From a Hindu Point of View
"The Lord preserve us from innovations foreign to
the true principles of the Protestant Church, and
foreign to the principles of the C.M.S. Pictures,
crosses, and banners, with processions, would do
great harm. The Mohammedan natives would say,
'Wah! you worship idols as the Hindus do, and have
taziyas (processions) as well as the Mohammedans!'
And our Christians would mourn over such things."
_Rev. C. B. Leupolt, India._
I AM sitting in the north-west corner of the verandah of a little
mission bungalow, on the outskirts of a town sixteen miles south of our
Eastern headquarters. This is the town where they set fire to the
schoolroom when Victory came. So far does Caste feeling fly. As you sit
in the corner of this verandah you see a little temple fitted between
two whitewashed pillars, roughly built and rudely decorated, but in this
early morning light it looks like a picture set in a frame. It is just
outside the compound, so near that you see it in all its detail of
colour; the sun striking across it touches the colours and makes them
beautiful.
There is the usual striped wall, red and white; the red is a fine
terra-cotta, the colour of the sand. The central block, the shrine
itself, has inlays of green, red, and blue; there is more terra-cotta in
the roof, some yellow too, and white. Beyond on either side there are
houses, and beyond the houses, trees and sky.
It is all very pretty and peaceful. Smoke is curling up in the still air
from some early lighted fire out of doors; there are voices of people
going and coming, softened by distance. There is the musical jingle of
bullock bells here in the compound and out on the road, and there is the
twitter of birds.
In front of that temple there are three altars, and in front of the
altars a pillar. I can see it from where I am sitting now, rough grey
stone. Upon it, there is what I thought at first was a sun-dial, and I
wondered what it was doing there. Then I saw it had not a dial plate;
only a strong cross-bar of wood, and the index finger, so to speak, was
longer than one would expect, a sharp wooden spike. As I was wondering
what it was a passer-by explained it. It is not a sun-dial, it is an
impaling instrument. On that spike they used to impale alive goats and
kids and fowls as offerings to the god Siva and his two wives, the
deities to whose honour the three altars stand before the little shrine.
The pillar on which stands this infernal spike has three circles scored
into it, sign of the three divinities.
"The impaling has stopped," say the people, greatly amused at one's
horror and distress, for at first I thought perhaps they still did it.
"Now we do not impale alive; the Government has stopped it." Thank God
for that! But oh, let all lovers of God's creatures pray for and hasten
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ! Government may step in and stop the
public clubbing to death of buffaloes, and the impaling of goats and
fowls in sacrifice, but it cannot stop the private cruelty, and the
still wider-spread indifference on the part of those who are not
themselves cruel; only the coming of Christ the Compassionate can do
that.
. . . . . . .
There was the sound of voices just then, as I wrote, many voices, coming
nearer, shrill women's voices, cutting through one's thoughts, and I
went out to see what was going on.
On the other side of the road, opposite our gate, there is a huge old
double tree, the sacred fig tree of India, intertwined with another--a
religious symbol to this symbol-loving people. Underneath is a stone
platform, and on it the hideous elephant-god. On the same side is a
little house. A group of women were gathered under the shade near the
house, evidently waiting for something or someone. They were delighted
to talk.
We spent half an hour under the tree, and they listened; but we were
interrupted by some well-dressed Government officials with their coats,
sashes, and badges, and one not strictly Governmental got up in a
marvellous fashion, and they joined the group and monopolised the
conversation. I waited, hoping they would soon go away, and I listened
to what they were saying.
"Yes! she actually appeared! She was a goddess." ("A goddess! Oh!" from
the women.) "She came forward, moving without walking, and she stood as
a tree stands, and she stretched out her arms and blessed the people,
and vanished."
A woman pointed to me. "Like her? Was she like her?"
"Like her!" and the Government official was a little contemptuous. "Did
I not say she was a goddess? Is this Missie Ammal a goddess? Is she not
a mere woman like yourselves, only white?"
