5 ae ee | ‘| oe ¥i ’ eal fi and , Met tg INDIAN MISSIONS, PEL IGE AR VERE MISSIONARIES... / fy (REPLIES DIRECT AND INDIRECT 10 RECENT CRITICISMS.) SINGLE COPY—PRICE ONE PENNY. A HUNDRED COPIES—THREE SHILLINGS. LONDON : LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY, 14, BromF1eLp Street, E.C. 188y. TN DEAR) MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES. (REPLIES DIRECT AND INDIRECT TO RECENT CRITICISMS.) Pett VES rIMONY OM tHOSE WHO KNOW. THE LATE LORD LAWRENCE.* Tae LATE Lorp Lawrence (formerly Governor-General of India), who from his long experience of the country probably knew India better than any other living man, was to the day of his death a very earnest supporter of Missionary Societies, a liberal contributor to their funds, and a frequent attendant at their committee meetings. He says—and they are very remarkable words from a map of such mature judgment, who was not accustomed to say things without consideration— “ Notwithstanding all that the English people have done to benefit India, the missionaries have done more than all other agencies combined.” “There are thousands of persons scattered over India who, from the knowledge which they have acquired, either directly or indirectly, of Christian principles, have lost all belief in Hindooism and Mohammed- anism, and are in their conduct influenced by higher motives, who yet fear to make an open profession of the change in them, lest they should be looked on as outcasts by their own people. Such social circumstances must go on influencing converts, wntil the time comes when their numbers are sufficiently large to enable them to stand forth and show their faith without ruin to their position in life.” * Taken with several other quotations from ‘‘ Are. Foreign Missions doing any Good?” an admirable little book, published at a Shilling by Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. ‘ 4 SIR BARTLE FRERE. Sir BartLe Frere (formerly Governor of Bombay), in a lecture on “ Christianity suited to all Forms of Civilization,” delivered in connec- tion with the Christian Evidence Society, July 9, 1872, said :— “Whatever you may be told to the contrary, the teaching of Christianity among 160 millions of civilized, industrious Hindoos and Mohammedans in India ?s effecting changes, moral, social, and political, which for eatent and rapidity of effect are far more extraordinary than anything you or your fathers have witnessed in modern Europe.” LORD NAPIER AND ETTRICK. Lorp Napier anp Errrick, in a speech in connection with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, at Tanjore, October 26, 1871, said :— “JT must express my deep sense of the importance of Missions as a general civiling agency im the South of India. Imagine all these establishments suddenly removed !_ How great would be the vacancy ! Would not the Government lose valuable auxiliaries? Would not the poor lose wise and powerful friends? It is not easy to overrate the value in this vast empire of a class of Englishmen of pious lives and disinterested labours, walking between the Government and the people, with devotion to both, the friends of right, the adversaries of wrong, impartial spectators of good and evil.” SIR WILLIAM MUIR. Sr Wituram Murr (formerly Lieut.-Governor of the North-West Provinces), at the Reading Church Congress in 1883, said :— “Coming to the direct results of Christian Missions in India, I say that they are not to be despised. Thousands have been brought over, and, im an ever-increasing ratio, converts are being brought over to Christianity. And they are not shams nor paper converts, as some would have us believe, but good and honest Christians, and many of them of a high standard.” SIR WILLIAM WILSON HUNTER ON MISSIONARY INFLUENCE IN INDIA. Sin Wittram Hunrer, the eminent East Indian official, writes :-— “To a man like myself who, during a quarter of a century, has watched the missionaries actually at their work, the statvstics of conversion seem to form but a small part of the evidence. The advance which the 5) missionaries have made in the good opinion of great non-Christian populations well qualified to judge, such as those of India and China, 18 even more significant than their advance in the good opinion ot sensible people at home. I shall speak only of facts within my own knowledge. But I know of no class of Englishmen who have done so much to render the name of England, apart from the power of England, respected in India as the missionaries. 1 know of no class of Englishmen who have done so much to make the better side of the English character understood. I know of no class who have done so much to awaken the Indian intellect, and at the same time to lessen the dangers of the transition from the old state of things to the new. The missionaries have had their reward. No class of Englishmen receive so much unbought kindness from the Indian people while they live ; no individual Englishmen are so honestly regretted when they die. What aged viceroy ever received the posthumous honours ot affection accorded to the Presbyterian Duff by the whole native press ? What youthful administration has in our days been mourned for by the educated non-Christian community as the young Oxford ascetic was mourned in Calcutta last summer? It matters not to what sect a missionary belongs. An orthodox Hindu newspaper, which had been filling its columns with a vigorous polemic, entitled ‘ Christianity Destroyed,’ no sooner heard of the death of Mr. Sherring than it published a eulogium on that missionary scholar. It dwelt on ‘his learning, affability, solidity, piety, benevolence, and business capacity.’ The editor, while a stout defender of his hereditary faith, regretted that ‘so little of Mr. Sherring’s teachings had fallen to his lot.’ This was written of a man who had spent his life in controversy with the uncompromising Brahmanism of Benares. But the missionary has won for himself the same respect in the south as in the north. If I were asked to name the two men who, during my service in India, have exercised the greatest influence on native development and native opinion in Madras, I should name, not a governor, nor any department head, but a missionary bishop of the Church of England and a missionary educator of the Scottish Free Kirk.” SIR CHARLES AITCHISON ON INDIAN MISSIONS. “‘ FORTUNATELY, in this country at least,” said Sir Charles Aitchison, in a speech at Simla, “missionaries have no reason to shrink from the touch of scientific criticism ; and perhaps it may surprise some who have not had an opportunity of looking into the matter to learn that Christianity in India is spreading four or five times as fast as the ordinary population, and that the native Christians now number nearly a million of souls. If we turn to the census report of 1881, for example, we shall find that in the Madras Presidency, which is the great home of the native church, the population actually decreased within the ten 6 years preceding the census, while the Christians of all denominations increased by 165,682, or more than 30 per cent. The vast majority of these Christians, the report goes on to say, are Hindu converts, or the descendants of Hindu converts. “They are to be found in every district, belonging, for the most part, to the poorer classes, and drawn from the lower castes, Coming to Bengal, we all know there has been an enormous increase of population in that province ; the census report puts it down at 80°89 per cent. The advance in the Christian population, however, is more than 40 per cent. But what is most remarkable is the fact that, while the increase among Christians of all other races is only 7 per cent., the increase among native Christians is actually 64 per cent., the rate of increase being six times that of the ordinary population. The progress made in the spread of Christianity during the last nine years, says the census report, is one of the most interesting facts brought out by the census just taken. This increase is far too large to be explained by the theory of natural productiveness. It is due chiefly to conversions from heathendom. The native Christians are the most rapidly progressing class in Bengal. “In every movement for the welfare of the people, too, Christian — missionaries have led the van. Their services to education are recog- nised even by their enemies. The advanced schools of modern religious thought in India are the outcome of Christian teaching. The mission- aries were the first to awaken an interest in the weltare of the women of India. And even in the magnificent work of philanthropy with which the name of the first lady in the land is imperishably associated, missionaries were the pioneers. ‘I believe,’ said Lord Lawrence, towards the close of his life, ‘ notwithstanding all that people have done to benefit that country (India), the missionaries have done more than all other agencies combined.” A CHIEF COMMISSIONER'S VIEW. Art the laying of a corner-stone of Mission buildings connected with the Methodist Episcopal Mission, Jubbulpur, Mr. Mackenzie, Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces, after referring to recent criticisms of Missions, said :—‘“It may be that direct results, in the shape of conversions and baptisms, are not so startling as the Church at home would like to see them. But this 1s only a superficial estimate of - the situation. No man who studies India with a seeing eye can fail to perceive that the indirect results of missionary enterprise, if it suits you so to call them, are, to say the least, most pregnant with promise. The Dagon of heathenism is being undermined on all sides. ‘To careless by- standers, the image may loom as yet intact in all its ghoulish mon- strosity, but its doom we know is written. And great will be its fall. I have often given it as my opinion that, ere many years are over, we ~ shall have in India a great religious upheaval. The leaven of Western thought, and the leaven of Christianity together, are working on the 7 inert heap of dead and fetid superstitions, and, by processes which cannot always be closely traced, are spreading a regenerating ferment through the mass, which must in time burst open the cerements that now enshroud the Indian mind. It may not bein our time. It may not be in the of our immediate successors. But it will be, when He sees fit with whom a thousand years are as one day. My own belief is that it will be sooner than the world, or even the Canons of the Church, suppose. What the Indian Church will be, by what organisation governed, to what precise creeds affitiated, I for my part do not pretend to foresee. It is being hewn out now by many hands, furnished from many countries. But the main burden of the growing work must ere long be taken up by the children of the Indian soil. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the native Church may in time produce its own Apostle, destined to lead his countrymen in myriads to the feet of Christ. The story of Buddha may renew itself within its pale.” TESTIMONY OF A WATCHFUL BRAHMIN.