And here it is a joy to acknowledge that a vast amount of good has been
done for India, and that our rule has been productive of great social and
moral improvement. Roads have been made and canals formed; justice has
been administered to an extent never known previously; Thuggism,
Sutteeism, and child murder have been abolished, and on the whole there
has been a vast and increasing amount of just and beneficial legislation.
All this we most freely and thankfully acknowledge. Why then, it may be
asked, is there need for humiliation? If so much good has been done,
what reason is there to be humbled for our sin?
For the answer to this question, we must not merely consider civil and
social improvements, but we must consider the Christian character of our
trust, and I fear it will be found, that instead of holding it as a
stewardship from God, we have treated India as if it were our own,
holding it in the pride of our own power, and making use of it for the
purpose of our own aggrandizement.
Consider some of the acts of _Government_, and in the first place, the
trade in opium. The use of this drug is of comparatively recent date in
China. In 1767, there were only 200 chests imported there, whereas now
there are above 60,000. And this has been done in defiance of the
Chinese Government. The opium used to be carried in fast vessels, fully
armed, so that our opium merchants were in fact armed smugglers. The
determination to force the trade on China, was the simple cause of the
former Chinese war. But the Chinese Government has been utterly unable
to contend against British enterprise, and the result is that thousands
and tens of thousands are at the present time falling victims to the
scourge. You may see all along the coasts of China innumerable cases of
constitutions broken, intellects impaired, hopes blasted, homes desolate,
and whole families sunk into the lowest state of degradation and
distress, and all through the opium which we Englishmen have supplied
from India.
The effect is also most injurious in India itself. It is stated that
there are 100,000 acres of the finest land in Central India, besides the
alluvial valley of the Ganges, now devoted to opium, which were once
productive of sugar, indigo, corn, and other grain for the sustenance of
man.
And who are the parties to this great crime? If they were simply private
individuals, it might be exceedingly difficult to check the trade by
legislation, and it might possibly be beyond the power of Government to
prevent it. But what are we to say when the Government itself is the
great offender? When, instead of putting the smallest check on the
traffic or the growth, they interpose their mighty power, and claim to
themselves the sole monopoly of the trade. In this respect the East
India Company is a vast monopolist, and in order to increase the profits
of their monopoly, they adopt a system of advances which forces the
growth of the poppy on the ryots or cultivators of the soil. Oh, who can
wonder that God has brought a scourge on India!
And why, it may be asked, is all this done? The question has often been
discussed, but I never heard more than one answer given. There is no
plea put forth of social improvement. There is no pretence that any good
is done either to India or China. It is admitted that thousands of acres
of our best land are diverted from useful purposes. It is admitted, for
it cannot be denied, that the trade is spreading death like the most
fatal pestilence in China, and there is but one argument put forth in
defence of the system. There is but one apology even offered. I know it
is a strong argument to some minds, and it seems to be strong in the
minds of the East Indian Government. That one argument is, that it pays
so well. It is said to bring in about 5,000,000_l._, a-year to the East
India Company. And this is a rapidly-increasing income. In 1836 it was
1,399,000_l._ In 1850 it had grown to 3,309,637_l._, and now it is said
to have reached the large sum of 5,000,000_l._ a-year. This is the one
argument for China’s ruin, and is it strange that God has smitten us in
India?
But again we endeavoured to show, in the outset, that England had a
religious trust, being the steward of truth as well as power. But the
Indian Government, on the other hand, has taken up the position of
absolute neutrality between the Gospel and the most foul idolatry.
Indeed, so far has this gone, that in some instances it might have been
almost supposed that they looked with a more favourable eye to idolatry
than Christianity.
For example. Until a very recent date the Government has not merely
maintained some idol temples, but paid the expense of the idol worship,
not merely paying the priests, but actually going one step further, and
providing the payments for the abandoned females who are connected with
the idolatrous rites. Such honour has the Indian Government paid to
idolatry, that British troops have been ordered out, under British and
Christian officers, to fire salutes in honour of foul and filthy idols,
such as Juggernaut. Nor has this deference to idolatry even yet
altogether ceased, for to this very day the filth and obscenity of
idolatry is spared, while decency is enforced in other quarters. There
was a law passed not long since against obscene paintings and
publications, but there was this clause inserted, “Nothing contained in
this Act shall apply to any representation sculptured, engraved, or
painted on, or in, any temple, or on any car used for the conveyance of
idols.” So that even public decency has been set aside out of respectful
deference to an obscene and filthy idol. Oh! brethren, have we not
reaped what we have sown in the late most awful outbreak of abominable
and polluting passion?