"_She_ also came from the bungalow," objected the woman rather feebly,
feeling public opinion against her.
"You oyster!" said the official politely, "because a Missie Ammal comes
from the bungalow, does it prove that the goddess was a Missie Ammal?"
The other women agreed with him, and snubbed the ignoramus, who retired
from the controversy.
The story was repeated with variations, such a mixture of the probable
with the improbable, not to say impossible, that one got tangled up in
it before he had got half through.
Just then an ancient Christian appeared on the scene and quavered in, in
the middle of the marvel, with words to the effect that our God was the
true God, and they ought to have faith in Him. It was not exactly _à
propos_ of anything they were discussing, but he seemed to think it the
right thing to say, and they accepted it as a customary remark, and went
on with their conversation. I asked the old worthy if he knew anything
about the story, and at first he denied it indignantly as savouring too
much of idolatry to be connected with the bungalow, but finally admitted
that once in the dim past he had heard that an Ammal in the bungalow,
who was ill and disturbed by the tom-toms at night, got up and went out
and tried to speak to the people. And the men, listening now to the old
man, threw in a word which illumined the whole, "It was a great
festival." I remembered that impaling stake, and understood it all. And
in a flash I saw it--the poor live beast--and heard its cries. They
would wring her heart as she heard them in the pauses of the tom-tom.
She was ill, but she got up and struggled out, and tried to stop it, I
am sure--tried, and failed.
Seven thousand miles away these things may seem trivial. Here, with that
grey stone pillar full in view, they are real.
I came back to the present. The women were still there, and more people
were gathering. Something was going to happen. Then a sudden burst of
tom-toms, and a banging and clanging of all manner of noise-producers,
and then a bullock coach drove up, a great gilded thing. It stopped in
front of the little house; someone got out; the people shouted, "Guru!
Great Guru! Lord Guru!" with wild enthusiasm.
The Guru was not poor. He had two carts laden with luggage--one item, a
green parrot in a cage. Close to the cage a small boy was thundering
away on a tom-tom, but it did not disturb the parrot. The people seemed
to think this display of wealth demanded an apology. "It is not his, it
belongs to his followers; he, being what he is, requires none of these
things," they said.
I had to go then, and we started soon afterwards on our day's round, and
I do not know what happened next; but I had never had the chance of a
talk with a celebrity of this description, and in the evening, on my
homeward way, I stopped before the little house and asked if I might see
him, the famous Guru of one of the greatest of South Indian Castes.
The Government officials of the morning were there, but the officialism
was gone. No coats and sashes and badges now, only the simple national
dress, a scarf of white muslin. The one who in the morning had been an
illustration of the possible effect of the mixture of East and West,
stood in a dignity he had not then, a fine manly form.
The door was open, and they were sentry, for their Guru was resting,
they said. "Then he is very human, just like yourselves?" But the
strong, sensible faces looked almost frightened at the words. "Hush,"
they answered all in a breath, "no such thoughts may be even thought
here. He is not just like us." And as if to divert us from the
expression of such sentiments, they moved a little from the door, and
said, "You may look, if you do not speak," and knowing such looks are
not often allowed, I looked with interest, and saw all there was to see.
The Guru was in the far corner resting; a rich purple silk, with gold
interwoven in borders and bands, was flung over his ascetic's dress. At
the far end, too, was a sort of altar, covered with red cloth, and on it
were numerous brass candlesticks and vessels, and on a little shelf
above, a row of little divinities, some brass ornaments, and flowers.
To the left of this altar there was a high-backed chair covered by a
deer skin; there were pictures of gods and goddesses round the room,
especially near the altar, and there were the usual censers, rosaries,
and musical instruments, and there was the parrot.
The Government official pointed in, and said, with an air of pride in
the whole, and a certainty of sympathy too, "There, you see how closely
it resembles your churches; there is not so much difference between you
and us after all!"