* A LEARNED Brahmin, at the close of a lecture by Dr. Chamberlain, a missionary clergyman and physician, in the presence of nearly two hundred Brahmins, officials, students, and others, said :— “T have watched the missionaries and seen what they are. What have they come to this country for? What tempts them to leave their parents, friends, and country, and come to this, to them, unhealthy clime? Is it for gain or profit that they come? Some of us, country clerks in Government offices, receive larger salaries than they. Is it for an easy life! See how they work, and then tell me. “Look at the missionary. He came here a few years ago, leaving all, and for our good! He was met with cold looks and suspicious glances. He sought to talk with us of what, he told us, was the ' matter of most importance in heaven and earth ; but we would not hear. He was not discouraged ; he opened a dispensary, and we said : ‘ Let the pariahs (lowest caste people) take his medicine; we won't.’ But in the time of our sickness and our fear we were glad to go to him, and he welcomed us. We complained at first if he walked through our Brahmin streets ; but ere long, when our wives and daughters were in sickness and anguish, we went and begged him to come—even into our inner apartments—and he came, and our wives and daughters now smile upon us in health! Has he made any money by it? Even the cost of the medicine he has given has not been returned to him. ‘“‘Now what is it that makes him do all this for us? It is the Bible! I have looked into it a good deal in different languages I * See ‘The Great Value and Success of Foreign Missions,” by Rev. John Liggins. New York: The Baker & Taylor Co. 8 chance to know. It is the same in all languages. The Bible! There is nothing to compare with it in all our sacred books for goodness, and purity, and holiness, and love, and for motives of action. Where did the English people get their intelligence, and energy, and cleverness, and power? It is the Bible that gives it to them. And they now bring it to us, and say: ‘That is ‘what raised us; take it, and raise yourselves.’ They do not force it upon us, as did the Mohammedans with their Koran ; but they bring it in love, and say: ‘Look at it, read it, examine it, and see if it is not good.’ Of one thing I am convinced : Do what we will, oppose it as we may, it is the Christian Bible that will, sooner or later, work the regeneration of our land !” IL REPEIES TOOMEE Wes CAIN asia (From a Letter to the “ Leeds Mercury,” by the Rev. Dr. CoNDER.) There are some points, however, on which we who stay and work at home are quite entitled to form an independent judgment. Granting that a Hindu ‘‘can understand” a religious teacher who is an ascetic, after the model of their own fakirs and other holy men—is it our business to adapt Christianity to his prejudices, or to lift him out of his heathenish narrowness into the light of a religion meant not for fakirs, monks, and nuns, but for mankind— fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters? Why begin by presenting a false ideal of Christianity, even if it be to him more acceptable than the Christianity of Christ and His Apostles? The advantages and drawbacks of married life for our missionaries have been often discussed. It is not a question to be settled in a sentence, or by the opinion of a Hindu that a missionary with a home of his own is a ‘‘ Burra Sahib,” not an ideal ‘holy man.’”? Even if an English missionary, through fear of being sternly criticised if he drives ‘‘a dog-cart,” walks in the burning sun, and gets himself disabled by sun-stroke (as an excellent missionary friend of mine did), this may not in the long run be the best economy. By all means let every rational method have fair trial. Still I submit that our business is to present to Hindus, and all other men, not a Christianity modified to’meet their notions, which they will admire but not adopt ; but one which they can take to their hearts, their daily business, and their homes. (Substance of Officral Reply by the Rev. R. WArDLAwW THOMPSON, Foreign Secretary of the London Missionary Society.) First.—Mr. Caine says that most of the missionary societies ‘‘ can show districts in which success of a marked kind has gladdened the hearts of all Christians, but in the main the results are miserable, inadequate, and surely discouraging.” I venture to think that if'he had reversed this statement he would have been nearer the truth. In the main, success of a marked kind 9 has gladdened the hearts of the workers, but there are certainly some districts in which results have been most miserable, inadequate, and discouraging. It ought to be borne in mind that though the letter is about Indian missions in general, the writer has been travelling entirely in North India—confessedly, on many grounds, the most difficult and the most unproductive part of the field. One would suppose that the great districts of Ongole, Arcot, Madura, Tinnevelly, Mysore, and the stations of the London Missionary Society in the Canarese and Telugu country and in Travancore had no. existence. The greatest successes of missions in India has been in the Madras Presidency, and there the converts are to be numbered by tens of thousands. But there is not the faintest indication that the writer knows anything of the Madras Presi- dency. The India of Mr. Caine is the India to which, unfortunately, the tourist too generally confines himself, the India of the great cities of the north, where is to be found in the most concentrated form all the bigotry of Mohammedanism and all the powerful influence of Brahminism. Yet even as relating to North India his words are surely too