But much has been done in India in the way of _education_. Large schools
have been established at the expense of Government, and a great effort
has been made to elevate the standard of intellect amongst the natives.
But here again there has been the same fatal principle of indifference, I
cannot say of neutrality in religious matters. The education given in
those schools has been secular not Christian. There have been many books
read and taught there. The Koran has been studied there. The Hindoo
Shastres may have been seen on the table, English literature of all kinds
is taught in the classes. There you may find Bacon, and Milton, and
Gibbon, and Shakspeare, and other great authors that adorn our own
libraries; but there has been one book till very recently excluded, one
book that even now you can merely find on the shelf, while the Koran and
the Shastres are on the table; one solitary book on which is placed the
ban of the East Indian Government, and that one book is the Bible, the
only book that has come direct from God; the only book that claims, by
its divine authorship, the universal study and obedience of mankind. Who
can be surprised, then, if the pupils in those schools grow up without
scriptural principles? And are we not reaping the fruit of our own seed
when such a wretch as Nena Sahib, who is reported to have been one of the
pupils in these very schools, teaches us, by his foul acts, the awful
atrocities of which educated human nature, without the grace of God, is
capable.
And now for _missions_. And here we are met by the fact that for the
first fifty-six years of our century of power a missionary, as a
missionary, was not allowed to set his foot on British soil. It is true
that some of the chaplains, such as Martyn, Buchanan, and others, went
out in a missionary spirit, and though their duty was to attend to the
Europeans, they went beyond it, as volunteers in efforts among the
heathen; but it was not until the renewal of the Company’s charter in
1813; that missionaries, as missionaries, were allowed to land in British
India. Before that date several had actually been sent away by the
authorities of Calcutta, and in order to pursue their labours, were
compelled to take refuge under heathen governments. So completely did we
forget our stewardship that, for more than half the time we have held it,
we did not even allow God’s missionaries to attempt their work among the
millions committed to our charge.
But our treatment of the _Sepoys_ has been worse still. In them we have
had a body of men entirely under our orders, separated very much from the
rest of society, living in lines completely under our own control. Now,
what has been the case with them? I believe it is an admitted fact that
no missionary work has been permitted amongst them. The gentleman who
was here a short time ago for the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel stated that he had laboured for more than twenty years in the
neighbourhood of military cantonments, but had never been allowed to
labour among the Sepoys. Who can wonder, in such a case, that those
Sepoys are utterly ignorant of the true character of Christianity, and
are therefore ready to believe that the use of a greased cartridge could
make them Christians?
But more than this. There has been in our treatment of these Sepoys the
most complete departure from even our boasted principles of neutrality;
for, although it seems a strong statement, I believe it to be a true one,
that in many eases idolatry has been encouraged in these regiments, while
Christianity was dishonoured, if not put down. If a Brahmin raised
objections on the ground of his idols or his caste, he was humoured in
his folly, and regimental discipline was set aside in his favour. But if
a Christian spoke of conscience, and if he objected on Christian grounds
to fire a salute to some horrid idol, in former days he was cashiered.
The Brahmin’s folly was respected, the Christian’s conscience outraged.
But in one case it went further, for in 1819 there was a devoted chaplain
labouring at Meerut of the name of Fisher, when a Sepoy who had been for
years inquiring, applied to him for baptism, and was baptized. The man
was highly respected in his regiment, a fine soldier, bearing the best of
characters. But the fact of his baptism was reported to the
Governor-General: and, to the shame of our Indian Government be it
spoken; to the lasting shame of all that had a hand in that guilty
act,—without any fault being laid to his charge, on the contrary, with
the highest testimony being borne to his character, for the one act of
becoming a Christian, that Sepoy was dismissed the Service. Verily it
seems as though that guilty act had been hid in the soil of Meerut as the
seed of the present mutiny. There it was that a professedly Christian
Government cast its Christianity out of a Sepoy regiment, and there, on
that very spot, did the Sepoys shed the first Christian blood, in their
efforts to cast us out of India.
