(3 ASAD SS MG AN SRA vas woe f ay teks PAS Oe ry Was: S i en's ia heh F TA SA on °- Scott, TOE METHODIST EPISCOPAL GhriveeA _* ~ Ss Bet OI ss eootaatalis = | Bg | = -OF SWEEPER CA ore ' 2 ee i) heen. é y¢ aps i ae Ty Sie ‘ ‘ ee Hi . P ‘ i. yay bat ts 4 ’ wh cy its Sua > + et ’ ' ut « * , P 1 . ' ' Ob ie ; \ , af * { P a i ' ‘ Bs } ‘ Dogs bi oA 4 ~ tA f ‘ ‘ yee 4 4 i ots t eae al *“ . a3 r i call . > i a. (ae at aoe ts ia ete ~» eX - — ah 7; “y a (Aye Cl Awa 1 ® = - e.*. ee F oy REV. WILLIAM BUTLER, D.D. The India Mission OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHOURGH BY REV. JEFFERSON to the Coromandel coast, and the rainy season of this coast lasts from October to April.” The failure of the monsoon is followed by the awful famines which periodically visit India, their severity and extent depending upon the light- ness or entire suppression of the annual rainfall, which, in turn, is governed by the periodical winds which bring the moisture in from the sea. India is a wonderfully productive country. What Heine saw in his day-dream is almost literally true: “‘ And I saw the blue, holy Ganges, the eternally radiant Hima- Products layas, the gigantic banyan forests, with their wide leafy avenues, in which the clever elephants and the white-robed pilgrims peacefully wander; strange dreamy flowers gazed at me with mysterious meaning; golden wondrous birds burst into glad wild song; glittering sun- beams and the sweetly silly laugh of apes teased me play- fully; and from distant pagodas came the pious strains of praying priests.” As India has many different climates it has a diversified flora. The territory may be divided into four divisions, each producing distinct flora. These are the Himalayan Flora slopes, the dry valley of the Indus, the drenched Assam, the Deccan. On the mountain sides grows every variety of vegetable life, from tropical plants to lichens and mosses of Arctic climates; the dry lands of Sind produce flora similar to that of Arabia; the hills of Assam bear the most luxuriant tropical vegetation; while the elevated tablelands grow the trees and grains of the temperate zone. Teak and sal forests on the mountain sides, the useful palm on the lowlands along the coasts, and the bamboo everywhere in the jungles, are the most useful trees. The banyan, the deodar, the mango, the sisam and the pipal abound. Two hundred and fifty species of orchids grow on the Khasia hills, in Assam alone. The chief grains ‘grown are millet, rice and wheat; the chief fibers, cotton and jute; while opium and indigo, tobacco, tea and coffee, and chinchona, sugar-cane, spices, and many other plants are largely grown. 10 Among the animals found in India are the tiger and leopard; the elephant and rhinoceros; the lion, the hyena, the jackal and Fauna the wolf; va- rious species of bears and_ deer, monkeys and _ ser- pents, many of the latter poisonous. The buffalo, the cam- el and the goat are domesticated; croco- diles abound in the rivers; large vultures act as scavengers, and smaller animals in great variety are found everywhere. ELEPHANT LIFTING THAI India is poor in minerals. There is coal, but it is not of very good quality. Salt is the great monopoly in Indian minerals. There are lakes from which the salt is Minerals taken by evaporation, and it is mined in the Punjab. There is a little iron, copper and tin, and a few dia- monds and some gold. The most important industry of India is agriculture. The people are a race of farmers. Nearly two-thirds of the people of India cultivate the soil. As the masses depend Agriculture upon the soil for their living, when, on account of the failure of the monsoon, the soil can make no return, they must starve, unless relieved by outside help. Manufacturing in India has always been on a small scale. Cotton-spinning and jute-making are carried on, but - most industries have been introduced by for- Manufactures’ eigners. India has a large commerce. In and Commerce 1901-2 the yearly exports amounted to about $475,000,000, and the imports to more than $385,000,000. The main exports are grain, raw cotton, opium 1 and seeds, and the main imports are cotton manufactures. There are more than five thousand vessels engaged in the India trade, and the commerce is steadily growing. THE PEOPLE The population of India is composed of a number of races whose ancestors entered the land from different homes at widely separated times. As: there is but little authen- Races tic ancient history in India, students have had to rely mainly upon philology, religion, tradition and race peculiarities in their study of these various strata of Indian society. ‘‘ India is a world in itself. While it represents but the one-fifteenth of the earth’s area, one out of every five of the human family is found among its 300,000,000 of inhabitants (294,233,343, census of 1901). It has ever been ‘a land of desire,’ and its history, in consequence, has been ‘a long march of successive dynasties, conqueror trampling upon conqueror, race overrunning race.’ The historic sense was little cultivated in the East, and the story of India before the invasion of Alexander the Great (327 B. C.), can- not be given with certainty, but before the advent of the Aryans, three distinct immigrations can be traced, the Tibeto-Burman and the Kolarian from the northeast, and the Dravidian from the northwest. The Indo-Aryan people —that section of the Aryan race which migrated to the southeast on leaving the primitive home in Central Asia four or five thousand years ago—crossed the Himalayan passes into the Punjab, and acquiring the name Hin- Hindus’ dus from their first settlement on the banks of the Indus, gradually dominated the country.” Descendants of the Tibeto-Burmans may still be found in certain Himala- yan tribes, the Kolarians are represented by the Santals of Bengal, and the Kols of Chotia Nagpur, and the Dravidians by the Gonds and Khonds, who remained distinct in the his, and by millions in the south who speak the four tongues, Telugu, Tamil, Kanarese, and Malayalam. After many suc- cessive incursions of the Aryans came Darius Hystaspes, who is said to have subjugated the Hindus; then followed Alexan- 12 ANVW DNIMOUS ‘SUAGVAT AALLVN JO SSANDNOO TYNOILVN 13 der the Great, about 327 B. C. A long time after this came the small tribe of Persians, now known as Parsees, driven out by the Mohammedan conqueror in the seventh century of our era. Then commenced, in the seventh Mohammedans’ century, the ineursions of Mohammedans, which were continued under different gen- erals, until the land was subdued in the eleventh century. The Mohammedan conquest has made a deep mark on Indian history, so that Edward VII. has in the descendants of the victorious invaders, and those who, forced by the sword or otherwise, accepted their religion, many more Mohammedan subjects than the Sultan of Turkey. In tracing these various racial influences which have contributed to the making of India the various European ingredients should not be omitted. From the be- Europeans” ginning of the sixteenth century onward, came, in order, the Portuguese, Dutch, Danes, French and English. These European Aryans came to trade with their brothers in the East, but gradually all gave way but the last, which has achieved at least a_ political supremacy greater than that which once belonged to the Mohammedans. India is peopled by a polyglot population, More than one hundred different languages and dialects are spoken by the various races and tribes of India. Some of them Languages are highly polished and have in them a copious literature, but many of them are uncultivated and barbarous, without grammar or literature. These languages may be divided into Aryan and non-Aryan languages. The leading Aryan languages are Hindi, including Hindustani or Urdu, the language of the Mohammedans, spoken by eighty-eight millions; Bengali, forty-one millions; Mara- thi, nineteen millions; Punjabi, eighteen millions; Guja- rati, eleven millions, and Uriya, nine millions. The most, important non-Aryan languages are the Telugu, spoken by twenty millions; Tamil, fifteen millions; Kanarese, ten mil- lions; Malayalam, five millions, and Gond, two millions. The Kolarian languages are all without written character or literature, and are spoken only by hill tribes. The principal 14 are Santali, spoken by about a million of people in western Bengal, and four languages spoken by about the same number of Kols and other tribes. in the Chotia Nagpur district. The sacred language of India is Sanskrit. “ India,” says Sanskrit Sir Monier Williams, “though it has, as we have seen, about one hundred spoken dialects, has only one sacred language and only one sacred literature, accepted and revered by all adherents of Hinduism alike, however diverse in race, dialect, rank and creed. That language is Sanskrit, and that literature is Sanskrit literature.” In traveling over this wide field among such diversified races, one cannot help being struck with certain peculiar characteristics which pertain to the separate Peculiar classes alone, or to the people as a _ whole. Characteristics The aborigines, found in the hills and jungles, as the Doms, Kols and Gonds are, as a rule, darker, shorter, and more illiterate than the other surround- ing races. The Hindus are generally slight of build, of medium height, with dark hair, smooth faces and Racial regular features. The higher classes are vegetarians, Variety and all, as a race, are mild in temper, industrious, and docile. Many of the Mohammedans, especially those living in the mountains, are larger, fiercer, and more fanat- ical than the Hindus. They hate idolatry and are zealous in propagating their faith. A strong race feeling exists among all the better classes in India. Caste distinction originated, doubtless, as race prejudice, and was perpetuated by the Brahmans. There are four dis- tinct, well-defined classes: (1) the Priests, Brahmans; Caste (2) the Warriors, Kshatriyas or Rajanyas; (3) the Working class, farmers, craftsmen and traders, Vai- shyas; and (4) the Menial