THE LORD'S WAR WAXES HOT. Address by the Rev. Jacob Chamberlain, UM.D., D.D., _ at the General Missionary Conference, October 26th, 1886. \ A_R. PRESIDENT, DELEGATES anp FRIENDS: The Lord’s war in India is waxing hot. During my previous visit to America, ten years ago, I was wont to tell you. of the opening and the progress of the campaign in India. Now we are in the thickest and deadliest of the conflict. Then I told you of the beginnings; now I seek to tell you of the changed circumstances—the change in the aspect of affairs that has taken place since, more than a quarter of a century ago, I first landed in India. To do this effec- tively I propose, in the briefest terms, to recall to you something of what—in previous addresses before por- tions of this audience, scattered here and there, that the Lord has allowed me: to address—I have told you of our field in India, the country, the people, their religion and environment, and the methods of our work among them, and then to tell you of our present situation, opportunities and responsibilities. Hindostan and Its People. India is the home of one-sixth of the whole human race. Reaching as it does from the burning tropical sands of Cape Comorin, within eight degrees of the Equator, up 2,000 miles to the forever-frozen peaks of the Himalaya mountains on the north, and from Afghanistan on the west through 1,800 miles to Indo- China on the east,—we have a country that is inhab- 2 THE LORD’S WAR ited by 252,000,000 of people. India is equal to about one-half of the area of the United States; or to speak a little more accurately, if you draw a line from Dakota south through Texas, India is equal in size to that part of the United States which falls eastward of that line—from Dakota to Texas, from Maine to Florida—and it has five times the population of the whole of the United States. The Languages. The people of India are not a homogeneous people —not of one language. It is as if you started in Spain to visit all Europe. Wishing to talk to the inhab- itants, you must talk, first Spanish, then Portuguese, then French, then Dutch, then German, then Danish, then Swedish, then Finnish, then Russ, then Polish, then Hungarian, then Bulgarian, Roumanian and Ser- vian, then Turkish,then Greek and Italian, and a great many other languages. And as the people in Europe are as different as their languages, so are the people in India. There are forty languages spoken in India; many of them very ancient languages, very highly- wrought out and polished—beautiful and_ perfect vehicles for the presentation of Divine truth. And the people are as different as their languages—not of one cast of countenance, not of one ethnological descent. Religion and Morals. The religion of the people of India is one. Let me explain it by referring you back to Europe in the time of Martin Luther. When Martin Luther was born there were in Europe so many languages, so many kingdonis, so many different races; but Europe was of one religion—with the exception of the Mohammedan conquerors who had conquered Turkey and still maintained Mohammedanism. Thus it isin India. The religion of India is Brahminism, or Hin- WAXES HOT. 3 duism—with the exception of the descendants of the Mohammedan invaders of some six centuries ago. Of these, 40,000,000 remain in India still, and are Mohammedan, but the rest of the Hindus are Brah- minists. Let me remind you also, very briefly, of what Hinduism is. With their ancient Vedas, the most ancient of which was written about. the time of Moses, they have some glimmerings of Noachic tradi- tions, and many pure and holy ideas. The Vedas teach in the main a true conception of God, and man, and sin, and sacrifice. But though they have these ancient Vedas, and these purer ideas of God; as man wandered into sin, farther away from God, there came later conceptions of polytheism and idolatry, until at last what there was once of light in Asia has become darkness. The purer religion of the Vedas degenerated into polytheism and idolatry, and their purer morals descended into sensuality and corrup- tion and vice. I speak on this matter as a physician who has treated many thousands of patients, and mingled in their homes from the highest to the low- est, from the Rajah on his throne to the beggar in his hut—when I say that there is no such thing as © purity, as virtue, among them. And I have this from the confessions of their best men. ‘‘Sir,” said a Brahmin with whom I was confidentially talking about this, ‘‘sir, there is not a family among us that is not tainted with the impure disease.” And honesty in dealings is scarcely known. Caveat emptor is the rule, for honesty is not expected in trade, and no one is disappointed. And as for the truth—although their ancient Vedas, although their poets and sages, call on the people to maintain truth as their choicest heritage, yet there is no truth among the people. The proverbs of the people tell what they are. A com- mon proverb among the Telugu people is, unna marta cheppite ura atsa radu; t.e., ‘‘If a man tells the 4 THE LORD’S WAR truth, the town will soon become too hot for hin.” I was once preaching in a Telugu city—the first time the Gospel was preached there—and I said to the people that no matter what their religion might be, all intelligent people accepted certain acts as sinful. I mentioned different points, and then I came to falsehood, and as I went on expatiating upon that, the audience—an educated audience—assented to what I said, and admitted