And now, it may be asked, why has all this been done? and what can have
been the motive for this unchristian policy? It has not been the love of
Hindooism, for no one supposes for a moment that any of India’s rulers
cared for it. But it seems to have been the result of a false expediency
and a timid policy. The one defence that has been constantly put forth
has been that we must not endanger British power by offending heathen
prejudices. It has been thought that the open and honest avowal of our
Christianity might alarm the advocates of idolatry, and so endanger
English rule.
Now, I believe that nothing can be more fallacious than such an opinion.
No man ever yet gained anything in the long run by holding back his
principles. He may patch up a difficulty for a time, but it will tell
upon him with increased power afterwards, and then he will have to meet
it, distrusted by his fellow men, and forsaken by God himself. Oh!
brethren, if you ever wish man to trust you, be honest to your own
principles, and remember the words of Scripture, “Them that honour me I
will honour.”
The truth of this has been abundantly proved in India, and there are many
facts to show that, as elsewhere, so in India, the open avowal of our
Christian principles has been the surest means of obtaining the
confidence of the natives. For example, our Mission schools have been
established on Christian principles. In them there has been the Bible,
but no Shastres, and the Gospel, but no Koran; and it is a most
remarkable fact, and one that surely teaches a lesson of deep import,
that, although the Government schools have had all the advantages of the
support and patronage of the State, the people, the heathen people, mark!
have preferred the schools where Christ was honoured, and have sent so
many more children to them than to the others, that the Government have
at length been induced by the demonstrated fact of their superior
popularity, to admit them to the advantages of a grant in aid.
Again, at this present time the gentleman acting in the Commissariat
department for the little force at Benares, is a missionary of the Church
Missionary Society. He has been requested to leave the missionary
compound, and go into the cantonments, in order to make the necessary
purchases for the force. And why? Because the people of the country
trust him as they do no one else, and he can make purchases when others
fail. Here is a man that has been never seen but with the Bible in his
hand and the Gospel on his lips; a man who has attacked Hindooism openly,
in the streets and in the bazaars, and he is the man best trusted by the
native population. Can there be a more conclusive proof of the utter
absurdity of the foolish clamour that missions have stirred up the
mutiny?
But there is another fact of the same kind. The Church Missionary
Society has a small mission at Bhagulpur, on the borders of the Santal
tribes, and when, in the late Santal rebellion, those tribes came
sweeping over the plains, that little spot was preserved, like Gideon’s
fleece, moist, when all around was dry, and dry when all around was moist
with blood. The influence of the Mission over these people was so
strong, and the tranquillizing power so clearly proved, that the East
Indian Government, to their great credit be it spoken, have admitted the
fact, and in order to keep the district quiet have actually requested the
missionary of Bhagulpur to organize similar missions at Government
expense throughout the Santal tribes.
Who can doubt, then, the fallacy of the idea, that a plain, honest, and
affectionate avowal of Christian principle would ever have weakened
British power? But even if it were otherwise—if there were risk in
introducing the Gospel and in fulfilling our Stewardship—suppose there
were the deliberate choice between British sovereignty and the Kingdom of
our Lord Jesus Christ—suppose it to have been a fact that there was
danger to our rule in India if we openly avowed our faith in
Jesus—suppose that there were real risk in a plain, open, honest,
Christian government, what, brethren, should have been the decision?
Dearly as we love the prosperity of our land, thankfully as we recognise
the many beneficial changes that have been effected by British power,
fervently as we hope for still greater results when the present crisis
has passed away, yet if there were antagonism between all this and the
Lord’s Kingdom, there must not be one moment’s hesitation as to the
verdict of the Christian man. Christ must be honoured at all costs; and
God forbid that England ever hold a sovereignty either purchased or
maintained at the awful price of the suppression of our principles or the
keeping back of God’s truth!