class, Sudras;—in other words: those who pray; those who fight; those who produce and barter; and those who serve. This baleful system has fastened itself upon one-sixth of the human race and thrusts itself upon us on every side in India. It stops the wheels of progress and paralyzes the most earnest efforts to do good. 15 Temples, mosques, shrines, sacred rivers, trees and animals, all proclaim India’s religiousness. Priests and pun- dits, maulvis and callers to prayer, gods and god- Religious esses, festivals, sacred days and pilgrimages, tell Spirit the same story. Hindus, Mohammedans, Dravid- jans, are intensely and always religious. They will endure anything more than interference with their religion, as the Mutiny of 1857 bears testimony. And yet this very religiousness is the basis upon which Christ’s enduring Church is being built. In India what- ever is old is looked upon as right and worthy of accept- ance and _ observ- ance. They keep to the old paths. Power of Fashions Custom never change. Farming im- plements, looms, conveyances, house- hold furniture, the very houses of the people, are never im- proved. It is true that the advent of the English, bring- ing western thought, and especially intro- j ducing western modes of travel, along with the English en- terprise and the English language, has startled many out of their long sleep, but, as a rule, the people change slowly. The masses of the people live in towns and villages, the different castes in separate wards. There are no detached “RAMA,” AN IDOL WORSHIPPED 16 farmhouses as in America, The family life in the villages is very simple and quiet. The most of the people are farmers, Domestic and Social Life and very the rights oppressed. and are very industrious, but are not very frugal. They spend much on marriages and funerals and priests. The mass of the people are unlettered superstitious, They marry in_ childhood; of women are restricted, and widows are The women of the better classes are not A ZENANA permitted outside of the zenanas, but the masses of the peasantry work in the fields, men and women together. They get but one meal a day of bread made of some cheap erain, or rice, and vegetables. If they cannot get that, they go hungry and patiently endure. THE RELIGIONS India is not only the home of many races but of many religions also. It would be impossible to enumerate the ig multitude of cults in India. It is sometimes thought by foreigners who have not lived in this land that the popula- tion is divided in religious views between the Hindus and Mohammedans. But that is far from being the case. India is a hotbed of religions, and more are in process of Principal evolution under our very eyes. The more promi- Faiths nent of these religions are (1901), the Hindus with 207,146,422 adherents; Mohammedans, 62,458,061 ; Aboriginal religions, 8,584,349; Buddhists, 9,476,750; Chris- tians, 2,923,241. The Sikhs, Jains, Parsees, Jews, and smaller miscellaneous faiths number together 3,644,500. Reserving Christianity till later, it will be necessary to pass over the smaller sects in a few words. Although at one time Buddhism was dominant in India, this faith is now only found in Nipal, in India proper. Gau- tama, and Buddha, or “ The Enlightened,” was born Buddhism at Kapalavastu, one hundred miles north of Be- nares, about 500 B. C. He became weary of the sorrows and enigmas of life, made the “ Great Renuncia- tion,” attained ‘Enlightenment ” under the “ Bo” tree, and for forty-five years went about in India preaching the doc- trine that suffering is to be got rid of by the suppression of desires, and by the extinction of personal existence. His religion was a protest against the weary round of ceremo- nies and sacrifices of the Brahminical priesthood, and em- phasized the moral and social side of human life. But event- ually Brahmanism prevailed, and took Buddhism to its arms and ‘sucked out its life’s blood,’ but not till it had been established in Ceylon, in the days of King Asoka, 250 B. C., to be carried from there to Burma in the fifth century of our era. The Jains have many points in common with the Bud- dhists, seeking Nirvana as the ultimate emancipatign from. the power of metempsychosis, and looking Jains and upon all life as sacred and to be carefully protected. Parsees The Parsees are to be found principally in Bombay, where they are wealthy and influential. They are the descendants of the followers of Zoroaster, in Persia, who 18 were driven by their Mohammedan conquerers, in the seventh century, to seek safety with the Raja of Surat, in India. Three Most The other important religions in India fall Important under three classes—Aboriginal religions, Hindu- Religions ism, and Mohammedanism. The chief representatives of the first are the Kolarian and the Dravidian, or the religions of the two great Turanian or Non-Aryan races which entered Aboriginal India before the advent of the ancestors of the or Non-Aryan Hindus. Of these it may be said that the faith of Faiths the former of these two races, although