Not so much difference! There is a very great difference, I told him;
and I asked him where he had seen a Christian church like this. He
mentioned two. One was a Roman Catholic chapel, the other an English
church.
What could I say? They bear our name; how could he understand the
divisions that rend us asunder?--Romanists, Ritualists, and
Protestants--are we not all called Christians?
I looked again, and I could not help being struck with the resemblance.
The altar with its brasses and flowers and candlesticks, and the little
shelf above; the pictures on the walls; the chair, so like a Bishop's
chair of state; the whole air of the place heavy with incense, was
redolent of Rome.
He went on to explain, while I stood there ashamed. "Look, have you not
got that?" and he pointed to the altar-like erection, with the red cloth
and the flowers.
"We have nothing of the sort in our church. Come and see; we have only a
table," I said; but he laughed and declared he had seen it in other
churches, and it was just like ours, "only yours has a cross above it,
and ours has images; but you bow to your cross, so it must represent a
divinity," and, without waiting for any reply, he pointed next to the
pictures.
"They are very like yours, I think," he said, only yours show your God
on a cross, stretched out and dying--so"--And he stretched out his
arms, and dropped his head, and said something which cannot be
translated; and I could not look or listen, but broke in earnestly:
"Indeed, we have no such pictures--at least we here have not; but even
if some show such a picture, do they ever call it a picture of God? They
only say it is a picture of"--But he interrupted impatiently:
"Do not I know what they say?" And then, with a touch of scorn at what
he thought was an empty excuse on my part, he added, "We also say the
same" (which is true; no intelligent Hindu admits that he worships idols
or pictures; he worships what these things represent). "Your people show
your symbols," he continued, in the tone of one who is sure of his
ground, "exactly as we show ours. I have seen your God on a great sheet
at night; it was shown by means of a magic lamp; and sometimes you make
it of wood or brass, as we make ours of stone. The name may change and
the manner of making, but the thing's essence is the same."
"The Mohammedans do not show their God's symbol; but we do, and so do
the Christians. Therefore between us and the Christians there is more in
common than between the Mohammedans and us." This was another Hindu's
contribution to the argument.
The chair now served as a text. "When your Bishop comes round your
churches, does he not sit in a chair like that, himself apart from the
people? And in like manner our Guru sits. There is much similarity. Also
do not your Christians stand"--and he imitated the peculiarly
deferential attitude adopted on such occasions by some--"just in the
fashion that we stand? And do not your people feel themselves blessed
by the presence of the Great? Oh, there is much similarity!"
I explained that all this, though foolish, was not intended for more
than respect, and our Bishops did not desire it; at which he smiled.
Then he went on to expatiate upon what he had seen in some of our
churches (probably while on duty as Government servant): the display, as
it seemed to him, so like this; the pomp, as he thought it, so fine,
like this; the bowing and prostrating, and even on the part of those who
did not do these things, the evident participation in the whole grand
show. And the other men, who apparently had looked in through the open
windows and doors, agreed with him.
He is not the first who has been stumbled in the same way; and I
remembered, as he talked, what a Mohammedan woman said to a friend of
mine about one of our English churches, seen through her husband's eyes.
"You have idols in your church," she said, "to which you bow in
worship." She referred to the things on or above the Communion table. My
friend explained the things were not idols. "Then why do your people bow
to them?" Was there nothing in the question?
Often we wonder whether the rapid but insidious increase of ritual in
India is understood at home. In England it is bad enough, but in a
heathen and Mohammedan land it is, if possible, worse; and the worst is,
the spirit of it, or the spirit of tolerance toward it, which is on the
increase even in missionary circles. Some of our Tamil people attend the
English service in these "advanced" churches after their own service is
over, and thus become familiarised with and gradually acclimatised to
an ecclesiastical atmosphere foreign to them as members of a Protestant
Society.
