In India two hundred millions of people are placed under the indirect
jurisdiction or the direct rule of the Queen of England. The empire
is divided into many great provinces, in which are spoken ten
principal languages. All along the great rivers are scattered great
cities, surrounded by hundreds of large towns, and thousands of
populous villages. Many of them are centres of a trade growing
greater every year, and many are also headquarters of Mohammedanism
and of Hindoo idolatry. The endowments and vested interests of
idolatry are of enormous value; the Brahmin families may be counted
by millions; the Hindoo religious books were commenced 1200 years
B.C., and the system itself goes back a thousand years farther still.
Such a system is a formidable antagonist and the barriers it raises
against change are very strong. Yet even Hindooism, so powerful, so
rich, so ancient, is giving way at every point. In the external life
of the Empire, a just government, providing for every one of its
subjects complete security of person and property, and giving them
perfect religious liberty, is adapting its public laws and forms of
administration more fully to the circumstances of the time; and is
introducing the natives more numerously to those posts of duty and
of usefulness for which they become fitted. The order and peace of
the country, encouraging production and trade, have raised the wages
of labour, and given the peasant a command of comfort which he never
knew before. Englishmen have done many wrong things in India, for
which they have been justly chastised. But a new spirit has entered
into the public government of the Empire, and during the last seven
years, a degree of improvement and a solid advance have taken place,
in the course of legislation and in the material wealth of the empire,
of which none, except men who have seen it, have any idea. Three
Universities, whose annual examinations in the English and native
languages draw hundreds of native students, stand at the summit of
a sound system of education which is spreading more widely every
year.
[Illustration: BANGALORE INSTITUTION.]
In the direct religious teaching of the people, nearly six hundred
missionaries from Europe and America, sustained by twenty-two
Missionary Societies, have planted stations in the most populous and
influential cities. Joined by two hundred ordained Native Ministers
and two thousand Native Preachers, they carry on a system of
christian agency which costs the important sum of 300,000 pounds
sterling a year. Many calumnies have been uttered respecting
missionaries, and their work, by men who have professed to visit the
cities where they labour, and saw nothing of its results. But these
are more than answered by the striking fact that, of the money
annually expended on these Missions no less than 50,000 pounds are
contributed by the English residents in India, who live among the
missions and see them with their own eyes.
And what is the result? We can point to 50,000 adult communicants,
to congregations of 250,000 people, and to our two hundred native
clergy, as fruits of grace and proofs of blessing from above. But
one of the greatest fruits of all missionary labour in India in the
past and in the present is to be found in the mighty change already
produced in the knowledge and convictions of the people at large.
Everywhere the Hindoos are learning that an idol is nothing, and that
bathing in the Ganges cannot cleanse away sin. Everywhere they are
getting to know that to us there is one God, even the Father, and
one Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all nations. A native scholar,
speaking of his own religion, has said of it, "Hindooism is sick unto
death: I am persuaded it must fall."
A crowd once asked a Berlin missionary, "Sir, why does not the
Government abolish Juggernaut, and save us from the penalties of
outcasts if we profess Christianity?" While the new school of
educated men, calling themselves Theists, in myriads are seeking for
a better way, without encountering the same great penalties. A
glorious future is indicated by these "signs of the heaven," which
seem to me to prove that in a great Empire in which public opinion
is compact and firm, a vast change in preparation for the future may
be produced while churches and converts are comparatively few. Like
Israel of old in presence of Moab, in the darkness of night we have
been digging ditches by Divine command; but when His day of grace
shall dawn and the morning sacrifice be offered, He shall fill them
in abundance with His Spirit's streams, and the whole Empire be
revived.
Shall the children of the world, in these matters, be wise in their
generation, and the children of light not go and do likewise? It is
the universal conviction of residents in India that it is a wise
course not to denationalize its inhabitants, but to keep them a
distinct people; merely introducing into their dress and style of
living those improvements which are demanded by health or by
propriety. To make them Europeans is almost certain to do them
irreparable injury. Adaptation is the law of life. Europeans,
wherever they go, adapt their houses, their dress, their habits, and
their food to the climate under which they live. However strong may
be the belief of Englishmen in the excellence of our constitutional
government, yet in all our colonies and dependencies the form adopted
is one suitable to the knowledge, the power, the training, the degree
of self-government attained by the people of that particular place.