less civil- ized, is milder than that of the latter. But of both it must be said that the characteristic principle is devil worship. Of the Santals, the leading tribe of the Kolarians, who live among the hills along the Ganges in lower Bengal, it has been said: “ They have no castes or kings, but Kolarians live in free village communities. Their religion amounts to little more than spirit or demon wor- ship: besides the spirits of their forefathers, there are those which dwell in each mountain, forest, river, well; there is the race-god, the clan-god, and the god or spirit of each family. These tutelary spirits are supposed to dwell in large ancient trees.” S: While the more numerous and more civilized Dravidians, occupying the Deccan and the hills of the Vindhya range, are more influential than the Kolarians, yet “ their Dravidians religion is of the most barbarous character, and has exercised a baneful influence on that of the Aryan and semi-Aryan population, which professes the medley of Vedism, Brahmanism, and the native gross superstitions, now known as Hinduism.” Like the Kolarians, they worship spirits and goblins, and their priests are versed in all the tricks of Shamanism. They worship the earth, and especially the serpent Shesh, as the earth’s special emblem. To this earth-god they were accustomed to offer up, until prohib- ited by the British Government, finally so late as 1835, 19 twice a year, at seed-time and harvest, and on special occa- sions, human victims. What a strange medley is Hinduism! The Hindus com- menced by calling the aborigines demons, fiends, and wiz- Copyright, 7go3—Fleming H. Revell Co. From India’s Problem, A BRAHMAN GENTLEMAN ards, and ended by incorporating many of their Stages beliefs and practices, such as serpent worship, aness- of Hindu tor worship, bloody sacrifices, and charms into their Religion own religion. Tracing the Indo-Aryan religion from its source, perhaps four thousand years ago among the Indo-Iranians, it may be divided into three parts, Vedism, Brahmanism, and Hinduism. 20 The first of these is the cult found in the four Vedas, espe- cially in the Rig-Veda. The religion of the Rig-Veda is, in one word, physiolatry, or the worship of nature-gods, be- Vedism ginning with phases of the material world, like “ sky,” “storm,” “fire,” “sun,” and passing over to more general ideas; “The Supporter,” “The Soul of the World,” and “ Brahm,” or deified prayer. When God was no longer thought of as person, sin was no longer felt as ethical evil. Gradually the primitive cult of the Rishis changed into the teachings of the Brahmans, called Brahmanism, which includes a strict priestly code, a subtle philos- Brahmanism ophy, and a body of rigid laws, with an iron- bound system of caste dominating the whole. Finally, under the influence of its environments and through the force of circumstances, the older faith deterio- rated into Hinduism, which is still ideally panthe- Hinduism istic but practically polytheistic. To this stage belong the epic writings, the Ramayana, the Ma- habharata, and the Puranas, recounting the story of the contending gods and goddesses. Hinduism appears to be a reservoir into which has run all the various religious ideas which the mind of man is able to elaborate. It was influ- enced by the animism of the aboriginal tribes, powerfully affected by Buddhism, and in its efforts to keep its hold upon the masses it has made room~for most of their beliefs in its system. Hinduism is popularly said to include the worship of three hundred and thirty million gods and goddesses. In upholding the pretensions of the Brahmans and the restric- tions of caste, it has changed but little. One-fifth of the population of India are votaries of that cold, metaphysical, monotheistic creed, called by its disci- ples, Islam, “ Resignation,” dating from the Mohammedanism Hegira, or flight of Mohammed from Mecca in A. D. 622. “Its one authentic standard is the Quran, which presents a corruption of the Mosaic rev- elation, as the Vedas do of the patriarchal. The contents of this book are partly borrowed from the Old Testament Scriptures, adulterated by the puerile superstitions of the 21 Babylonian Jews, and_ partly from the wild legends of the Arabian desert.” Moham- medanism was first intro- duced into India about the year 664 when Multan was invaded from Kabul. Mah- mud of Ghazni conquered the whole of the Punjab early in the eleventh century. From Akbar to Arungzeb, 1556- 1707, the Mogul empire reached the height of its power in India. With the Quran in one hand and the sword in the other, for seven and a half centuries, it cried up and down the land “ There is no God but God, and Mo- hammed is the prophet of God.” But hundreds of thou- sands of Hindus gave up their lives rather Its Missionary than their re- Zeal ligion. Moham- medanism is in- tensely missionary. In almost every sacred city of the Hin- dus there stand forth the lofty minarets of the mosques of Islam. So alert and ag- gressive and bigoted are these people, that in one