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 ..BY.. 
 
 Mrs. John Henry Barrows. 
 
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 porei|r\ Missions 
 
 An Evidence of Christianity. 
 
 BY MRS. JOHN HENRY BARROWS. 
 
 This paper was read by Mrs. Barrows at the 
 Annual Union Meeting of the Woman’s Foreign 
 Missionary Boards of Chicago, Y. M. C. A. Au¬ 
 ditorium, Jan. 5, ’98. The subject of the meet¬ 
 ing was Phil. 4 :17, “Gifts as Fruit bearing.” 
 
 W hen Paul the aged, a prisoner in 
 Pome, sent his love-fetter to the 
 church in Philippi, he gave as one reason 
 for the rejoicing which appears in every 
 chapter, the knowledge that the seed, 
 spiritual seed, which he had sowed among 
 them years before, has sprung up and is 
 now bearing fruit. It is a secondary mat¬ 
 ter to him that he himself is the recipient 
 of the fruit, for he hastens to say after 
 each mention of their gifts to him, “Not 
 that I speak in respect to want, for I have 
 
3 
 
 learned in whatsoever state I am, there¬ 
 with to be content/-’ or, “But I have all 
 and abound.” His real reason for joy is 
 that he' has been permitted in his own 
 lifetime to see proofs of their life. As he 
 looks over the parts of Europe and Asia, 
 where he preached, he sees a great gar¬ 
 den; he planted, Apollos and others have 
 watered, he has seen tiny shoots, kind 
 purposes, put forth; he has seen the leaves 
 and buds and blossoms of beautiful Chris¬ 
 tian graces appear; he now receives gifts 
 from them, and realizes that the fruits 
 by which Christians are to be known have 
 been finally produced! 
 
 And Paul would have rejoiced still more 
 could he have looked down the centuries 
 until now, and have seen, not only the 
 life and vigor of the Christian Church as 
 evidenced by its great gifts, but also that 
 these fruits, the unselfish offerings of con¬ 
 secrated hearts, are everywhere accepted 
 as the evidence of the truth of Christian¬ 
 ity which it is impossible to cinsicer. We 
 
4 
 
 in America and Europe may think that 
 the fruits of Christianity, as shown in our 
 civilization, ought to be enough to show 
 to non-Christians the superior life and 
 vigor of our religion. But our civilization 
 has two sides, and it is the “seamy side” 
 which is invariably looked upon by them. 
 They learn from General Booth’s “Dark¬ 
 est London” and Mr. W. T. Stead’s “If 
 Christ Came to Chicago,” and the tele¬ 
 grams in every newspaper, of corruption 
 and iniquity abounding in our great cit¬ 
 ies, and the “fruits” by which Jesus said 
 we were to be known, do not appear to 
 them very desirable. But the “fruits” 
 which they see in the form of gifts to 
 their poor, food for the famished, medi¬ 
 cine and nursing for the plague-smitten, 
 and teaching for the ignorant, are an evi¬ 
 dence of the truth of Christianity abso¬ 
 lutely insurmountable. 
 
 When the missionaries first came to In¬ 
 dia, they were looked upon with con¬ 
 tempt. Their religion was a mushroom 
 
-of yesterday, compared with the Hindu 
 religion, as old as the Ganges and the 
 Himalayas; the Christian religion was 
 considered not only young but also 
 as immoral; for did not Englishmen 
 claim to be Christians; and yet were 
 not the army and civil service in India 
 filled with open wickedness? But grad¬ 
 ually, during these long years of Christian 
 work, it has come to be understood by 
 the more intelligent and honest among 
 them, that all Europeans are not truly 
 Christians, and the fruits of Christianity 
 as evidenced by the truly religious, are 
 making more and more of an impression 
 upon them. Among the native newspa¬ 
 pers are many violent haters of Christian¬ 
 ity, and when the famine broke out last 
 year, and the mission compounds were 
 gradually filled with children, orphaned 
 by starvation, these newspapers cried out 
 that the missionaries, unable to satisfy 
 themselves with the number of converts 
 gained by argument, were trying to make 
 
6 
 
 India Christian by taking possession of 
 the children! Years ago, this would have 
 elicited no reply from the non-Christian 
 press. But I myself read, in a Hindu 
 journal, a denial of this, and a statement 
 that in feeding and caring for the hun¬ 
 gry, the Christians show themselves more 
 full of pity than the maharajahs and the 
 rajahs, who, although their treasuries are 
 filled with silver, neither built shelters 
 for the destitute nor provided them food. 
 And the article contained these words: 
 “If you desire to find the noblest exam¬ 
 ples of true charity, you must not look 
 to Hinduism, but to Christianity.” “The 
 noblest types of character yet evolved by 
 our race are found among many of the 
 Christian missionaries in India.” These 
 quotations from a Hindu newspaper show 
 that gifts, whether of money or of lives, 
 are fruit, and are accepted as such by the 
 non-Christian world. 
 
