HISTORICAL SKETCH e OF THE MISSIONS OF THE AMERICAN BOARD INDIA AND CEYLON. BY Rey. S. C. BARTLETT, D.D. en) WITH A SUPPLEMENT. BO SA. OLN: PUBLISHED BY THE BOARD, 1 SOMERSET STREET. 1889. DELUL Pe Z ag peunge ty) af CAN ARE sen SoS Bareilly: VR D So} cay aes 5 Jubbulpoor OLE ad KWORD | - » -Oodeypoor es een rae 2 i] pie) A 3 = SS y fete Seat PINES a VME Sinn _ Seramp ORISS! | DISTR ——— et —— eS ores BARTLETT'S SKETCHES. MISSIONS IN INDIA AND CEYLON. Henry Martyn knew the Hindoos well; and he once said, ‘‘ If ever I see a Hindoo a real believer in Jesus, I shall see something more nearly approaching the resur- rection of a dead body than anything I have yet seen.” But God knows how to raise the dead. And it was on this most hopeless race, under the most discouraging concurrence of circumstances, that he chose to let the first missionaries of the American Board try their fresh zeal. The movements of commerce and the history of pre- vious missionary effort naturally pointed to the swarming continent of Asia. It was over this benighted region that Mills brooded at his studies. The British Baptist mission near Calcutta readily suggested the particular field of India, and the impression was deepened by the ardent imagination of young Judson. His mind had, in 1809, been so ‘‘set on fire” by a moderate sermon of Buchanan’s, the *“‘ Star of the East,” that for some days he was unable to attend to the studies of the class; and at a later period, a now forgotten book, Colonel Symes’s ‘‘ Embassy to Ava,” full of glowing and overwrought descriptions, stirred him with a fascination for Burmah which he never lost. The Prudential Committee of the Board also looked to the Burman Empire because it was 2 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. beyond the control of British authority, and therefore be- yond “the proper province of the British Missionary Society.” Judson did indeed find his way to Burmah, but in a mode how different from what he expected! cut adrift from his associates, and fleeing from British authority. The Board established this mission, but in a place and with a history how diverse from their intentions! Man proposes, but God disposes. Bombay became the first missionary station. And that choice band of young disciples — God had roused their several hearts, brought them together from their distant homes, and united their burning zeal, to scatter them in the opening of their labor. There was Mills, given to God by his mother, now strengthening her faltering resolution; there was Hall, ready to work his passage, and throw himself on God’s providence, in order to preach the gospel to the heathen; there was Judson, ardent, bold, and strong; and Newell, humble, tender, and devoted; there was Nott, with the deep ‘sense of a duty to be done;” and Rice, whose earnest desire to join the mission the Committee “‘ did not dare to reject ;” and there was the noble Ann Hasseltine, with a heart all alive with missionary zeal before the Lord brought Judson to her father’s house in Bradford, and the young Harriet Atwood, gentle, and winning, and firm, mourning at the age of seventeen over the condition of the heathen, and at eighteen joining heart and hand with Newell, to carry them the gospel. Of all this precious band, two only, Hall and Newell, did God permit to bear ® permanent part in that projected mission. Mills was to die on mid-ocean, in the service of Africa; Harriet Newell was to pass away before she found a resting- MISSIONS IN INDIA. 3 place for the sole of her foot; Nott was to break down with the first year’s experience of the climate; Mr. and Mrs. Judson, and Mr. Rice, were to found another great missionary enterprise. On the 19th of February, 1812, the Caravan sailed from Salem, with Judson, and Newell, and their wives on board; and on the 20th, the Harmony, from Philadel- phia, with Nott, and Hall, and Rice; the one vessel go- ing forth from the heart of Congregationalism, the other from the centre of Presbyterianism, carrying the sym- pathies of both denominations. They sailed through the midst of the embargo and non-intercourse; and the note of war with England followed their track upon the waters. Their instructions pointed them to the Burman Em- pire, but gave them discretionary power to go elsewhere. The Burman Empire could be reached only through the British possessions, and both vessels were accordingly bound for Calcutta. But the British authorities in India at that time were resolutely opposed to Christian missions. The East India Company professed to believe that the preaching of the gospel would excite the Hindoos to re- bellion, and was meanwhile drawing a large revenue from the protection of idolatry. The Baptist mission- aries at Serampore had felt the power of this hostility, but, being British subjects, and having long held the ground, could not be dispossessed. But the spirit of hostility had of late been kindled up anew. In the very year when Mills and Rice were founding their secret missionary society at Williams College, Rev. Sydney Smith was stirring up the British vublic, through the enginery of the Edinburgh Review, against the British mission in India. He opened by 4 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. insinuating that the mutiny at Vellore was connected with a recent increase of the missionary force; he con- tinued with ridicule of ‘‘ Brother Carey’s” and ‘ Brother Thomas’ ” Journals, and closed with an elaborate argu- ment to show the folly of founding missions in India. He argues, first, from the danger of insurrection; secondly, from *‘ want of success,” the effort being attended with difficulties which he