hundred years Christianity has made but little progress among them. These millions’ of Hindus and Mohammedans, the one revering the cow THE KUTUB MINAR, DELHI and the other abhorring the swine, the one a vegetarian and the other carnivorous, the one mild and apathetic and the other fierce and bigoted, the one with gods innumerable and the other with a metaphysical abstraction, live side by side, cultivating the ‘same soil and living in the same towns, both peaceful subjects of the same Christian emperor. CHRISTIAN MISSIONS The Syrian Church of Malabar is the oldest Christian or- ganization in India. The first missionary to India of whom we have any record is Pantaenus, who was principal Syrian of the Christian college at Alexandria, but who was Church sent, about the year 180 A. D., Jerome says, to “ preach Christ among the Brahmans.’ Quite a community was gathered, which was cared for by the Nestorian Church of Persia, until the Mohammedans partly scattered it. When the Portuguese found them in the sixteenth century they were enjoying considerable prosperity, but were made to pass through the awful ordeal of the Inquisition, to com- pel them to come into conformity to the Romish Church. The descendants of those who refused to conform, few in numbers, are still to be found on the Malabar coast. Roman In 1542 the devoted and _ self-sacrificing Jesuit, Catholics Francis Xavier, began his work in India, and dur- ing the course of his life made many converts. The first Protestant missionaries to work in India were the Danes, Ziegenbale and Plutschau, who landed at Tran- quebar in 1706. They met with much opposition, First but in three years they had gathered 160 converts. Protestant Ziegenbale translated the New Testament into Work Tamil, and had completed the work on the Old Testament as far as the book of Ruth, when he died in 1719. In fifty years 11,000 converts were gathered. The first Protestant Missionary Society to begin work in India was the Baptist Missionary Society, which was formed in 1792, largely through the efforts of William Carey. He was sent out as its first missionary, arriving in 1793. But he found his way blocked First English Societies 23 by the -East India Company, who would not allow evan- gelistic work among the natives. So he took secular work as an indigo planter. Afterward he was joined by Marsh- man and Ward and they opened their life work under the protection of the Danes at Serampur. But up to 1813 they were much opposed and hindered in their work. In that year they were working in ten stations and preaching in ten languages. They organized a college at Serampur and translated, in whole or in part, the Scriptures in thirty- one Indian languages and dialects. Nathaniel Forsyth, the first missionary of the London Missionary Society, had, in 1798, to seek protection in the Dutch settlement of Chin- surah, twenty miles north of Calcutta, against the prohi- bition of his own timid countrymen. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- sions was the first American Society to open a mission in India, which they did in 1812, when they be- First American gan the Marathi Mission. When the mission- Society aries landed in Caleutta in that year they were peremptorily ordered out of the country by the government. Two of them, Gordon Hall and Samuel Nott, escaped to Bombay, where, after many hardships, they were permitted to enter upon their work. Mr. Hall labored thirteen years in Bombay. The Madura Mission was opened by the American Board in 1835, William Todd and Henry Hoisington being the first missionaries. The Church of England early established missions in India. But before the societies sent men, such bishops and chaplains as Heber, Wilson, and Henry Later Movements Martyn were earnest in their efforts to From England evangelize the natives. The Church Mis- sionary Society opened work in Madras in 1815, and in Calcutta in 1816. The Society for the Propaga: ¢ tion of the Gospel began its work in India in 1818, in Mad- ras and Calcutta. The Wesleyan Missionary Society has been at work in India and Ceylon since 1814. In 1813 the venerable Dr. Coke sailed for India to start a mission at his own expense, but died at sea on the 3d of May, 1814. The 24 rest of the party proceeded first to Bombay, but afterward opened a successful work in Ceylon, and later, in 1817, one of the number, the Rev. James Lynch, went to Madras and opened work there. MADURA TEMPLE From the first centers the work spread rapidly after the Kast India Company removed its prohibition to mission work in 1813. 