sweeping. He mentions. some districts which have been signally blessed. He ought to have added to them the work of the American Methodist Episcopal Church in Rohileund, the great mission of the A.B.C.F.M. in the district of Ahmednagar, the missions to the Santals, and the work of our own and other societies in the district around Calcutta. In all these there are not only a large number of converts, but the ratio of increase is rising from year to year. ‘There are cer- tainly some stations in which the progress of the work is very slow, and some in which apparently there is no progress. So far as the stations of the London Missionary Society are concerned, this has never been concealed, as may be seen by anyone who chooses to look at the Annual Revorts. But such stations are painful exceptions to the rule of general encouragement, and the work in them is persevered in, not blindly or without due consideration, but under the conviction that there is no fortress of evil, however obstinately defended, which will not ultimately yield to Christian persistence and the power of the Spirit of Christ. Second.—Mr. Caine expresses his opinion very emphatically on the great question of education in India, He has come to the conclusion that the missionary societies have made a great mistake in taking up this work. He says: ‘‘ Let them leave the secular education of India to the Government. The only schools missionaries ought to keep are schools for the elementary education of their own converts, and these ought to be used by all Protestant children alike, instead of each denomination having its own.” His reasons for this opinion are the failure of the present mission schools to produce converts ; and the employment of Mohammedan and Hindu teachers on their teaching staff. He believes that ‘‘if the whole energy and income of the missionary societies in India were concentrated on work whose sole object was conversion to a living faith in Christ, the results would be far different.” I venture to differ most emphatically from Mr. Caine in this matter, and to . say that, were the missionary societies to follow his advice, they would be taking one of the most disastrous steps that could possibly be conceived of for the religious future of India. I say this with the greater freedom because, as the result of my own observation in India, I believe Mr. Caine has touched a weak point in mission work in his remarks about mission colleges and about non-Christian teachers. In the report presented to the Directors of the London Missionary Society by Mr. A. Spicer and myself, after our 10 return from India, the dangers connected with this part of our work were very plainly indicated, and the policy of the Society, on the subject of the higher education in India, has been one of constant watchfulness in regard to these points. But Mr. Caine is utterly mistaken in his general conclusions on the subject. He writes as ifthe majority of missionaries in India were giving a large part of their time to educational work. I can speak only for the London Missionary Society ; but certainly he is wrong so far as we are concerned. We have 48 male missionaries in India. Of this number, only 12 are engaged in teaching. The rest are mainly evangelists and super- intendents of native evangelists. The Society spends about £25,000 annually on its Indian missions. Of this sum, only £2,100 was last year appropriated ‘to grants for education. It is quite true that the number of conversions from our schools as the direct result of Christian instruction in the schools is very small. Owing to the pressure of competitive examinations, and the require- ments of the Education Department, it is smaller now than it was in the early days of the educational movement; but it is entirely incorrect to say that, ““so far as turning the young men they educate into live Christians is con- cerned, their failure is complete and unmistakable.” The constant and the growing testimony of evangelistic missionaries in all parts of India now is that wherever they go they find warm friends, sympathetic and inteJligent hearers, and often active helpers among the young men who have been educated in mission schools, many of them making little secret of their Chris- tia. faith. but being evidently kept back from public profession by the dread ot the ordeal of opposition and persecution through which they would have to pass. If space permitted, I could sustain this statement by instance after instance from eur own report. Moreover, what can be a stronger testimony to the value of this Christian school-teaching than Mr. Caine’s own words about the college at Lahore?) He says: ‘‘ These students are literally soaked in Evangelical truths for years.” If this is the case, will any one venture to say that bazar-preaching, however earnestly and efficiently carried on, could prove a better medium for the working of Divine grace ? On the general question of handing over the secular education entirely to Government, it is strange that a man of Mr. Caine’s intelligence and experience can have fallen into such a blunder. The Government of India is avowedly and necessarily strictly neutral on aJl subjects connected with religion and morality. The consequences of the working out of this neutrality in Government schools have been strikingly set forth in the minute of the Governor-General of December 31, 1887. If the missionary societies give up educational work, they will be handing ver the entire training of the vast population of India to agencies which will he simply destructive, or to associations formed for the defence of heathenism. It is not a little suggestive that the Cambridge Mission in Delhi, of which Mr. Caine speaks so warmly, devotes itself very largely to the work of higher education; and that the Roman Catholic missionarics are most active and ‘successful in their schools. Third.