance, who know only
a few individuals, perhaps know none at all, but judge from what they
hear from others, and these deeply prejudiced, are sure to form a very
false estimate. When speaking of our native Christians, I have the
advantage of long and intimate acquaintance not only with those of our
own Mission, but with those of other missions in Northern India, and I
think I should understand them better than many who have the most
superficial and partial knowledge of them, perhaps do not know them at
all, and yet speak of them in depreciating terms.
[Sidenote: THE CHARACTER OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS.]
I cannot speak of our native Christians, even of those who have made
great sacrifices, as possessing a lofty character, as marked by signal
excellence. We learn from the Epistles of the Apostle Paul he found much
which was faulty in his converts, and we need not wonder at the faults
which are too manifest in ours. Is there any home minister who is not
tried by the conduct of some of his people? Is there any minister or
missionary who has not frequent reason to be dissatisfied with himself?
Indian missionaries are sometimes sorely tried by their converts. All
around is a low moral tone. Slight, inadequate views of sin prevail.
Truthfulness is praised, but little practised. Our people breathe a
tainted atmosphere, and by becoming Christians they do not escape its
deleterious effects. While these defects are frankly acknowledged, truth
enables me to state, without any misgiving, there is much in our people
which is very estimable. Observe their daily life, go with them to their
respective businesses, and you will find them with few exceptions
diligently pursuing their vocation, and honourably supporting their
families. See them at their homes; you will be gladly welcomed, and you
will generally find them striving to have everything clean and tidy, and
as comfortable as their means permit. You will find the Bible and a few
Christian books on their shelves, and you will learn that family worship
is largely observed. When conversing with them you are often impressed
with their manifest sincerity, with their gratitude for having been
brought into the fold of Christ, with the honour conferred on them by
bearing His name, much reproached as they are on account of it, and with
their desire to walk worthy of their profession. See them in the house
of God, cleanly clad, and as they engage in the different parts of the
service you are struck with their devout appearance. Observe them in
their intercourse with each other, and you will find much of mutual
kindness and helpfulness. Observe them in their intercourse with Hindus
and Muhammadans, and you will find that instead of hiding their
Christian profession, and being ashamed of it, they glory in it. I have
said that missionaries are tried by their converts. I ought in candour
to add that converts are sometimes tried by missionaries. Their training
has been so different from ours, their position is so different from
ours, that it is very difficult for us to understand them thoroughly;
and so far as we fail to understand them, we fail in sympathy and in
right action towards them.
[Sidenote: FAITHFULNESS TO THE DEATH.]
The native churches passed through a fiery ordeal in the Mutiny of 1857,
and came out of it in a way which reflected great honour on their
Christian constancy. Even those who had the most favourable opinion were
not prepared for the readiness shown by them to part with all, to part
with life itself, rather than part with their Lord. I cannot say how
many were put to death, but we know that thirty-four were killed on the
Parade-ground of Furruckabad by order of the Nawab, and seven or eight
perished at Cawnpore. In Foxe's "Book of Martyrs" there is not a more
striking instance of witnessing to the death for the Lord Jesus than was
manifested by Vilayat Ali, in the Chandnee Chauk of Delhi, when,
surrounded by infuriated Muhammadans calling on him to recant or die, he
declared Christ to be his Saviour and Lord, and when falling under the
swords of his enemies uttered with his last breath the prayer of
Stephen, "_Lord Jesus, receive my spirit._" The account is furnished by
a witness of the scene. There were defections, but if our view be
confined to Christians connected with the different missions they were
remarkably few, fewer, it is affirmed, than those of Europeans and East
Indians. One whom I knew well, though he was not of our Mission,
apostatized to save his life, and died most miserably, abandoned by his
new fellow-religionists, and tenderly watched by those whom he had left.
Full details of the conduct of the native Christians in that terrible
crisis are given by Mr. Sherring in his book, "The Indian Church during
the Great Rebellion." This book had, I believe, a considerable
circulation when it was published, but like many other good books it has
passed into oblivion. The information it contains was furnished by
persons intimately acquainted with the facts, and is very valuable as
proving the genuineness and constancy of native Christian piety. It
gives more insight into the real character of the native Christian
community than can be obtained by perusal of large volumes full of
ordinary mission details. The friends of missions would do good service
by seeking its republication.
