active 
 
 IS 
 
 T H V, 
 
 PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 INDIAN CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY. 
 
 
 (A papor read by Rev. W. Raju Naidu, M. E. Mission, before the 
 Madras Native Christian Association on the 6th August, 1897.) 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Gentlemkn, 
 
 It is with extreme diffidence, not unmixed, frankly I admit, 
 with pleasure, that I now stand before you at the request of 
 Mr. S. Satthianadhan, our worthy Secretary, to read an address on 
 a subject of my own choosing. I have selected for my evening's 
 address the past, present and future; of the Indian Christian 
 community; and crave your indulgence for the few remarks I 
 am about to make on this large and interesting subject. 
 
 In dealing with the subject it is necessary to guard against two 
 extremes — an undue laudation of things as they now are, when 
 contrasted with things as they were, and an undue depreciation of 
 the modern aspects of our community when contrasted with what 
 the community attempted and achieved in the past. It is too 
 common a fault with some to see every excellence in the present, 
 while it is equally the fault with others to magnify the past, 
 or, as it is described in familiar speech, the good old times. 
 There is no more respectable sentiment than that which induces us 
 to invest the bygone times with a halo of veneration, and I believe 
 the sentiment, under due restraint, has a most healthful tendency 
 as, however much we may have improved since times gone by, those 
 times cannot but be laden with lessons, a careful study of which 
 
2 
 
 must yield the most salutary results. What then do the voices 
 that speak to us from the years that are no more convey to us, 
 Christian men of to-day ? The answer to this is necessarily a wide 
 one, but I shall endeavour to give it as briefly as possible. Those 
 days tell us of conviction that was so deep-rooted as to defy the 
 buffetings of trial; of indomitable resolution which, when once 
 the truth was clearly discerned, impelled men onward to grasp it 
 and keep it — no matter how severe the ordeals which had to be 
 passed through before the treasure was secured; and withal of a 
 simple but strong faith that burned with a clear and steady flame, 
 illuminating every nook and corner of the Christian life. Of a 
 truth, they were giants in those days. The history of the Indian 
 Christian Church is full of records of the lives of great, strong men 
 and women whose story does not fall behind that told of the heroes 
 of any other country in the world. Nor is this a matter for much 
 wonder as a strong religious feeling is an ingrained character- 
 istic of our race, and the converts from the native religions have 
 brought with them into the Christian life all the elevating elements 
 that formed the constituents of their pre-Christian lives. Religion 
 was an essential portion of their being. They lived and moved, so 
 to speak, in an atmosphere of piety which enabled tliem all the 
 more easily to see the distinctive truths of Christianity stand out in 
 all their strength and clean-cut beauty. To them the teachings of 
 Christianity were not mere propositions to be talked about and to 
 be reasoned about, but stern realities and efficient forces operating 
 upon their every thought and feeling and determining their every 
 act. They, in fact, lived their Christianity, and thus not only 
 obeyed the injunction placed upon them to so walk in the sight of 
 men as to approve themselves living testimonies of the great 
 Christian truths vitalising their entire lives, but also left behind 
 them a glorious record whence the Christian of after ages may 
 draw some of his highest inspiration. They belonged to a genera- 
 tion characterised by a concentration of force and thoroughness 
 of purpose, doing all that they found to do with all their might, 
 laying themselves out for the cause they so dearly loved, and dis- 
 playing a faith strong enough to cause the removal of mountains. 
 They were not great numerically, but so rich were they in mental 
 culture and spiritual gifts that their inferiority in respect of 
 numbers was no hindrance to the work they undertook for the 
 