—The status and the cost of support of the missionaries have troubled Mr. Caine. He is convinced that the reason why they have not made more impression on India is that they have been among the people in a position which does not command sympathy or admiration. ‘‘A Hindu has no sym- pathy with a missionary, however godly and learned a man he may be, who lives in a good bungalow, eats the sacred cow, drives his dog-cart, and is in 11 all respects a Burra Sahib.’? Mr. Caine has been much impressed by the heroism and self-sacrificing devotedness of the Salvation Army agents, the Cambridge Mission, and the Jesuits. He says: ‘If we could find in all the English Protestant missionary socizties in India 200 such devoted men as are to be found in the ranks of the Jesuits and the Salvation Army the work of converting India would begin.” He complains of the costliness of ordinary missionary methods, and advocates the adoption of celibacy and more or less of asceticism as the conditions of success. This is one of the most serious questions in connection with the management of modern missions, but, unfortunately, Mr. Caine’s statements are all rhetorical. He gives no evidence in support of his assertions. The quotations from a Catholie writer about Xavier and his companions is very picturesque, but as history it is a trifleimaginative. The statements about the devotion and self- sacrifice of agents of the Salvation Army are such as to awaken much admir- ation for the Christian spirit of those who are enduring such hardness for Christ. There are many, even among Indian missionaries, who will join Mr. Caine most ungrudgingly and heartily in the tribute of admiration for the men, but they will imitate his caution and say as he does: ‘‘I make no comment on their methods, and on the probable success of their labours.” So far as the committees of the Missionary Societies are concerned, there are some important questions which must be answered before they can adopt the methods extolled by Mr. Caine as the best. Has the celibate and ascetic method proved to be so much more fruitful of results, and so much more free from serious difficulties, as to make it advisable to change? Is it wise, 1s it natural, in the light of history is it expedient, to set before the people of India the celibate and ascetic condition as the ideal of the Christian ministry ? Faithful inquiry and frank speaking on these questions are quite con- sistent with a very real appreciation of the nobility of the men who are set before us as models. And careful answer is required before it would be wise to think of changing our methods. Mr. Caine gives us no light on these points. Has he taken any trouble to inquire into them ? ; The Directors of the London Missionary Society are certainly not blindly attached to their own ways. They will be glad of more light. They have recently come to the conclusion that more elasticity is required in_ the appointment of missionaries, and have decided to send out bands of celibate missionaries to selected centres, to work for a term of years at the lowest salary consistent with health, under the guidance of some experienced head. They believe, however, that the true solution of the missionary problem in India does not lie in the direction of encouraging large numbers ot European missionaries to go out as celibates and ascetics, but in earnest efforts to mul- tiply an efficient and consecrated native ministry. For this purpose, and until the native ministry is strong enough to undertake the responsibility of carrying on the work alone, they believe that the present somewhat costly system of maintaining in great centres a number of competent European workers with all the advantages and influences of home life about them will, in the long run, prove the best policy. As to the unwillingness of the Hindu to listen to missionaries so situated, and so provided for, I venture to say, from a knowledge equal to Mr. Caine’s, it is rubbish. Where- ever the missionary is found to be a man with human sympathies and the love of Christ, and an earnest desire to help and save, he is respected, listened to, and beloved. (Part of uw Letter frum one signing himself TAMULIAN.) The “‘ great gentleman” referred to by Mr. Caine is not to be found among missionaries. Mr. Caine has ‘‘evolved”’ him. No native ever describes a missionary as a ‘‘ Burra Sahib,’’ and it is arrant nonsense to say that a native has no sympathy with a missionary who lives in a good bungalow, &c. The native knows exactly how much pay the missionary gets ; that he gets twelve times less per mensem than a collector or a judge, and that he is by a very long way the poorest European in the station. As to Hindu ascetics, they are, with few exceptions, the most degraded creatures in the com. try, and a Hindu relieves them because he is afraid to brave their curses. Lest this letter should appear one-sided in its testimony, and unwarranted in its tone, I may add that I have spent eleven years in South India. I have, with other missionaries, preached in the vernacular ten times per week, or 500 times per year. I have seen missionaries of all kinds at work, and I have yet to see men who work harder or show better results. One word, in conclusion, as to how globe-trotters understand us.