seems to think ‘‘ insuperable ; ” thirdly, from ‘the exposure of the converts to great present misery ;” and fourthly, he declares conversion to be “no duty at all if it merely destroys the old religion, without really and effectually teaching the new one.” In regard to the last point, he argues that making a Chris- tian is only destroying a Hindoo, and remarks that “after all that has been said of the vices of the Hindoos, we be- lieve that a Hindoo is more mild and sober than most Europeans, and as honest and chaste.” Such was the tone of feeling he represented, and he returned next year to the task of ‘‘ routing out” ‘a nest of consecrated cob- blers.” The Baptist missionaries are ‘‘ ferocious Meth- odists” and ‘‘ impious coxcombs,” and when they com- plain of intolerance, ‘“‘a weasel might as well complain of intolerance when it is throttled for sucking eggs.” He declares that the danger of losing the East India posses- sions ** makes the argument against them conclusive, and shuts up the case;” and he adds, that ‘ our opinion of the missionaries and of their employers is such that we most firmly believe, in less than twenty years, for the conversion of a few degraded wretches, who would be neither Methodists nor Hindoos, they would infallibly produce the massacre of every European in India.” To this hostile feeling towards missionaries in general was MISSIONS IN INDIA. 5 soon added the weight of open warfare between England and America. The Caravan reached her destination on the 17th of June. Scarcely had the first warm greetings of Christian friends been uttered, when the long series of almost apos- tolic trials began. Ten days brought an order from government, commanding the return of the missionaries in the Caravan. They asked leave to reside in some other part of India, but were forbidden to settle in any part of the Company’s territory, or its dependencies. May they not go to the Isle of France? It was granted. And Mr. and Mrs. Newell took passage in the first ves- sel, leaving their comrades, for whom there was no room on board. Four days later arrived the Harmony; and Hall, Nott, and Rice also were summoned before the police, and ordered to return in the same vessel. They also applied for permission to go to the Isle of France ; and while waiting for the opportunity, another most “ try- ing event” befell them. Mr. and Mrs. Judson, after many weeks of hidden but conscientious investigation, changed their views, and joined the Baptists. Four weeks later and another shock; Mr. Rice had followed Judson. ‘What the Lord means,” wrote Hall and Nott, ‘ by thus dividing us in sentiment and separating us from each other, we cannot tell.” But we can now tell, that the Lord meant another great missionary enterprise, with more than a hundred churches and many thousand con- verts in the Burman Empire. While the brethren still waited, they gained favorable .utelligence of Bombay, and especially of its new govern- or. ‘They received a general passport to leave in the ship Commerce, paid their passage, and got their trunks aboard, when there came a peremptory oder to proceed fC) 6 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. in one of the Company’s ships to England, and their names were published in the list of passengers. They, however, used their passports, and embarked for Bom- bay, while the police made a show of searching the city for them, but did not come near the vessel. In a twelve- month from the time of their ordination, they reached Bombay, to be met there by a government order to send them to England. While the Commerce was carrying Hall and Nott to Bombay, another sad blow was preparing. Harriet Newell was dying of quick consumption at the Isle of France. Peacefully, and even joyfully, she passed away, sending messages of the tenderest love to her distant relatives, comforting her heart-broken husband, and ex- hibiting a faith serene and unclouded. ‘‘ Tell them [my dear brothers and sisters], and a!so my dear mother, that I have never regretted leaving my native land for the cause of Christ.” ‘I wish to do something for God be- fore I die. But... I long to be perfectly free from sin. God has called me away before we have entered on the work of the mission, but the case of David affords me comfort. I have had it in my heart to do what I can for the heathen, and I hope God will accept me.” She is told she can not live through the day. ‘O, joyful news! I long to depart.” And so she departed, calling, with faltering speech, ‘‘ My dear Mr. Newell, my hus- band,” and ending her utterance on earth with, ** How long, O Lord, how long?” And yet God turned this seeming calamity into an unspeakable blessing. Mr. Nott, half a century later, well recounts it as one of the * providential and gracious aids to the establishment of the first foreign mission,” and remembers ‘its influence on ‘ur minds in strengthening our missionary purposes.” MISSIONS IN INDIA. 