that lying was asin. ‘‘ But,” said I, ‘‘ you Hindus tell a lie as often as you tell the truth.” ‘‘ What, sir!” said a Brahmin right before me, ‘‘do you say that we Hindus tell a lie as often as we tell the truth?” ‘‘ Yes,” said I, intending to stand my ground. ‘‘Sir,” said he, ‘‘we Hindus tell ten lies for every truth we utter.” He certainly told the truth that time. Isuppose he must have told ten lies be- fore to counterbalance it. The Bulwark of Caste. Hinduism has two chief bulwarks in this genera- tion. They are, caste and the endowed temples. Caste, you know, is a religious distinction. It is not a social distinction, but one of birth; for Brahma created each caste by a different creation, they hold. The Brahmin holds that he is holier than the rest; and if we admit caste we must allow him to say to the rest: ‘‘Stand by thyself, for I am holier than thou.” Caste is so firmly rooted that I have known of a Brahmin that died by starvation when there was food placed by his side for him to eat, because, forsooth, that food was cooked by one of a lower caste. ‘‘ Better die,” he said, ‘‘and reach heaven, than eat that food and live, and lose caste, and lose heaven.” Caste, then, is the adamantine chain which Satan has wound around these people to hold them in that system. WAXES HO’. 5 Endowed Temples. The second great bulwark which supports the system now is its myriads of endowed temples. From Cape Comorin to the Himalaya mountains, they dot every hill-top and every plain, endowed with rich grounds and the choicest lands in former ages. All the rev- enues of.those lands go to the support of the priest- hood, who carry on the ceremonies of the temples; and thus, if Christianity prevails, the Brahmins will cease to reap those revenues. ‘Therefore, like Demet- rius of old, they call their fellow-craftsmen together and say: ‘Sirs, by this craft we have our wealth.” So the Brahmins lock arms to defend their ancient system against the missionary. I well remember what was said to me after a discussion which we had —another missionary and myself—in the Mysore country, where no missionary had been before, with the chief priest of that region—the President of their theological seminary, if I might use the term, for there were seventy Brahmins studying with him for the priesthood. They had come to meet us in the market-place, and we had discussed for hour after hour before the assembled multitude. He had been pushed to the wall; but at last, darkness coming on, he said there was no time to discuss farther, but he would renew the subject next evening. But before the next evening came, he came secretly around through the rice fields to our tent, and obtained per- mission to enter. First assuring himself that there was no one else within hearing, he said to me: ‘Sir, what you said yesterday in the market-place was utterly unanswerable. I did the best I could to de- fend my own position, surrounded as I was by my own people; but I am not going to meet you again. What. you say is so pure, so holy, so good, it appeals so to the highest needs and desires of men, that it seems as if it must be Divine—it must be true—at all events, 6 THE LORD’S WAR it must be a better religion than ours. But, sir, we ‘Brahmins cannot afford to let you succeed. Look at our position. "We reap rich revenues from all these temples. We are treated as demi-gods by the people. At every festival we receive rich gifts. We are looked up to and worshipped. But let your system succeed, which teaches that there is no human mediator—no mediator between God and man but Jesus Christ— and we Brahmins would drop from our high pedestal down to the level of what we are worth—and you know what that means as well as we do. We would have to drop down from our exalted position and mingle with the ignoble throng. No, sir! Your sys- tem must be resisted. It may be Divine; but, sir, we Brahmins have got to fight you.” And fight us they did. Christian Weapons.—Preaching. How, then, is such asystem, defended by the power of caste and of an endowed priesthood, to be over- come? I cannot delay you to state the particulars of our work at length. I must simply remind you that the Arcot Mission is essentially a preaching mission, aggressively and actively enlightening the people— carrying the Gospel to them in the highways and by- ways, in their towns, villages and hamlets, at the markets and the fairs. We take our tent and pitch it in some central village, and make a tour of the sur- rounding region, reaching perhaps forty villages be- fore moving our tent to some other place. In that manner we canvass the country and sow seed for Jesus Christ. At a later period we make the tour again, and water the seed. Not only do we preach _the Gospel, but we distribute Christian literature, either selling or disposing in some way of tracts and Scriptures wherever we go. And the seed is taking root. WAXES HOT. 7 Medical Work. We are reaching the people also by medical work. You know that in the Arcot Mission a number of us— a majority of us thus far, I believe—have been phy- sicians as well as ministers. We have gathered, as you remember, thousands in from all the villages around, simply by the knowledge that if they came their diseases would be healed. They have come from hundreds, from thousands of towns and villages in all directions. Scarcely a day that we do not have those from more than a hundred miles away present -in our dispensaries. They hear the Gospel read; they hear