In no case do the English rulers force upon a dependency a system
of government unsuitable to it, however excellent that system may
in itself be.
[Illustration: TEMPLES OF SIVA.]
So ought missionaries and Missionary Societies to act in building
up native churches in foreign lands. Nowhere ought we to import and
force upon them those systems of church government which amongst
ourselves have been largely shaped out by political struggles, by
numerous controversies, by local experience, and by the far reaching
thoughts of a few great minds. In most cases we are ourselves
outgrowing them. In striking instances these systems in Europe are
found in certain of their elements to trammel and to cramp the life,
the energy, the lofty aspirations of spiritual minds. And among the
great problems now before us for the edification and extension of
our modern churches, are not all thoughtful men anxious to see how
in every case they may be made more elastic, more perfectly adapted
in their organization, as well as in their plans of benevolence, to
the demands of the present day; and specially how they may be so
widened as to draw into the church in largest degree the piety, the
experience, the zeal of the lay members of which our churches are
chiefly composed?
[Illustration: MRS. CORBOLD'S GIRLS' SCHOOL, MADRAS.]
Why should we put upon the neck of our young disciples a yoke which
we and our fathers have not been able to bear? We must teach them
some system, and missionaries of different churches will naturally,
as well as from conscientious principles, teach their own. But let
us teach the systems in their essential elements; let us teach those
elements which have stood the test of time, and are found suitable
to the spiritual power, the self-management, the general resources,
the christian civilization of the churches which we are asked to
guide. We may well separate the theory and the principles of our
different churches from the churches themselves as shaped out by
history and by the conditions and the course of our own national life.
Then will their real worth and excellence be more truly manifested,
to the honour of God and the edification of His children. Let us not
only open our alabaster box, let us also be willing to break it, if
only the perfume of the Divine ointment may fill the house of God,
and cheer and refresh the weary souls within its walls.
The most prominent feature in the INDIA Mission of this Society has
been the ORDINATION of Evangelists to the work of the ministry;
either as Pastors of Churches, as missionaries to the heathen, or
assistants to the missionaries. English education continues to
extend its influence. The INSTITUTIONS in Calcutta, Madras, and
Bangalore, are fuller than ever, and very efficient. The school fees
in India during 1868 amounted to 940 pounds. The attitude of the
educated classes towards christianity has wonderfully changed, and
the impression it is making on them is very strong. In the same great
cities Female education now occupies a larger place than ever in the
labours of the Mission. In two of the missions of South India, seven
among the well-trained evangelists of those missions have been
ordained as pastors or missionaries during the past two years, and
eleven others have been proposed for the same responsibilities. The
number in Travancore still stands at eleven, and in North India at
six. The total number of Native ordained pastors and missionaries
in the Indian Missions of this Society is twenty-eight, of whom
fifteen are pastors of churches, and thirteen are employed as
missionaries. It will probably ere long amount to forty.
[Illustration: TEMPLE OF SIVA.]
The TRAVANCORE Mission has now been established more than sixty years.
The settled agencies, which have shaped it into its present form,
have been at work just half a century. And none who contrast the
present state of the province with what it was when the mission began,
can fail to mark the wonderful progress which it has made during these
sixty years, in every element of true prosperity. The province has
enjoyed an increasing degree of security and order under its native
rulers, and has made special advance under its present enlightened
RAJA and his able minister Sir T. Madhava Rao. While slavery and
serfdom have been abolished, the intensity of Brahminical bigotry
has been diminished, and a very large measure of religious freedom
has been secured for the varied classes of the population. Sound
knowledge and freedom of thought on the most important subjects
prevail to an extent utterly unknown at the commencement of the
present century. At the same time, the direct work of the mission
has met with the most encouraging success. In the seven districts
of the mission, recently reduced to six, the great number of native
churches, the large congregations, the number of scholars, the order
and general purity of christian society, and the liberality with
which the agencies of the gospel are supported, exhibit that success
in a striking manner. The crowning proofs of blessing and prosperity
are seen in the congregations prepared for complete self-support;
in their great liberality; in the large band of well-educated Native
preachers and teachers; in newly appointed elders; and in excellent
and tried native pastors. In these latter points the Travancore
mission has begun to take rank with some of the most advanced missions
of all Societies, and to approach the position of rural churches in
Great Britain itself.