7 And not only so, but the tale of her youthful consecration, and her faith and purpose, unfaltering in death, thrilled through the land. How many eyes have wept over the touching narrative, and how many hearts have throbbed with kindred resolutions! ‘* No long-protracted life could have so blessed the church as her early death.” Look at one instance. The little town of Smyrna lies on the Chenango River in central New York. It had neither church, minister, nor Sabbath school; and never had witnessed a revival of religion. The Memoir of Harriet Newell, dropped into one woman’s hands in that town, began a revival of religion in her heart, through her house, through that town, and through that region. Two evangelical churches grew out of that revival. Men and women who were born again at that time, have carried far and wide the power of the cross and the in- stitutions of the gospel. On the Isle of France there still is seen a stranger’s grave, while another solitary tomb may be seen on the distant Island of St. Helena. The one formerly contained the world’s great Captain, the other holds the ashes of a missionary girl. But how in- finitely nobler that woman’s life and influence ! From February till December, Hall and Nott, at Bom- bay, were kept in suspense, and even in expectation of defeat. The Governor of that Presidency was personal- ly friendly, but overborne by his official instructions. ‘Twice were they directed to return in the next vessel, their names being once entered on the list of passengers, and at another time their baggage being made ready for the ship, and the Coolies waiting to take it. Again and again were they told there was no alternative, till all hope Sad passed. Hall had made his final appeal, in a letter of almost Pauline boldness and courtesy, in which he bade 8 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. the Governor ‘‘ Adieu, till we meet you face to face at God’s tribunal.” The very next day they were informed that they might remain till further instructions were re- ceived; and in due time they gained full permission to labor in any part of the Presidency. The Company had yielded to the powerful influence brought to bear, not only from without, but from within their own body at home. When, at the last moment, the Court of Directors were on the point of enforcing their policy, a powerful argu- ment from Sir Charles Grant, founded on the documents of the missionaries, turned the scale. India was open. Hall and Nott were soon joined by Newell, who, bereft as he was, and for a time supposing that his comrades had all been sent back, had yet resolved to labor alone in Ceylon. Bombay thus became the Plymouth of the American mission in India; less prominent and influential than other stations, but noted as the door of entrance. Here began the struggle with Hindooism —intrenched as it was for ages in the terrible ramparts of caste, ‘ inter- woven throughout with false science, false philosophy, false history, false chronology, false geography,” entwined with every habit, feeling, and action of daily life, among a people prolific in every form of vice, and demoralized by long inheritance, till the sense of moral rectitude seemed extinct. The Hindoos, in some instances, charged the missionaries with having written the first of Romans on purpose to describe their case. Hindooism was aided, too, in its recoil, by the dealings of the English nation, who, says Sydney Smith, ‘“ have exemplified in our public conduct every crime of which human nature is capable.” In itself, Bombay proved one of the most discouraging of all the stations of the Board. Sickness and death kep/ MISSIONS IN INDIA. u sweeping away its laborers, and it was years before the first conversion of a Hindoo. But one missionary now * resides at Bombay, and that city is now only one of the seven stations of the Mahratta mission — numbering some forty out-stations and thirty-one churches, with a membership scattered through a hundred and forty vil- lages. The tremendous strength of Hindooism is well exhibited in the fact that up to the year 1856, the total number of conversions in the mission was but two hundred and eighty-five; and the sure triumph and accelerating power of the gospel were equally well expressed in the fact that for the next six years the conversions were near- ly twice as many as in the previous forty, and that never has there been such depth of interest, and so numerous accessions from the higher castes, as during the last few years. The seed-time has been long and wearisome. The full harvest-time is not yet come. But Hindooism is felt to be undermined; and another generation may witness, if the church is faithful, such revolutions in India as there is not now faith to believe. The details of this long strug- gle, could they be here recounted, would present a record of faithful unfaltering toil, rather than of striking inci- dents. When once the missionaries were admitted, the strong hand of British power became their protection. There were many excitements, and there were sore trials on the part of those who often were called literally to abandon father and mother for Christ. But it was a rare thing when, in 1832, the missionaries were hooted and pelted with dirt in the streets of Ahmednuggur, and their preaching assemblies broken up. The field is intrinsically difficult, and this mission was the first experiment of the Board. Experience has led, within the last few years, to some modifications in * 1871. 10 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. method, from which, in connection with the large pre- paratory work already accomplished, greater results may reasonably be looked for. Less relative importance is attached to local printing and teaching, and far more to itinerant preaching and personal intercourse. Failure to reach the women was found to be not only a great ob- stacle to rapid progress, but the cause of many a relapse. The attempt to give an English education indiscriminate- ly in the schools proved to be more than unprofitable, in a missionary point of view, since the knowledge of Eng- lish often became an inducement to abandon the mis- sionary. Perhaps too little dependence also had been placed on native piety to maintain its own institutions, and organize aggressive movements. ‘These things have begun to receive the most earnest attention.