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V v o Sot oot S& 08 OL GL ‘NYOUOW'H'S ws» siodeBu ; (@Lpuy «os) 00S OOF Oo 0% Or 0 et baa ~ $BIIW 30 a1VvOS a of +E et dae WINSNINGd AWIVN _ a HHO Gnv pee al VWWUNEA VIANI OT \ yr neo Cutnped Aruepnduy a St aonlannied NO1ARO reed THILO ¢ Q —ur10Uio9 °0 afeMBuw 0 a ie re AMUOLL PrUNIPABAtl yy Olowurass®egT Song aofind VLOOPUR YW Oe aon Sy | Sie. re) Q Buyye. wed Zz pti? panpr na aIyoog v > anjaduton aiofmyy Nd ; ay yodourgorry, & ue] [eyey r £74rg~ nq UATO: & RS 0078q HE fe) ° LEO on he] topes ° I KIIOMPPLT nqvday, ° a and needy field. Adoniram Judson went under the au- spices of the American Board in 1812, but changing his views on the subject of baptism, was appointed by the American Baptist Missionary Union as their first missionary to Burma in 1814, where he labored, preaching and writing, and translating the Scriptures, until 1850. Alexander Duff was sent out in 1830 by the Church of Scotland Mission to Calcutta, where he at once opened an educational institution upon evangelical lines and_ be- Duff came the great pio- neer of missionary education in the East. Adhering to the Free Church upon its separa- tion in 1843, he continued his labors with great suc- cess until 1863. A num- ber of influential men were converted in his school, or under his in- fluence. Duff, Wilson, and Anderson, in the three Presidency cities, Calcutta, Bombay, Mad- ras, formed a strong Scot- tish educational trio. In the meantime the Amer- ican Presbyterians en- MEMORIAL WELL, CAWNPUR tered the field Other Early especially in North India, where three mission cen- Presbyterian ters were formed. The Presbyterian Church of Ire- Centers land opened work in Gujarat in 1841, and the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland in 186€90, commenced their Rajputana Mission. Other missions were started in various parts of this great territory, and the work spread into almost every part of it. The Church of England Missions were marvelously successful in Tinnevelly, Success the Baptists in Burma among the Karens, and the 28 Wesleyans in Ceylon, and churches and_ schools were springing up everywhere. Then came the great Mutiny of 1857, which checked the work for a time, tested its genuine- ness, and resulted in giving a greater impetus to missionary work afterward. When the statistics were taken Summary in 1861, it was found that in all India there were, in 1861 in the Protestant native church, 97 native ordained agents, 24,976 communicants, 138,731 native Chris- tians, and 75,975 pupils under instruction. The past fifty years have been years of advance along all lines in missionary work in India. The Mutiny revealed the steadfastness and loyalty of the native Christians Present in the midst of persecution, even under threat of Status death. It also brought India under the direct govern- ment of the Queen, who issued the noble proclamation of political liberty and complete religious toleration which marks the beginning of India’s true history. Englishmen were led to feel their responsibility as never before, and all Christians were stirred to fresh missionary effort. The number of missionaries has_ in- Great Increase creased fourfold. The Methodist Episcopal of Mission Force Mission opened by Dr. Butler, in 1856, the Rajputana Mission, by Dr. Shoolbred, in 1860, and the Christian Vernacular Education Society, by Dr. Murdock, in 1858, all grew, as it were, out of the very ashes of the Mutiny. Up to the middle of the last century the growth of the native Christian community in numbers was not rapid. Still, there was steady growth, especially in Early Growth South India. In 1756, the Danish Missionary in Numbers Society had 11,000 converts after half a century of work. In 1811, after eighteen years, the Baptist Missionary Society had three hundred converts, one- third of whom had been added in about a year. In 1891 the number had grown to more than 50,000. In 1830 the Church Missionary Society had 7,500 Christians in the Madras Presi- dency, which had increased to 11,000 in 1835, and to 17,000 in 1840. 29 The growth of the Church among the Pachamas, or de- pressed classes of South India, has been remarkable. In the Nellore district “The Lone Star” Mission Later Striking of the American Baptist Missionary Union Results waited thirty years before there was any fruit. In 1865 there were 35 converts; in 1874 there were nearly 4,000 communicants; in 1878, 8,691 were bap- tized in a month and a half, and 2,222 in one day. The mis- sion now has more than 100,000 adherents. In Tinnevelly, in 1878, 19,000 natives joined the Mission of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and during the same year 11,000 were baptized by the Church Missionary Society. In Tinnevelly and the Telugu country 60,000 were converted in 1876. The London Mission in Travancore gathered in 30,000 in a short time. Equally remarkable has been the growth in the work of the Methodist Episcopal Mission of North India. Between 1861 and 1872 the increase in numbers was 500 per cent. Since then nearly 100,000 have been added, as high as 16,000 in one year. The entire Protestant Church in India increased from 91,092 adherents and 15,129 communicants in 1851, to 591,810 adherents and 376,617 communicants Adherents and in 1901, or, if Ceylon and Burma are included, Communicants 606,605 adherents and 432,924 communicants (Geography and Atlas of Protestant Missions, II, 19, Harlan P. Beach). Dr. John P. Jones, author of India’s Problem, analyzes