 But aside from the fact that it is as im¬ 
 possible to cut off a living church from 
 
7 
 
 foreign missionary work as it is to prevent 
 a living tree from producing fruit; and 
 also that the foreign work is an evidence 
 of the truth of Christianity which is felt 
 at home as well as abroad, it is also true 
 that foreign missionary work appeals to 
 the heart of pity as no other work does. 
 As one finishes a visit through the orien¬ 
 tal world, he feels like saying with Paul: 
 “The whole creation groaneth and tra- 
 vaileth together in pain.” 0 the sum of 
 human misery as it appears to one who 
 looks back over a journey around the 
 world! One can only escape from the 
 burden of it by repeating again and again, 
 “The kingdoms of this world shall become 
 the kingdom of our Lord and of His 
 Christ, and he shall reign forever and 
 ever.” 
 
 But besides making one realize the 
 misery and largeness of the non-Christian 
 world, a journey through mission fields 
 gives one a new idea of the universality of 
 the Spirit of Christ through the Christian 
 
8 
 
 world. We gather month after month in 
 our meetings, and consider usually only 
 the work of our own denomination, and 
 its little handful of missionaries. “What 
 are they among so many?” we ask, with 
 heavy hearts. Bnt although the number 
 of Christian missionaries is far too small, 
 yet they are more than many of us real¬ 
 ize. We crossed the great peninsula of 
 Hindustan from west to east and east to 
 west, five times. In Bombay and Ahmed- 
 nagar and Madura we were among the 
 workers of the American Board, wise, 
 faithful, large-minded. In Benares, Ban¬ 
 galore, Salem and Coimbatore, we saw the 
 work of the London Missionary Society, 
 reaching from Hindus of the highest caste 
 and education down to the wretched pa¬ 
 riah ragged-schools; in Calcutta, Darjee¬ 
 ling, Jeypore, Ajmere and Poona, we 
 were with Scotch Presbyterians, pious, 
 earnest and persistent, and in Calcutta, 
 Bombay and Madras, we saw the three 
 great Christian Colleges of India, Wilson 
 
9 
 
 College, Duff College and The Christian 
 College, all in the hands of Scotch Pres¬ 
 byterians. In Lucknow and Cawnpore we 
 came across the work 'of American Meth¬ 
 od ists, which is now being so signally 
 blessed. We attended the conference at 
 Lucknow and came to know Bishop Tho- 
 burn and some of his zealous and conse¬ 
 crated helpers. Bishop Thoburn’s work 
 in the villages of North India is limited 
 only by the number of men he can put 
 into the field, and the number of men he 
 can place is limited only by the funds 
 contributed in America. In Delhi, Am¬ 
 ritsar, Tinnevelly and Palamcotta, we 
 were in the midst of the work of the Es¬ 
 tablished Church of England, Evangel¬ 
 istic, medical and educational, by far the 
 greatest work done in India. In the Tinne¬ 
 velly district alone, they have over a hun¬ 
 dred thousand native Christians, and 
 when my husband was urged to remain 
 here over Sunday and preach, he was told 
 that if he did so he would speak to an au- 
 
10 
 
 clience of 1300 Indian Christians, in one 
 church. Bishop Morley, the head of this 
 diocese, confirmed and welcomed to the 
 Lord’s table between November and Feb¬ 
 ruary of last year, over 2000 Indians. We 
 visited the Arcot Mission, where we were 
 in the midst of the work of the Dutch 
 Reformed Church of America, and also 
 the native state of Indore, where the Can¬ 
 adian Presbyterians are wonderfully suc¬ 
 cessful. In Lahore, the great city of the 
 Lodiana Mission, we were among Ameri¬ 
 can Presbyterians, and in Madras we met 
 representatives of the American Baptist 
 Mission, who have almost repeated the day 
 of Pentecost among the Telugus. 
 
 As I came to realize how great and nu¬ 
 merous and mighty were the forces at 
 work, I felt as Elisha’s helper did when 
 his eyes were opened and he saw the 
 mountain filled with the Lord’s chariots 
 and horsemen. Dear friends, it is true 
 that we are in the midst of a great battle, 
 but we are a part of a great army; it is 
 
11 
 
 true that our campaign is to be a long 
 one, but it is to terminate in no superfi¬ 
 cial victory. Through years of education 
 and training the non-Christian people are 
 to be taught the reasonableness of Chris¬ 
 tianity, through hundreds of examples of 
 Christly living, they are to perceive the 
 superior ethical teachings of Christianity, 
 and in God’s own time, when these long 
 and trying days of preparation are over, 
 an outpouring of the Holy Spirit is to 
 complete the work for which we are now 
 giving and praying. They that be with 
 us are more than they that be with them, 
 and to-day the wisest and most far-sighted 
 among the leaders of the other religions 
 of the world know that the real battle is 
 no longer between Christianity and either 
 Hinduism, Buddhism, or Mohammedan¬ 
 ism, strong and entrenched as all these 
 religions, with their millions of ad-r 
 herents, may appear to a superficial ob¬ 
 server, but between Christianity and ma¬ 
 terialism. The other religions are being 
 
12 
 
 undermined slowly bnt steadily by educa¬ 
 tion and contact with Christianity. 
 