the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; they listen as we raise the voice of prayer to Him who made us and who can save us; they go back to their homes; they take with them the tickets on which are printed a concise statement of Christian truth. They take these with them to their villages, and thus the truth is being scattered where we have never set foot. Christian Schools. Our schools present the truths of Christianity. Heathen pupils come to them with the understanding that they will study what the Christians do. Every one of them studies the Bible, and so we initiate the young into the pure teachings of the religion of Jesus. And then we have our caste-girls’ schools, as you know—for, glory be to God! He has brought the mothers and the wives and the daughters of America to the front since I went to India first, to take hold of the work of lifting up their heathen sisters; and we have these girls’ schools now, which are filled with the highest caste of Hindu young women. And they all study the Bible, learn our Christian hymns, study our catechisms, and come to a knowledge of the truth in these schools; and thus we are reaching the se- cluded zenanas everywhere with the truth. And then 8 THE, LORD’S WAR we have our Anglo-Vernacular schools—a higher style of school—with which we reach young men preparing for the Madras University, and help them on their way in that. In every one of these schools the Bible is studied as a text-book in every class every day; and to show you how it works, let me give you a single incident: A Singular Request. In December, 1883, I received one day a very singu- lar petition. It came from Vayalpad—the county town of the adjacent county. We had no Christians in that county. The petition was brought to me by a special messenger. It was signed by the chief men of that Taluk town, not one of whom was a Chris- tian. They begged me to receive under my charge the Anglo-Vernacular school which they had estab- lished the year before for teaching their sons—to re- ceive it under my charge as a mission-school, and to introduce the Bible as a text-book in every class every day. And that petition was signed by heathen. Not a Christian was there—not one lived in the town. Surprised beyond measure, I went out at once to see them, and see if they were ‘in earnest. A meeting was summoned of all interested in the school. A packed room was theresult. I read this petition to them. I said: ‘‘Is this your wish? Itis signed by a number of the people. The request is that the school shall be received under my care, and that the Bible shall be taught in every class every day. You know that I seek your conversion to Christ. I make no secret of that. It will be my aim to present the truth—to present the highest truth that man can conceive of—and with that understanding, do you wish me to receive the school?” The headmaster of the school, who had been educated in a mission school, spoke, telling of what he had learned in that mission school—how he learned to reverence the WAXES HOT, 9 Bible, and how anxious he was that these, his pupils, should be under Biblical instruction. By experience he knew what the Bible was. Address of a Native Judge. * Then a native judge—the judge of four counties— spoke. He was a high-caste native gentleman, and finely educated. He could use the English language with as much fluency as I could; and yet he spoke in the Telugu language, because he addressed the audience there assembled. His speech was so re- markable that when I got home I wrote it down in English, and I must read it to you now. He said: ‘‘My friends, I was not educated in a mission school, but I have many friends who were, and _ who studied the Bible daily in school. I have wit- nessed its effects upon their lives. I have read the Bible myself, privately, a great deal. I have come to know the pure and beautiful system of morality it ineuleates. My friends, there is nothing in our Vedas that can compare with it, as I well know from careful examination. Let your sons study the Bible. They need not become Christians; there is no com- pulsion about it; the missionaries never force any one. But if you want your sons to become noble, upright men, put this school under the charge of the missionary, and have the Bible taught in it daily. It will make your sons better men, and you will be the happier parents. My friends, I have but one son, as you know. On him all my hopes are cen- tered. You know I am able to send him where I please for his education; but I want him to be a noble, earnest man. I have, therefore, sent him to the Madras Christian College to be educated, and there he studies the Bible with the missionaries every day. This tells you what J think of the mission schools, and of the Bible. I have done.” That was the 10 THE LORD’S WAR speech of a Hindu. By unanimous vote the school was placed under my charge. The Bible from that day was introduced in every class; taught by our eatechists; and as I examined the school from month to month before I game home, I found there was no lesson that was learned with more avidity, no exam- ination that was passed better, than the examination of those pupils—those heathen pupils—in the Bible. And so we are reaching these people. The Results Achieved. Now, let me remind you of the fruitage that has come thus far. The Arcot Mission occupies a field which is twice and a half as large as the State of Connecticut, with three times the population of that State. And what has the Arcot Mission done