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 3 
 
 extension of Christ's Kingdom in this country. Their education 
 was not like what we understand by education now. They were 
 not educated in a hurry. Their training was more gradual, and 
 thus their knowledge became more fully digested and assimilated, 
 creating minds full of depth, solidity and vigour. They had the 
 advantage, too, of living in a serener atmosphere than that in 
 which we live at present. To them were unknown the disturbing 
 speculations of science and that ceaseless theological wrangle which 
 is so distracting us to-day and is helping to thwart the work of 
 Christianity by setting up a chronic state of doubt and misbelief. 
 Not that they had no knotty problems to solve, but to help them to 
 a solution of them they had more time at their command, and their 
 work was done in the calm serenity of a library and not, as now, 
 amid the dust of the road side, the noise of the platform, the imma- 
 ture crudities and presumptuous asseverations of journalistic critics. 
 Every thing that those great men contributed to literature bore 
 traces of the highest artistic excellence, and was so perfect in 
 point of thought as to secure for it an enduring existence. 
 Anybody who cares to satisfy himself that I am not indulging in 
 exaggeration of language has but to consult the literary relics 
 they have left behind which may be said to constitute literature in 
 the real sense of that much abused word. But the intellectual 
 excellences of these strong men of the past generation, striking as 
 they were, were eclipsed by their spiritual graces. We ought never 
 to set intellectual gifts over spiritual. Mere brain, however strong, 
 is cold pnd weak as compared with a heart warm with the glow of 
 faith and trust. It is, therefore, in this latter respect that these 
 worthies shine out through the mists of the ever receding past and 
 arrest attention to themselves, though the times in which they lived 
 were full of many stirring historical events. They exerted a 
 formative influence on events slowly accumulating towards future 
 fruition. 
 
 The future that stretched out before them is now our present, 
 and that present is all the richer for the great exemplars set up 
 in the midst of the Christian Church even as beacons on a 
 hill. The grave holds them and conceals them from view, but their 
 influence is deathless and is even now felt by us who cannot but 
 be exalted by contemplating the grand Christian lives they lived 
 and the splendid work they achieved. Now let us dwell for a little 
 
4 
 
 on the present that is ours, and examine our condition a little so as 
 to discover what of profit we may derive from the models that have 
 been bequeathed to us. It will strike us at once when doing so 
 that the conditions of life are considerably changed. The old foot- 
 path of life may be truly said to be converted into a rail-road. 
 We are not moving, but whirling. Many of the results follow- 
 ing this change are not altogether healthy. It produces a dis- 
 sipation of forces inimical to concentration, and as in the case of 
 railway travelling, which produces the optical illusion of fancying 
 stationary objects in motion and fancying movement in a direction 
 opposite to that in which the traveller is actually proceeding, the 
 incessant mental agitation of the times sets up delusive unreali- 
 ties, and if we do not take excellent care to shake ourselves free 
 of the spell, we shall make a terrible mess. For instance, we have 
 everywhere written up in large characters the word Progress with 
 a capital P. It cannot be denied that there is much of it observable. 
 Nevertheless we cannot be quite sure that we are all tending to a 
 perfectly safe and desirable goal. The Indian Christian commu- 
 nity, like other communities, feels the impact of the tide and needs 
 therefore careful steering to avoid the reefs and shoals to be met 
 with in the onward way. A latitude in thought is noticeable 
 everywhere about us ; men would be now esteemed broad, liberal 
 and tolerant; excellent virtues these, but when it comes to a 
 stepping over the old lines we quickly find ourselves quitting the 
 domain of these virtues for an unknown region beset with new 
 perils we know not of. 
 
 In our social life, in our -religious life, these perils are to be 
 found ; in the one is to be found, because of our contact with the 
 West, a tendency to imitate, too much, all the forms of Western life, 
 and in the other we are growing so tolerant and so liberal that reli- 
 gious zeal is apt to be well-nigh strangled out of existence. As an 
 Oriental people we are under no necessity, however much we might 
 address ourselves to taking lessons from Western Society, to com- 
 pletely assimilate our social life to that of the West, and in our reli- 
 gious, however much we may feel disposed to tolerate differences in 
 opinion, we are under no obligation to subordinate Christianity to 
 the conflict of the creeds which now surround it as its rivals and are 
 becoming every day more militant and aggressive. In talking to 
 you, dear Christian brethren, of social change, I am aware that I 
 
5 
 
 tread upon most delicate ground, as it is obviously difficult to defin- 
 itely decide what to select and what to reject. There is absolute- 
 ly no standard of selection, no line of limitation ; and it there- 
 fore requires an almost instinctive and rare discrimination to 
 decide wisely, fittingly and adequately. Something must be 
 allowed for the enhanced capacity of our community and some- 
 thing must be allowed for that desire to surround oneself with the 
 refinements of civilised life. The standard, as it is called, of comfort 
 of life cannot but be raised by our modern environments, but it is 
 our duty to steer clear of those luxuries which a recent discrimi- 
 nating writer in the English Spectator brands with the hard word 
 ' immoral ' by which term he means habits and practices which 
 have a tendency to produce moral enervation. 
 