the figures of the census of 1901 and shows that there are 970,000 native Protestant Chris- tians in India, being an advance of sixty-four per cent. dur- ing the preceding ten years. Educational work begun by Carey and Duff has gone forward until now there are many Christian colleges affili- ated with the government universities. Female Educational education and zenana work have been introduced. Progress In Ward’s day there were no girls’ schools, and practically none in Duff’s. Miss Cooke started the first school for girls in Caleutta in 1821. Miss Wakefield gained admission to some zenanas in 1835. But now 30 thousands of girls are being trained in the schools and thousands of women in the zenanas of India. Medical work Reaching Women among the women of the land, too, is a “eee recent method. In this Miss Swain, M.D., and Miss Seelye, M.D., took the lead, to be followed in these days by scores of others from different lands. Christian education has now completely altered the out- GIRLS’ SCHOOL, SITAPUR look of educated India on moral and social questions. In a Government Report to Parliament it has been stated : General ‘‘The missionaries, as a body, know the natives of Influence India well; they have prepared hundreds of works, suited both for schools and for general circulation, in the fifteen most prominent languages of India and in the several other dialects; they have largely stimulated the great increase of the native literature prepared in recent years by educated native gentlemen.” 31 In 1851 there were about 63,500 scholars in all the mission schools in India; in 1861, 75,975; in 1871, 122,372, of whom 22,611 were women and girls. In 1890 there were Increase in eighty-six colleges and high schools, and 6,831 School schools of all grades, in which 284,528 pupils were Attendance studying. To-day more than 300,000 are being taught in the Christian Schools of India. Thou- sands of children rescued during the recent famines have been gathered into orphanages and industrial institutions and are being carefully trained in head, heart and hand. The statistical summary of Foreign Missions in the Re- port of the Ecumenical Missionary Conference, New York, 1900, gives the following educational statistics Educational for India: Colleges, 34; pupils, 22,084; theolog- Statistics ical and training schools, 107; pupils, 4,370; board- ing and high schools and seminaries, 340; pupils, 41,456; industrial training institutions and classes, 46; pupils, 4,287; medical schools, 16; pupils, 191. Aside from purely educational work, which in itself is indirectly evangelistic, there has been, during the past one hundred years, an immense amount of evan- Evangelistic and gelistic effort put forth. This has resulted Religious Life in leavening the whole empire with Chris- tian truth. The influence of Christian Mis- sions in India is far beyond anything shown in statistical tables. The whole fabric of the social system has been af- fected. As Bishop Thoburn, after more than forty years’ in- timate knowledge with every part of the land, truly says: “ All India is rapidly changing. The fetters of caste are weak- ening. Hindus and thousands of the people who eschew the Christian name are rapidly imbibing the Christian spirit, which is beginning wonderfully to pervade the more intel- ligent part of the community.” The religious condition of the native chureh is improving yearly. Although so many have been brought in from the very lowest strata of society, yet in the relative increase of communicants, in the grow- ing desire to give to the support and spread of the gospel, and in the multiplying of voluntary workers imbued with 32 evangelistic zeal, is seen the growth of the native church in spirituality. Concerning modern missions in India it has been recently said by Graham: “The younger branch of the Aryan family going westward into Europe found Christ The One and prospered, and now to an ever-increasing Aryan Family degree it realizes the privilege of heralding the good tidings among its elder brethren in India. At the beginning of the nineteenth century it had not more than ten representatives; now they are to be found in al- most every district. The missionary army of well- nigh two thousand men is truly international—from the British Empire, in- cluding Canada and Au- stralasia, America, Ger- many, Sweden and Den- mark. The place of honor / in respect of numbers is = held by our American kins- men, whose disinterested zeal and liberality are worthy of all commenda- tion. The army, too, is in- terdenominational — Pres- byterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Baptists, Meth- odists, Congregationalists, Friends, and others, all with few exceptions, working in harmony, dividing the land between them, and meeting in provincial and general con- ference for mutual help.” THE MOHAMMEDAN, ZAHUR UL HAQQ, OUR FIRST CONVERT THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL MISSION The Rev. William Butler, D.D., sailed from Boston in April, 1856, to found for the