there? Thirty-three years ago the mission was begun. It has been carried on for those thirty-three years at an expense no larger than that incurred during the same period in carrying on a single one of our up-town New York churches. The Arcot Mission has cost no more in its entirety for those thirty-three years than it has cost to support one of the uptown churches in the city of New York. And at that expense, what has it accomplished? We have eight stations occupied. We have 96 Christian villages from which idolatry has been driven out, and where every Sabbath they meet for the worship of the Triune God. These 96 village Christian congregations are formed into 23 organized churches, grouped—two or three, three or four vil- lages forming one organized church. We have a Classis at Arcot, consisting of those 23 churches, And then there are 3,929 baptized members of the Church, including baptized children. We have 1,555 eatechumens under instruction for baptism. We have 86 village schools established; and in these there WAXES HOT. 11 are 2,318 pupils studying the Bible every day. We have six caste-girls’ schools in our different stations, for children of the highest classes of the people; and they are attended by the daughters of the highest of the people. In these there are 374 heathen girls studying day by day the Divine oracles. We have four of the Anglo-Vernacular schools of which I have spoken, for the higher education of young men. And then we have six training-schools for training teach- ers, and Bible women, and catechists, and preachers. There are in those six training-schools for young women and young men 258 boarding pupils, sup- ported—mostly supported—by friends in America in their studies. Beside those 96 villages and 23 churches, scattered all over our field, we have preached the Gospel, we have sown the seed, we have gone again and again watering the seed in the 7,000 towns and villages lying within our mission boundaries; and our Arcot Mission is reckoned responsible for the cultivation of that whole field—practically, there are no other mis- sionaries working there. Many Enlightened and Convinced. The people have become dissatisfied with their Hinduism. They have learned enough of the truth to see that their old religion is not the soul-satisfying system that they supposed it to be. And this is shown in many ways. Iwill give youone. In my tent, in September, 1879, in the adjacent county of Vayalpad, where there was no Christian, I was preaching the Gospel and had my travelling dispen- sary with me. A native official, high in_ office, in caste, and in social position, sent to me by a messen- ger saying that he would like to see me privately for the treatment of an ailment. I appointed a time. He came to my tent. To my surprise, I found that iy THE LORD'S WAR he had some trifling ailment, the treatment of which was despatched in a few moments. I wondered that he had come, but I soon found he had used that little ailment merely as a cover. He wanted to talk with me on Christianity, and, Nicodemus-like, he had come by stealth. He introduced the subject himself. After an extended conversation on the character and the claims of Jesus of Nazareth to be the Saviour of the world, he said to me in substance: ‘‘Sir, I am not a Christian. I am still regarded as a devout Hindu. Butin my heart I dare not deny the claims of the Bible. I see the power of Jesus Christ in the lives of His followers so distinctly, that I cannot deny His Divinity. He must be Divine, or He could not work such a change in the lives of those who become His disciples. He is not yet my Saviour. Caste, wealth, position, family, all, hold me back. But even now I never aliow Him to be spoken against in my presence. I have long been reading the Bible in secret. The more I read of Christ and ponder over His life and teachings, and the power to conquer sin that comes from embracing His religion, the more do I feel that in the end I shall have to accept Him at any cost as my personal Saviour.” These men must be reached. ‘These men in all our 7,000 towns and villages must be met and personally dealt with. These schools that are asking to be put under our instruction and have the Bible taught in them, must be received, and the Bible taught there, if we are to win that Arcot district for Jesus. The seed we have scattered here and there must be watered, and the field cultivated; and tor that pur- pose, as you see, our Synod has directed that a theo- logical seminary be now established, and that we push the work of raising up native Pauls and Barna- bases and Timothys for the work there; and that we are striving to do. WAXES HOT. 13 What Remains to Be Done. And now we come to this aspect of affairs. We are indeed thankful for the great fruitage that we have gathered for the small amount of labor that we have expended there; but what is that among so many? The Arcot Mission is equivalent to all the State of New York south of Troy. We have, as I told you, eight stations scattered through that district, where eight missionaries should be—there are six on the ground now, and two in America—where eight mis- sionaries should be, proclaiming the Gospel and cul- tivating the field; but what are they in that great district? Suppose New York to be heathen. Place one missionary on Long Island and make that his parish, another in New York, another in Pough- keepsie, another in Albany, another in Utica, another in Binghamton, another in Elmira, and another in Rochester; and