 Nobody realises more strongly than I do how hard it is to be 
 in the world and yet not of the world, not only in matters touching 
 our higher duties, but also those lesser matters of which, in the 
 main, our life here consists. It is impossible for us to follow the 
 life of an ascetic. We are led by circumstances to mix in the 
 busy world of every-day life ; we are constantly in touch with 
 temptations, great and small ; we are obliged to subscribe to 
 some extent to prevailing usage and fashion, if we would escape 
 the ascription to us of singularity or eccentricity. It requires a 
 brave resolute Christian soul to face this host of little persecutions 
 set in battle array against us, but the very arduousness of the 
 struggle should brace us up to carry it through to a successful 
 issue. I cannot prescribe for every individual case which is 
 marked by its own peculiar features. Who can tell the peculiar sur- 
 roundings of each individual life with which we come in contact ? It 
 is therefore with humility that I undertake the role of an humble ad- 
 viser. I will not, for I cannot, deny that the pleasures of life are 
 given us to be enjoyed, but I declare it to be an absolute necessity 
 that that enjoyment should be indulged in with moderation and 
 judgment. He alone is wise who knows how to enjoy with discrimi- 
 nation. Indeed, I must say that this is the cardinal aim of the 
 highest morality which does not pledge us, as some seem to think, to 
 total abstention except, of course, in cases where enjoyment trenches 
 upon sin. We have all heard of the phrase — harmless pleasures — 
 but the difficulty with most is to justly discriminate between the 
 harmless and the harmful. What, one would ask, is wrong in 
 
 i 
 
6 
 
 indulging in the vanity of dress ? What, another would ask, is the 
 ha fm in moderately tasting wine ? What, again a third would ask, 
 is the mischief that would come from the giddy delights of a ball- 
 room or the pleasurable excitement of the stage ? These and 
 other kindred questions lead us into the wide domain of contro- 
 versy, and as it is not my intention just now to occupy this province, 
 I would limit my reply to this, that whatever interferes with our 
 spiritual life is, on that ground alone, to be avoided. Indeed, this 
 is the Apostolic idea which goes further still, declaring that such 
 avoidance is imperative, not only on our own account, but on account 
 of our weaker brethren to whom our self-indulgence, even in things 
 not directly baneful to ourselves, may be the cause of stumbling. 
 If every Indian Christian would hold himself bound to be an exem- 
 plar in things of good report to the rest of his brethren, we should 
 soon reach a truly ideal state of society which depends for the 
 sum of its perfection, on the individual contribution of its members. 
 It is only a too common way of thinking to hold that what we do 
 begins and ends with ourselves, but let us remember that the 
 deeds of men have such a subtle inter-relation that they act 
 and re-act upon one another. It is in this way we arrive at social 
 standards which are after all the total of collective experience of 
 what is best suited for the well-being of an entire body. It is 
 therefore an obligation laid upon every individual Christian to 
 contribute to the maintenance of this standard ; and this he can do 
 in various ways. Now I hold that the losing sight of this essential 
 truth contributes, not a little, to the weakening of what is called the 
 unwritten law. Each one of us is too apt to go on his way unmind- 
 ful that every step taken by him leads, if taken aright, not only to 
 personal perfection but to strengthen, in the shape of example, 
 those who are treading the same path with him. The whole of the 
 idea which I wish to convey is most beautifully and forcibly set 
 forth in one of the Epistles of the Apostle Paul which enjoins us to 
 emulate one another in good works. The latitude of our times is 
 apt to produce a general break-up of the uniformity of law as there 
 is a tendency in each individual to become a law unto himself. 
 Almost in every department of thought in which principles are 
 supposed to have grown hard in the mould, we find a fusing pro- 
 cess now going on as the result of the incessant friction of con- 
 troversy. We frequently hear of different and conflicting schools 
 
7 
 
 of thought in one and the same church. The effect of this on indi- 
 viduals is apparent on all sides; and if we do not take good care 
 its collective results will prove most disastrous. 
 