 We have heard for so many years that 
 this is true, that it is a shock to an Am¬ 
 erican Christian to find outwardly the 
 great country of India wholly given up to 
 falsehood and superstition. We visited 
 only large cities, as my husband’s mission 
 was to “educated, English-speaking Hin¬ 
 dus,” and of course only large cities would 
 furnish enough of this class to give him 
 audiences. So we saw only the most 
 civilized and Christianized parts of India. 
 But we saw all the things of which we 
 have heard. I visited Zenanas and talked 
 with Indian ladies, mothers and grand¬ 
 mothers as well as young wives, who had 
 never seen a man outside their own fam¬ 
 ily, who had never left their own house, 
 except when carried in a covered palan¬ 
 quin from their father’s home to their 
 husband’s; pictures and music, art and 
 literature, mountains, forests and riv¬ 
 ers, railway-trains and boats were un- 
 
13 
 
 known to them. I have seen starving 
 people refuse to touch bread that I, unable 
 to bear the sight of their skeleton limbs 
 and wolfish eyes, tried to put into their 
 hands. They were dying of famine, but 
 they would not break their caste. 
 
 I have seen lines of pilgrims bearing on 
 their heads great jars full of water which 
 they were carrying through dust and heat 
 and under the terrible sun, 300 miles 
 from the River Ganges to some other riv¬ 
 er, in order to sanctify its waters. 
 
 I have seen hundreds of women, slighted 
 and unloved wives, prostrating themselves 
 before the hideous image of Kali, black, 
 horrible with protruding tongue, and 
 adorned with a necklace of skulls, praying 
 for sons, sons, that their lives might he 
 endurable. I have seen others patiently 
 walking around and around the serpent 
 stones in Bangalore, and I have prayed as 
 I saw them that the God of love might be 
 revealed to them and might answer the 
 prayers which were in their sad hearts. 
 
14 
 
 I have seen hundreds of little child- 
 wives and scores of little child-widows, 
 many of them learning, thank God, that 
 although they are degraded and scorned 
 here they are loved by One who was Him¬ 
 self “despised and rejected of men.” I 
 have seen Brahmans and pariahs, fakirs 
 and lepers, the worship of cows and mon¬ 
 keys, and long processions of half naked 
 devotees carrying a hideous, nodding idol 
 down to the sea for his annual bath. 
 
 All these things, and many more of 
 which it is impossible to speak, are either 
 practiced or defended by all classes of 
 Hindus. Educated men, graduates of 
 great universities defend and uphold the 
 most disgusting and senseless idolatry, not 
 because they in their hearts believe in 
 Hinduism, but because they sincerely be¬ 
 lieve that if Hinduism is given up, the 
 national life of India will he destroyed. 
 They publicly take part in idolatrous 
 worship and ostentatiously paint their 
 faces with the symbols of Shiva or Vishnu 
 
15 
 
 in order to show their belief in the reli¬ 
 gion of their country. When the prime 
 minister of Jeypore, a man of liberal edu¬ 
 cation, great ability, and the real ruler of 
 Jeypore, called upon us, his conversation 
 was of Shakespeare, of whom he was a 
 life-long student. No one would have 
 suspected from his words during his in¬ 
 terview that he was not a Christian schol¬ 
 ar. And yet, only a few weeks before, he 
 had gone on a long pilgrimage and had 
 washed away his sins in a sacred tank! 
 But the real motive behind that pilgrim¬ 
 age was not religion but patriotism. Hat¬ 
 ing the British and fearing national anni¬ 
 hilation, the educated Hindu is trying to 
 keep the common people loyal to India 
 through loyalty to India’s immemorial 
 religion! 
 
 But although foreigners are usually ei¬ 
 ther feared or hated, or both, the Chris¬ 
 tian missionary is both trusted and loved. 
 On the great steamer from China to San 
 Francisco, on which we returned to Am- 
 
16 
 
 erica, were many important people, Brit¬ 
 ish civil and military officials going, by 
 way of America, home to England to the 
 Queen’s jubilee. Some of these men were 
 famous for their integrity and ability and 
 had labored for years among non-Chris¬ 
 tian peoples, and always I believe to their 
 advantage. But it was not to accompany 
 any of these, but to say farewell to a hum¬ 
 ble Christian missionary, who came to 
 America on the same ship, that forty 
 Chinese men came down to the sea, and 
 with tears and sobs, parted from one who 
 had told them the Saviour’s love. Dear 
 friends, that Christian missionary was our 
 gift to that dark land, and those weeping 
 Christians were our fruit as well as his. 
 And many Christians now among us will 
 look some day with surprise into unknown 
 faces, bright with love to Christ, and will 
 hear with unspeakable joy the words of 
 our Master saying: “Inasmuch as ye did 
 it unto one of the least of these, my 
 brethren, ye did it unto me.” 
 
 Woman's Board of Missions of the Interior, 
 Room 60 S, 59 Dearborn St., Chicago, 111.