I remember spending a Sunday afternoon with a worthy pastor and his
wife, stationed in the place where the church is in which the "idols are
worshipped" according to the Mohammedans. When the bell rang for evening
service he began to shuffle rather as if he wanted me to go. But he was
too polite to say so, and the reason never struck me till his son came
in with an English Bible and Prayer-Book. The old man put up his hand to
his mouth in the apologetic manner of the Tamils. "We do not notice the
foolish parts of the service. We like to hear the English. For the sake
of the English we go."
"He did not turn to the East, but he did not keep quite straight; he
just half turned." This from a pastor's wife, about one whom she had
been observing during an ordination ceremony in the English cathedral.
"_He just half turned._" It describes the nebulous attitude of mind of
many a one to-day. India has not our historical background. It has no
_Foxe's Book of Martyrs_ yet. Perhaps that is why its people are so
indifferent upon points which seem of importance to us. They have not
had to fight for their freedom, in the sense at least our forefathers
fought; there is no Puritan blood in their veins; and so they are
willing to follow the lead of almost anyone, provided that lead is given
steadily and persistently; which surely should make those in authority
careful as to those in whose hands that lead is placed.
But the natural instinct of the converted idolater is dead against
complexity in worship, and for simplicity. He does not want something
as like his own old religion as possible, but as different as possible
from it; and so we have good building material ready to hand, and a
foundation ready laid. "But let every man take heed how he buildeth
thereupon."
I hope this does not sound unkind. We give those who hold different
views full credit for sincerity, and a right to their own opinions; but
convictions are convictions, and, without judging others who differ,
these are ours, and we want those at home who are with us in these
things to unite to help to stem the tide that has already risen in India
far higher than perhaps they know. Brave men are needed, men with a
fuller development of spiritual vertebræ than is common in these
easy-going days, and we need such men in our Native Church. God create
them; they are not the product of theological colleges. And may God save
His Missions in India from wasting His time, and money, and men, on the
cultivation of what may evolve into something of no more use to creation
than a new genus of jelly-fish.
The Government official and his friends were still talking among
themselves: "Do we not know what the Christians do? Have we not ears?
Have we not eyes? They do it in their way, we do it in ours. The thing
itself is really the same. Yes, their religion is just like ours."
They could not see the vital difference between even the most vitiated
forms of Christianity and their own Hinduism; there were so many
resemblances, and these filled their mental vision at the moment. One
could hardly wonder they could not.
They turned to me again, and with all the vigour of language at my
command I told them that neither we nor those with us ever went to any
church where we had reason to think there would be an exhibition of
ecclesiastical paraphernalia. We did not believe it was in accordance
with the simplicity of the Gospel; and I told them how simple the Truth
really was, but they would not believe me. Those sights they had seen
had struck them much as they struck the convert who described the
Confirmation service thus: "We went up and knelt down before a stick"
(the Bishop's pastoral staff). They had observed the immense attention
paid to all these sacred trifles, and naturally they appeared to them as
essential to the whole; part of it, nearly all of it, in fact; and even
where the service was in the vernacular, their attention had been
entirely diverted from the thing heard by the things seen.
Then I thought of the description of a primitive Christianity service as
given in 1 Corinthians. There the idea evidently was that if an outsider
came in, or looked in, as Hindus and Mohammedans so often look in here,
he should understand what was going on; and being convicted of his sin
and need, should be "convinced"; "and so, falling down on his face, he
will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth." Compare the
effect produced upon the minds of these Hindu men by what they saw of
our services, with the effect intended to be produced by the Holy Ghost.
Can we say we have improved upon His pattern?
Oh for a return to the simplicity and power of the Gospel of Christ!
Then we should not roll stumbling-blocks like these in our Indian
brother's way. Oh for a return to the days of the beginning of the Acts
of the Apostles, to obscurity, and poverty, and suffering, and shame,
and the utter absence of all earthly glory, and the winning of souls of
a different make to the type thought sufficiently spiritual now! Oh for
more of the signs of Apostleship--scars, and the cross--the real
cross--the reproach of Christ the Crucified,--no mitre here, but there
the crown!