The loyalty of the native Christians to the British Government, as well
as the constancy of their Christian faith, was strikingly shown
throughout the Mutiny. This loyalty was maintained amidst much fitted to
discourage it in the conduct towards them of Europeans, both official
and non-official.
We have seen native Christians in joy and sorrow, in trial and
temptation. We have been present at their death-bed, and have heard
their words of hope and trust when entering the dark valley. We have had
abundant reason to regard them with esteem and love. With many we have
had pleasant intercourse, and from our intercourse with some we have
received intellectual and spiritual profit. At one time there was a
small band of highly-educated native Christians at Benares connected
with the different missions. It gave us great pleasure to have them now
and then spending an evening with us. They were always ready to start
some important subject, and their remarks were stimulating and
instructive. I remember more than once our remarking, when they went
away, Could we have had a more pleasant and profitable evening if our
European brethren had been with us? At the great Missionary Conferences
which have been held in recent years the native Christian brethren have
taken a prominent part, and both intellectually and spiritually they
have been found worthy of standing abreast of their brethren from Europe
and America. It must be acknowledged there has been a difficulty at
times in adjusting the exact relationship of these highly-educated
native brethren to their missionary friends, and there has been in
consequence unpleasant jarring; but amidst differences Christian
principle has asserted its uniting power, and their ordinary bearing is
that of mutual esteem and love.
It may be said, "If native Christians as a community deserve the
character you have given them, how is it that people from India speak so
much against them?" The explanation can be easily given.
[Sidenote: ALLEGED FAILURE OF CHRISTIANITY.]
There is no part of the mission-field, the South Seas, Africa, the West
Indies, China, as well as India, from which persons have not come
affirming that the so-called converts are changed in name only; that
they are no better than they were, and in many cases worse. Do we not
find analogous cases nearer home? It is often said of professors of
religion--very truly of individuals, very untruly of the class--that
they are less worthy of trust than avowedly worldly persons. Large
communities remarkable for religious zeal, like the people of Wales, are
condemned in the face of favourable evidence which seems well
authenticated. Persons have even stoutly maintained that Christianity
itself has been a failure in its moral influence on the nations. Want of
sympathy and antipathy blind the mind to facts, and lead to most
erroneous judgments. The great majority of Europeans in heathen
countries have no sympathy with missions, and have neither the knowledge
nor the spirit indispensable to the formation of a correct judgment.
They hear a loose report of converts from persons who in turn have been
told by others what they say, and the report is at once believed and
circulated. They have, perhaps, met an unworthy native bearing the
Christian name, and he is regarded as a fit representative of the entire
community.
It is a common opinion among many of our countrymen in India that
Hinduism is as good for Hindus as Christianity is for us, and they
cannot conceive why a person should leave the one for the other except
from sinister motives. When speaking on one occasion with a lady who
regularly attended church, and no doubt deemed herself an excellent
Christian, about a native gentleman of high rank, whose kindly temper
and courteous demeanour we were both praising, I said, "Would that he
were a follower of our Saviour!" She looked surprised, and said, "Do you
think so? He is, I think, a better man by remaining as he is." So strong
is this feeling with some English people, that a native who calls
himself a Christian is regarded by them as on that account a suspicious
character. I know a well-educated native Christian who applied for a
Government situation. He had good certificates; they were sent in, and
when the official to whom he applied came to know he was a Christian--he
knew nothing more about him--he threw them aside with the word
"_namunzoor_," "not accepted"--the technical term for "rejected." One
result of this English dislike to native Christians is that natives have
told me that none but missionaries and a few associated with them wished
them to become Christians; that English people generally wished them to
remain Hindus. It can be conceived how great is the stumbling-block thus
put in our way. A Church of England missionary of great experience once
said to me, "Would that there were no Europeans near us! We might then
hope for progress." I am not to vindicate the remark. I mention it to
show the effect on the mind of a devoted missionary by English hostility
to the conversion of natives. On every side, from European as well as
from native society, there is every worldly obstacle to their embracing
the Gospel.