then ask why it is that the State of New York is not converted! Grant that there are 96 congregations in the Arcot Mission. \ People have said: ‘‘That field must be nearly converted, isn’t it?” Suppose you have got 96 churches scattered all through the State of New York from Montauk Point to Niagara, will those beacon lights be near enough together so that their light can even be seen from one to the other? Why, the darkness will only have be- gun to be illuminated. We have 23 churches; but what are they for the four millions of inhabitants. that we have to win for Christ? Yes, we have done something; we have made the people dissatisfied with their own system; but we have not yet given them Christ. Said a Brahmin to one of our missionaries out in the farther corner of the field, who was visiting that village for the third time in ten years: ‘‘ Sir, why do you come to us as you do? You come just often enough to make us dis- satisfied with our old religion—you shake our faith in 14 THE LORD’S WAR our ancient gods; and you don’t come enough to ex- plain your religion to us so that we can intelligently embrace it. Either keep aWay entirely, or come and bring us to your God and Saviour.” And there was truth in what he said. Scepticism Busy. They have lost faith in their system; and now Satan comes in, for he is wily. They are dissatisfied with their ancient system, and he brings in the books of John Stuart Mill, and Herbert Spencer, and Hux- ley, and Bradlaugh, and men of that class—yes, and Thomas Paine. The writings of these men are scat- tered all through India, and there are presses there running night and day, casting off pages by the mil- lion for the poisoning of those awakened Hindu minds. Anything contrary to Christianity will be published by them and scattered through the country broadcast; and now the whole nation is on the eve of coming out of Hinduism and going into—what? ‘* Sir,” said a Brahmin priest to me one day—he had walked in eighty miles to see me; ‘‘sir,” said he, ‘‘Hinduism cannot stand the light that you mission- aries are letting in uponit. Itis not the soul-satis- fying system that we vainly imagined it to be. Sir, Hinduism is doomed. It must go by the board. What are you going to give us in its place?” We were seated under a banyan tree while I tried to teach him the pure religion of Jesus Christ, which I said we were going to give in the place of Hinduism; and as I told him that, my voice faltered—my tongue clung to the roof of my mouth—cold sweat came out upon me. I could not speak. Said I to myself: ‘‘Am I telling this man true, or am I telling him false? Are we going to give to India, to those teeming and now awakened millions, are we going to give them the religion of our Jesus? or are we going to awaken WAXES HOT, 15 them and dissatisfy them with their own system, and leave them to drift outinto skepticism or rational- istic Deism or Agnosticism? That is what they are drifting to, and’ that does not interfere with their caste and their Hindu temples. Shall we let them go out into that? Shall the ruins of Hindu temples be built up into temples for Satan, or temples for the Most High God?” Union in the Field. Our General Synod has directed the Arcot Mission to inaugurate measures for consolidating the workers there into one body, that shall go forward and plant the Church of Jesus Christ in India without being tied to any Occidental mother. We are anxious to do so. We arenow beginning to clasp hands preparatory to the final attack upon the enemy’s strongholds. We have gained those strategic points throughout all India—the Arcot Mission is but a sample—we have gained those strategic points; the campaign is planned ; and now we are anxious to make the final assault. The enemy are weakening. Their fortresses are undermined, and they know it. Already we see them loosening the halyards to haul down the flag, and surrender to the oncoming army of Jesus, if we make a vigorous assault; but we are too weak to do so; and we send back an appealing voice to our home churches in all the lands that support us, and beg of them to send on the reinforcements, that we may now make the final assault. We listen for the reply, and what is it that comes to our ears; what do we hear? ‘‘Hold on! You are going too fast. The Church at home can’t afford to let you advance any farther. Hold what you have got if you can; but the Church of Christ is too poor to let you go on to the assault for final victory.” O merciful Jesus! is it thus that we, redeemed by Thy 16 THE LORD'S WAR WAXES HOT. precious blood—we, for whom on Calvary Thou didst ery in agony, ‘‘My God, My God, why hast Thou for- saken Me,”—we, bought by the blood sweat-drops in Gethsemane—is it thus that we show the measure of our love to Thee? . O Church of the living God, awake! arouse from your lethargy and spring to the fray! Give your sons and your daughters to this work for the Divine Master. Consecrate to Him your silver and your gold. Fill up the mission treasuries to the overflow. Let a shout go forth that shall leap over seas and continents, and come to the ears of your waiting hosts in those distant lands. What shallit be? Shall we catch the ery: ‘“‘March onward! Seize every point of vantage. Call upon the enemy to surrender. Re- inforcements are on the way; supplies in abundanee are coming. March on and conquer the land for Christ!” Let that word come, and within the lives of us who are here we will show you India bowing low at the feet of our Jesus.