Here lies, I believe, the root of this sad calamity. The contrary has
been in many cases our decision. England’s power has been preferred to
the Lord’s kingdom. We have forgotten our Stewardship. We have not held
India by Him or for Him. We have relied on our own arm, and have
governed for our own purposes. And now that arm has failed us, and those
purposes have been completely frustrated. The reed has broken and
pierced through the hand that leaned on it. God has let us feel what we
are in our own strength; and who could be surprised if He were now to
say, “Thou mayest be no longer steward?”
But there is danger in fixing our thoughts too much on governments, for
by so doing we are apt to lose sight of our personal responsibility;
whereas we ought to remember that the Church of God has had its trust
likewise, and that every individual amongst us has been more or less
connected with the question. Consider, then, the stewardship of the
_Church_.
In the last century there was very little done for the spread of the
Gospel in India. There are a few remarkable names on record such as
Schwartz and Martyn, and a few institutions such as the Society for
Promoting Christian Knowledge, in connexion with which Schwartz laboured.
But it was not till the beginning of this century that the missionary
spirit sprang up with any vigour in the Church. The first half of the
century was almost wholly lost. This might be explained partly by the
opposition of Government. But since the year 1813 there has been no such
impediment. There has been a great country with its teeming millions.
There has been the most perfect personal safety. The missionaries could
travel from north to south without a danger. There has been a peaceable
population ready to discuss, and regarding with respect the British name.
There has been, in short, for the last forty-four years the noblest and
most magnificent opportunity for Christian Missions that the world has
ever witnessed. There has been a vast opening before us, such as would
have filled the Apostle’s mind with zeal and wonder. And now what have
we done? Let the Church of God give an account of her stewardship!
We thankfully acknowledge that this stewardship has not been altogether
neglected. Great and well conducted missionary institutions have been at
work, and devoted men have been raised up for the service. Nor has God
left us without tokens of his blessing. In 1853 the whole Bible had been
translated into ten languages, the New Testament into five others, and
separate Gospels into four more. There were also at that time as many as
2,015 missionary schools established; and, as far as could be calculated,
there were then no less than 112,000 converts. We may, therefore, thank
God most heartily for what has been done; but still it is nothing in
proportion to the immensity of the demand. In that year the Church of
God throughout the world—English, Scotch, American, and European,
including all Dissenting bodies—supplied only 395 American or European
labourers, not one for half a million of the Indian population. I have
not the means of ascertaining the present total, but, as far as I can
gather from the Reports, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel is
now maintaining about forty-eight English clergymen in India, and the
Church Missionary Society about ninety English clergymen, with about
twenty English laymen. There are Germans and natives employed in
addition, but the total, 158, very nearly represents the sum of England’s
contribution of her own sons to this great work through these two Church
of England Societies. And now, if we remember the eagerness with which
parents seek for appointments either civil or military, and the steady
stream of gallant young men that are every year going forth to India—when
we contrast the difficulty of obtaining a single missionary with the
eagerness to obtain a Company’s appointment, I fear that we must come to
the conclusion that we are not yet awake to the responsibilities of our
Stewardship, and not yet alive to the loud and solemn call with which the
great Head of the Church is summoning us to the honour of his sacred
service.
The same may be said with reference to funds. In 1853 the large sum of
190,000_l._ was contributed, of which no less than 33,500_l._ was
subscribed in India itself, leaving 156,500_l._ to be collected from the
rest of the world. I am again unable to give the statistics of other
bodies at the present time, but the two Societies already mentioned
appear to spend between them money collected in England to the amount of
only 76,834_l._, of which 57,635_l._ is spent by the Church Missionary
Society, and 19,199_l._ by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.
There is doubtless some that passes through other channels, in addition
to the large sums expended by other bodies of Christians. But we may
regard 80,000_l._ as a near approximation to the whole sum now spent by
the Church of England on Indian Missions. Now just contrast this sum
with the large fortunes made in India, with the number of families
altogether maintained from India, and, above all, with the fact that the
Company is deriving a net profit of 5,000,000_l._ a-year from the opium
traffic alone, and there is, I fear, most overwhelming evidence that we
have utterly failed in our Stewardship; that we have received much, but
given little; that we have been entrusted with great wealth and great
opportunities, but have made a most poor and pitiful return, having been
content to grow rich on India’s produce without fulfilling our sacred
trust, or employing even a decent proportion of the income derived from
India on the evangelization of her people.