[Sidenote: GOVERNMENT OPPOSITION TO THE GOSPEL.]
At one time there were obstacles to the profession of Christianity which
do not now exist. When India was being brought under the sway of
England, our rulers regarded the Gospel as a disturbing and threatening
element, which ought to be carefully excluded. Long after the Christian
feeling at home had forced open the door, the Gospel was treated as an
intruder to be in every possible way thwarted and disgraced. In
illustration of the opposition the Gospel had to encounter, I quote a
few sentences from a recently-published volume, "Asiatic Studies,
Religious and Social," by Sir Alfred C. Lyall, K.C.B., the present
Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces:--"We disbursed
impartially to Hindus, Mussulmans, and Parsees, to heterodox and
orthodox, to Juggarnath's Car, and to the shrine of a Muhammadan who had
died fighting against infidels, perhaps against ourselves." "The chief
officers of the Company in India were so cautious to disown any
political connexion with Christianity that they were occasionally
reported to have no religion at all." "Up to the year 1831 native
Christians had been placed under the strongest civil disabilities by our
regulations.... Converts were liable to be deprived not only of
property, but of their wives and children; and they seem to have been
generally treated as unlucky outcasts, with whom no one need be at any
trouble of using any sort of consideration." We are told that they were
even forced by Government order to pull the car of Juggarnaut, and
severely punished if they refused. According to a parliamentary paper of
1832, "our interference extended over every detail of management: we
regulated funds, repaired buildings, kept in order cars and images,
appointed servants, and purveyed the various commodities required for
use of the pagodas." Under home pressure this state of things has
gradually given place to neutrality, which, if impartially maintained,
is I suppose the only policy open to us in the peculiar circumstances of
India.
I have already said there are very unworthy persons bearing the name of
native Christians. To judge our Indian churches by these is as unfair as
to judge English Christians in India by Englishmen, of whom, alas!
there are many, soldiers and others, who are notorious for drunkenness
and licentiousness. We have even English beggars in India, wretched men,
who have drifted out of the army, railway, or other department, and who
disgrace our name. Strong men have come whimpering to my door, to whom I
have given help, and I have seen them a few hours afterwards--I remember
one case well--rolling in the bazaar in beastly drunkenness. It would be
as fair to take these men as a specimen of English Christians, as to
judge native Christians by persons bearing the name while they disgrace
it.
The very acknowledgment of missionaries about the imperfections of their
communities, about the utter hollowness of some individuals, has been
turned into adverse testimony. In the recent meeting at Exeter Hall to
welcome the Madagascar missionaries, Messrs. Cousin and Shaw, Mr.
Cousin, in the course of his very interesting address, said that much of
the Christianity of the Malagash was "purely nominal and utterly
worthless." I should not at all wonder if some day I found this brought
forward as a missionary's acknowledgment that the Christianity of the
Malagash is purely nominal and utterly worthless, and that missions in
Madagascar, as elsewhere, had been a failure.
[Sidenote: THE SUPPORT OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS.]
The support of native Christians has sorely tried and perplexed
missionaries. They have been desirous, on the one hand, of holding out
no inducement to persons to join them from unworthy motives; and on the
other they have felt that persons thrust out of their caste and
employment, and not infrequently from their family, had claims on help,
with which every Christian feeling bound them to comply. Persons able to
work have never been allowed to live in idleness, but the difficulty has
been to find suitable work. In some missions, when persons have shown
an aptness for domestic service they have been trained to it. In a
number of missions trades have been started, and have been carried on
for a longer or shorter period, with more or less success; but, as a
rule, the relation of employer and employed does not accord well with
the relation of pastor and people. The difficulty continues, and will no
doubt continue, but it is decreasing every year. When travelling down
through Northern India in 1877 we found Christians in every place at
which we stopped, and we learned they were supporting themselves in
various modes, in printing offices, bookbinding establishments,
railways, and public offices. A number were in domestic service. I wish
fewer were thus employed. When anything goes wrong in a house the Hindu
and Muhammadan servants are sure to blame the Christians; masters and
mistresses look for more from them than can be reasonably expected, and
they no doubt are apt to fall into the well-known and objectionable
habits of the class. The more capable of the native Christians, the
higher in character and education, are for the most part employed as
teachers, catechists, and native preachers. A few have risen to
responsible and lucrative positions in civil life. A native Christian
from Bengal held for some years, to the great satisfaction of both
Europeans and natives, the office of Postmaster of Benares. He and his
wife were members of our native church. Another member of our church for
a time was the Inspector of Post-offices in the Benares district.