 We, Indian Christians, have to be particularly careful of our 
 in-comings and out-goings during the present times of transition in 
 which the East and the West meet to learn of one another, for of a 
 truth the East is not altogether unable to convey lessons to the 
 West which is usually supposed to be the receptacle of all 
 wisdom. In frugality, in quietude, and in moderation the life of 
 the East contrasts favourably with the life of the West where 
 all is marked by a feverish haste which, in many ways, is de- 
 structive to spiritual life. When saying this, I do not depreciate 
 the virtues that flourish in Western soil. What I would guard 
 you against is a too servile imitation of some models whose 
 abnormal aspects sufficiently indicate that they have their root, not 
 in that Christianity which has wrought so many wonders of a 
 moral and spiritual character, but in the diseased conditions of 
 the terrible and unavoidable rush of the life lived by men who 
 have hardly time left them to winnow the multitude of new 
 thoughts that arise so as to separate the wheat from the chaff. 
 Read your modern books and your modern news-papers, and you 
 cannot but be struck with the anarchic chaos of thought therein 
 to be observed. Against this, a recent book raises a warning 
 finger, but, alas ! it is difficult to decide how all this confusion is to 
 be ultimately reduced to order. However, we should not despair. 
 We should not be heard exclaiming, weary of the toil and the 
 moil, ' who is sufficient for these things/ for we live in the sure 
 and certain hope that there is a profound design at work tending 
 to evolve good out of this seething mass of evil. 
 
 But to come now more immediately to our community, I do not 
 believe that there is another body in this country so peculiarly placed 
 as ourselves. On the one hand, we have gone away from our Hindu 
 brethren, and on the other, we have drawn nigh to, indeed, we 
 have merged ourselves in Christian society. Thus we hate critics 
 standing on this side and on that. The Hindus mark us to see if 
 our change of faith and profession has been productive of good; and 
 the Christian people, crediting us with being under the entire influ- 
 ence of the living faith we have embraced, expect us to bear fruit 
 worthy of our profession. Both at times are hard censors and on 
 
s 
 
 this account it behoves us to be ever on our guard against providing 
 occasion for adverse strictures. I would not however urge upon you 
 the maintenance of that standard to which I have referred simply 
 because our falling away from it may expose us to the slings and 
 arrows of our critics. No ! that, in truth, would be a motive lying 
 at a very low level. Our entire conduct should be governed by an 
 infinitely higher incentive — the teaching and standard of our 
 Great Master Himself within whose great mission is embraced the 
 setting out of an ideal, the attainment of which will raise humanity 
 from the low-lying deeps which are found in the unregenerate 
 world. One who follows the precepts of our blessed Saviour — and 
 who is there who would not if only he knew their excellence — • 
 cannot possibly miss the way to the goal of our being — the perfec- 
 tion of our nature. No undue burden is laid upon humanity ; we 
 have His own assurance that His yoke is easy and what is more 
 comforting still, that He is ever ready to endow us with abundant 
 strength to bear it. Christ is near me — that should be the thought 
 ever present in our minds j near to cheer our drooping spirits; near 
 to animate our failing courage ; near to revive our fading strength 
 with His own infinite power. I am afraid that many of our failures 
 are due to our not adequately realising the nearness of Jesus Christ 
 whose promises are ever faithful and ever sure. Many of us, I 
 regret to have to affirm it, would live our lives with, so to speak, 
 Christ out of them, which must result in sad and terrible failure. 
 Christianity is reduced to mere lip-service, as it needs must, when 
 lacking the vitalising influence of Him who declared Himself to be 
 the way, the truth and the life. Missing this aim, we are like 
 vessels without a chart or compass, tossed amid the surging breakers 
 of some stormy sea. We are in truth like those disciples over- 
 taken by the tempest in the sea of Galilee. When we let our Saviour 
 sleep, so to speak, the waves prevail and our souls are full of terrible 
 apprehensions. Let us wake the slumbering Master and then one 
 word from Him, commanding the war of the elements to cease, 
 straightway restores the peaceful calm so different from the raging 
 tempest that succeeded it. It is saddening to think how many of us 
 miss the way, though in touch with the Pilot, ever willing to guide 
 us to a safe haven. In all things, my dear Christian friends, let 
 us not shut the portals of our mind against the conviction that we 
 have a Friend near, ready to aid us in our greatest extremity. This 
 