And the result of this defective liberality is evident in the total
spiritual destitution of vast districts, more especially amongst those
which have been the scenes of the present outbreak.
Let us examine the state of some of these districts, now too well known
by the sad events that have happened there.
In a district around Agra, containing a population of 3,500,000, there
were in 1852 nineteen missionaries; and around Benares, for a population
of 7,100,000, nineteen missionaries—a tolerable supply, it may be
thought, but yet very little, when you reflect that around Benares there
was little more than one man to nearly 400,000 heathen. But look at
other cases. Take the case of Cawnpore, that place whose name should be
written in tears. Around Cawnpore there is a district containing
3,200,000 persons, for which in 1852 there were only seven missionaries,
one for nearly half a million. Around Meerut there is a district
containing 3,300,000, for which there were four missionaries. Around
Bareilly, a population of 4,400,000, for which there was not one. Around
Delhi, a population of 1,500,000, and not one, although a Mission has
since been established by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
and another by the Baptists. But up to the year 1853 there was not one.
And so again at Lucknow. The Government has for years been friendly to
us, the whole kingdom of Oude has been open to us, and for the last two
years it has been under our own dominion. But up to this day I believe I
am correct in stating that not a single missionary has ever yet crossed
its border. Such is the spiritual condition of vast regions in India at
the present time. According to the language of an able writer, “Some of
the finest and most populous parts of the country are altogether
neglected, or, if not neglected, supplied at the rate of one missionary
to a million or half a million of people, scattered in great districts!
Let any one study the map of India, and allow his eye to affect his
heart. He will find a district as large as Wales or Yorkshire, with a
population probably larger, without a single missionary. He may go on
and add to that another, and then another, and finally will discover a
long range of fertile, populous countries, as much neglected as if they
were districts in Japan.” So fearfully have we failed in the stewardship
which God has given us.
But let us remember who are really the parties that have been thus
deficient. In the acts of Government we may feel but little personal
responsibility, for, as private individuals, we cannot control them. But
it is not so with the stewardship of the Church, for the deficiency has
arisen there not from any want of principle in the ruling body, but from
want of interest in the private individuals composing the flock. We have
had large and well-conducted Institutions doing their utmost: we have had
appeal after appeal to our liberality, sometimes from the bishops,
sometimes from military officers, sometimes from residents in the civil
service, sometimes from the little band of missionaries, and sometimes
even from the heathen themselves. They have appealed for money, and
appealed for men, and appealed for prayers. They have urged upon us the
awful necessities of millions of perishing heathen, and pressed on our
attention the noble opportunities and most solemn responsibilities which
we have received from God. The neglect has been with ourselves. The
responsibility cannot be shifted upon others. We have not responded
enough, either in men or money. There have been plenty of young men for
the army and the civil service. There has been no difficulty in
obtaining chaplains, but few have volunteered for Missions; and even of
these few several have been deterred by their parents’ unwillingness to
part with them for such a service. And so with funds: we have been
content to give an annual guinea, or perhaps much less, and then leave
the whole great work to others. There has been very little self-denial
for God. How little have any of us ever given up for India’s good! How
small have been the sacrifices which any of us have ever made for the
evangelization of those many millions! I cannot but think that God is
now awaking us by the rod to a sense of our responsibility. He is
awaking the north wind to rouse us from our indifference. We have not
listened sufficiently to India’s plea for help; so now He is shaking us
from our slumber, and I trust that the result may be that we may “hear
the rod, and who hath appointed it.” I do not believe that the
stewardship is about to be taken from us, but I believe, on the contrary,
that a new era is dawning on India. I can imagine it possible that after
this experience of heathenism there will be any more deference paid to
its horrid idolatry by Government; and I pray to God that his Church may
rise an one man to the deep sense of its sacred trust; that we may all be
brought to a deeper personal knowledge of the love of Christ, and each
one act more conscientiously than he has ever yet done, under the steady
recollection of India’s claims and England’s stewardship.
* * * * *