I believe in every mission in the North-West native Christians
contribute regularly to the support and diffusion of the Gospel, and,
considering their means, their contributions are liberal. I remember
hearing years ago of a native church in Calcutta agreeing, without a
dissentient voice, to give a month's salary for the erection of their
new church building--an act of liberality which has been seldom equalled
in our country.
Much has been said about the compound system, as it has been
called;--Christians living together apart from the heathen, and in most
cases in the immediate neighbourhood of the missionary's residence. Much
has been said, I think unjustly, in condemnation of this arrangement. It
is not the hot-bed, which it has been called, in which robust Christian
character cannot be produced. Native Christians, thus living together,
hold constant intercourse with the heathen in the business of life, and
are at the same time saved from the peculiar trials and temptations
incident to living among Hindus and Muhammadans. So far as native
Christians make their light to shine, it will be well seen by the
heathen though their dwellings be apart. One great advantage of living
in a mission compound, near the place of worship and the missionary's
residence, is that wives and children can regularly attend public
worship, and can come under the teaching of the missionary, and
especially the missionary's wife, as otherwise they could not have come.
For a time we had quite a number of native Christians in our compound at
Benares, who paid a small rent for their houses, and went out every day
to attend to their respective callings. If they had lived in the city I
cannot conceive how mothers and children could have attended worship as
they did, or how my wife could have taught the children and held
constant intercourse with the women. Because living in the compound, it
does not follow that they are dependent on the mission for support.
There is nothing more desired by missionaries than that their people
should maintain themselves, by their own exertions. Living among the
heathen is often indispensable--it is so increasingly with our native
Christians; but where circumstances admit, I think great advantages
result from Christians living near each other and near the mission
church. In our own country, are not favourable surroundings sought for
the young and the inexperienced?
[Sidenote: PROGRESS.]
When I look back to the beginning of 1839, when I landed in Calcutta,
and compare the native Christian community of that day with what it is
now, I am struck with the great change which has taken place. If we
confine the term to those connected with missions, they were then a mere
handful. Now they are considerable in number, and they have become a
recognized and appreciable portion of native society. They are
increasing in number, though not so rapidly in the North as in the
South, and are becoming rooted in the land. The largest native Christian
community in the North-West is, I suppose, that connected with the
missions of the American Episcopal Methodist Church in Rohilkund and
Oude. It is largely composed of Muzbee Sikhs, a people much despised by
both Muhammadans and Hindus. Of late the Salvation Army has entered on
the campaign against Hinduism and Muhammadanism. Its organ boasts
largely of success, but its statements have been strongly questioned by
persons acquainted with the facts, on whose warm attachment to the cause
of Christ full dependence can be placed. A well-known missionary of the
Episcopal Methodist Church in Oude has been lately pursuing the tactics
of the Salvation Army. Accompanied by a band of native Christians, he
has been entering villages and towns with song and drum and tambourine.
The people in crowds have gathered round him. He and his brethren have
preached Christ to them, have urged them to accept Him as their Saviour,
and have given on the spot baptism, _chin_--the mark of the Christian
Church, to any avowing their readiness to become Christ's disciples.
Time will show how far the work is genuine. Perhaps we old missionaries
have been too slow in administering baptism. Of this I am sure, that
nothing is more fallacious as the test of success than the number of
persons baptized--so different is the opinion held by missionaries
regarding the qualifications required in order to baptize. Native
Christians are more self-dependent than they were, and are receiving a
healthy impulse from feeling that they must push out for themselves.
They have to contend against much which is adverse and hurtful, but
without indulging too sanguine hopes we may firmly anticipate for them a
brighter and better future than their past has been.
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