9 
 
 thought must energise us in every position of life in which we may 
 be placed and when it pervades the entire community, difficulties 
 will vanish as the mist of the morning, and there will grow up a 
 power capable of achieving undreamt-of results. As I have said, 
 we live in a time of transition ; we stand midway between two com- 
 munities, and circumstances force upon us an election to which 
 we have every reason to give good heed. We are caught in the 
 whirl of civilisation that urges us along as resistlessly as a torrent 
 hurries forward the floating debris on the surface. We must at once 
 determine then the ultimate form our Christian community is to 
 take and every one of us can more or less influence that deter- 
 mination. And every one of us who neglects to exercise that 
 influence betrays the trust reposed in him. Is it not possible to 
 evolve out of the existing state of things a model that shall avoid 
 the falsehood of extremes — the extreme of the West on one hand 
 and the extreme of the Bast on the other ? I believe it is. You 
 cannot attain to it without honesty of purpose, deep convictions, 
 and strenuous struggles. 
 
 In our hands is placed the lever of education, but much 
 depends upon how we use it. Perhaps there is no word, the 
 true significance of which is so little understood as this. To 
 most it means the highest cultivation of our intellectual faculties 
 till we bring within our grasp the wide domain of human know- 
 ledge. And as to its practical effects we look for what is commonly 
 known as progress which very often means the advancement of our 
 interest from a mere secular point of view. To that progress we 
 are not strangers; indeed, next to our Brahmin neighbours we 
 stand high in the educational and emolumental category. In 
 respect of the enlightenment of our women, we are even more 
 advanced than most of the communities now feeling the impelling 
 power of the rising tide. Truly, we have much to be proud of 
 and much to be thankful for. But do we and our women possess 
 the true regenerative power — the philosopher's stone whose touch 
 transforms dross to gold? Have we attained to charity, love, 
 union, self-restraint and all those cardinal virtues without which 
 our profession of Christianity would be a sounding brass and a 
 tinkling- cymbal, a delusion and a snare ? We see the siren 
 (luxury beckoning us on, and not a few falling a prey to her 
 wiles. The common talk is heard of the raising of the standard 
 
10 
 
 of living which, I say, is both a necessity and a thing very desir- 
 able, if we only hedge it round with reasonable limitations. In 
 the rush to attain it we land in extravagance, than which per- 
 haps there is nothing more baneful to any society. Our lives 
 in fact are becoming dangerously artificialised and we would do 
 well, while giving reins to our legitimate desires, to check this mis- 
 chievous propensity. Here is a matter in which each individual 
 Christian can do something by prescribing for himself or herself a 
 mode of living which shall be satisfying without overstepping the 
 bounds of that moderation enjoined by the commonest prudence 
 and the highest religion as well. I fully recognise how much 
 easier it is to declaim than to reduce the details of wisdom to 
 practice ; but not on that account would I deny for a single instant 
 the imperativeness of the obligation laid upon us to counteract the 
 adverse influences at work. Luxury is a deadly foe to the true 
 spirit of our faith, enervating the spiritual within us and danger- 
 ously relaxing our moral fibre. There can be, no climbing the 
 heights when the nerves are relaxed and muscles flaccid. Our 
 whole spiritual system needs bracing up and nothing so effectually 
 does this than the tonic of self-restraint. Show me the presence of 
 luxury and there I at once recognise the beginnings of a general 
 breaking up of all that we call good in men. It breeds numberless 
 vices which, like the canker worm eating into the bud of some 
 beautiful flower or the heart of some luscious fruit, is a sure har- 
 binger of decay. Under its blighting influence goodness withers like 
 grass on the house-top. It leads slowly on to general deterioration. 
 A community under its spell cannot be equal to great attainments. 
 