Methodist Episcopal Chureh a Mission in India. This mission was decided upon 33 through the solicitation of Dr. Duff, who visited America in 1854. Dr. Butler landed in Calcutta on September 23d, and at once pushed on to Benares, and from there pro- ceeded to Lucknow, the capital of Oudh (about to _ become the scene of bloody events), which he reached North India (1, the 29th of November. Although discouraged by current conditions and by the English officials, yet he re- solved to make this city the center of the new mission. But being unable to procure a house he pushed on to Bareilly, Dr. Butler Enters NAINI TAL in Rohilkhund. Here he secured property and by March, 1857, was preaching in English, and through Joel Janvier, who had been generously assigned him by the Presbyterians of Allahabad, in the vernacular. / In May the terrible storm of the Mutiny burst upon them, and on the 18th he, with his family, barely Work After escaped with lfe to the hill station of Naini Tal, the Mutiny from which he was not to return to the ruins of his home for more than a year. On March 11th he ventured 34 down to Agra to meet the first recruits for the mission, Messrs. Humphrey and Pierce who had traveled up from Cal- cutta. In Naini Tal the first chapel was made from a sheep- house transformed at a cost of less than nine iupees, or four doHars. Upon their return to the plains, work was opened in Lucknow, and then early in 1859, Bareilly was again occu- pied. Thus out of the very ruins of the Mutiny rose this new mission, destined to spread over Southern Asia before the close of the century. As rapidly as reinforcements were received from America, or were raised up on the soil, other stations were opened throughout the Northwest Provinces and Oudh. During the next sixteen years the field was occupied in the following order: in 1859, Moradabad, Bijnor, and Shah- jehanpur; in 1860, Budaon; in 1861, Lakhimpur and Sitapur ; in 1864, Rai-Bareilly and Gonda; in 1865, Garhwal; in 1868, Baraich; in 1871, Cawnpur; in 1873, Allahabad; in 1874, Kastern Kumaon; in 1875, Agra. The whole coun- Growth of try attempted to be covered in this way at first by the Field the Methodist Mission of North India is about three hundred and fifty miles long by one hundred and fifty broad, and contains an area of forty-six thousand square miles, with a very large population, the average be- ing more than 450 to the square mile. The people are mostly Hindus and the language Hindustani. The society hoped to be able to send twenty-five mission- aries to cultivate this field. While it was not able to do this, yet from 1859 to 1869 twenty-four addi- Steady tional missionaries were sent out or raised up Reinforcements in India, among whom were the two who became Bishops Thoburn and Parker. Dur- ing the next decade there were added to the force about twice as many regular foreign missionaries as were sent out from 1859 to 1869, this number not including the wives of missionaries. The Woman’s’ Foreign Missionary Society having been organized in Boston in 1869, their first mission- aries, Miss Isabella Thoburn and Miss Clara A. Swain, the 35 latter a qualified physician, were sent out in 1870, the fore- runners of a long line of women workers destined to great usefulness in the zenanas, schoolrooms, and dispensaries of India. Woman’s Work Begun The work of the mission has been varied and multiform from the beginning. An immense amount of preaching has been done in the bazars, village markets, on the streets, at the festivals, and in churches, halls and tents. Extensive use has been made of the magic lantern in Varied village preaching. Thus eye and ear catch the gospel Agencies. story. Able litera- ture is fast becom- ing available for preacher and public. Much educa- tional work also has been developed. In 1858 there were 41 scholars; in 1875, 8,000, of whom 1,759 were girls. In 1860 there were 160 in Sunday-school; in L875, 06,70 ee Leet ttie Nawab of Rampur gave a fine property to the mis- sion at Bareilly for a hos- pital, of which Miss Swain had charge for a number of years. In 1872 the Ba- reilly Theological School, MISS ISABELLA THOBURN which has had such a re- markable history, was opened. In 1858 there were six or- phans, who in 1861 had increased to 18, and in 1862 to 228, of whom 146 were girls. In 1862 the girls’ educational work was removed from Lucknow to Bareilly and that of the boys from Bareilly to Shahjehanpur, where the institutions have permanently remained. A girls’ boarding-school was started in Lucknow by Miss Thoburn, in 1870 (the first of many suc- cessors), which has become the Isabella Thoburn College for Women, the first college for women in Asia. It has a very 36 important Normal School department, which is supplying teachers to other institutions, both government and mission, that are fast springing into existence. A printing press was set up in Bareilly under the management of the Rev. James W. Waugh, and in 1866 it was removed to Lucknow, where it is now known as the Methodist Publishing House.