 Our aim should be perfect manhood and perfect womanhood. 
 I grant you that we cannot attain to this without deep-based 
 convictions and arduous endeavours. But what after all is this 
 perfect manhood and womanhood ? I will say that it is the sum of 
 all attainable Christian excellences. Strive then, without ceasing, 
 to attain to the perfect union of hearts which must result in the 
 perfect union of aims. Put away from you the petty strifes and 
 bickerings of sectarian differences that serve so much to embitter 
 the Christian life and expose it to the sneers of adverse spectators. 
 Gather up all the existing Christian forces to be found, and unite 
 them all into one great impelling motor force instead of frittering 
 them away in a hundred different directions which land us in dis- 
 
11 
 
 union and disappointment. Be not too assertive in non-essentials, 
 for remember that well-balanced compromise goes a long way 
 towards solving most difficulties. We cannot afford to be divided 
 when the enemy is strong and united. How can we expect to wage 
 a successful war against the enemy when our own counsels are rent 
 with dissensions ? Let us recognise to the full that we are here not 
 only to justify our claims to be Christians, but also to recommend our 
 Christianity to others. It is said, and must be admitted to be true, 
 that converts to Christ are less numerous now than in the old time. 
 Surely for this there must be a cause. Well, I frankly admit at 
 the threshold that the art of criticism is more developed now and 
 has more weapons in its armoury ; but this alone does not fully 
 explain the phenomenon. May it not be that we, Indian Chris- 
 tians, by our own neglect, are retarding the progress of Chris- 
 tianity ? That there is with us too great a contradiction between 
 precept and practice, which is a cause of stumbling to those 
 to whom our appeals are addressed, I fear, must be admitted • and I 
 most earnestly appeal in the name of Christ to every one present 
 to remove this lion in the path by remembering that the sermon 
 of a life is more persuasive than the most eloquent discourse ever 
 delivered from a pulpit. I pray we should live our Christianity, 
 so that others noting the power of Christ within us and the 
 blessed results flowing from it may be willing to come under its 
 beneficent influence. Every evil liver among us, whatever the 
 degree or kind of his or her shortcomings, puts the Cross of 
 Christ to open shame in this country. It is truly an awful thing to 
 think of. We, in the enjoyment of light, are bound to convey that 
 light to others ; we who drink of the stream of living truth should 
 lay ourselves out tirelessly to induce others to avail themselves of 
 its life-giving waters. Each one of us should, even as our Master 
 when seated by the well in Samaria, make it his or her duty to tell 
 those who do not enjoy it of the existence of that water of which 
 whoever partaketh can never thirst again. 
 
 The future of India rests, I would say without arrogance, in 
 the hands of our community ; we can make or mar it, if we will ; 
 we can bring India to Christ or repel it from Christ. If we do the 
 former, great and glorious will be our reward ; if the latter, un- 
 utterably terrible will be our condemnation. Ours is the privilege 
 to know the mind of the Master, and bad stewards indeed would we 
 
12 
 
 be, should we fail to interpret aright that mind to the multitude. 
 Rid yourselves of the delusion that mere loud and self-exalting 
 work can shake the huge rough-hewn Hinduism with which Chris- 
 tianity has latterly come in hostile contact. We must not only work 
 for Christ in the ordinary acceptance of that word, that is, in a sort 
 of mill-round routine, but we must speak for Christ through our 
 lives. That is the eloquence that Hinduism needs to gain its ear, to 
 win its heart, and bring it captive to the foot of the Cross of 
 Calvary. 
 
 Printed at the M. E. Publishing House, Mount Roac!, Madras -1897.