This may or may not be Congregationalism; but it illustrates the fact which I am now dwelling upon, viz.: that for the present, both pastor and people are unequal to the severe duties of church discipline. Every month the missionary is confronted with similar situations which reveal to him the necessity of his presence as a superintending pastor and the urgent need of his wisdom to direct the affairs of the church, his firmness to put an end to many impossible situations, and his inspiration to tone up and give backbone to pastors and other agents connected with him. It should not be forgotten that, while the infant community connected with each mission has many admirable traits of piety and of character, it is still the victim of great weakness in matters of purity, of fellowship and of Christian peace. So that if the Church is to be preserved from many intolerable evils and brought into the noble traits of a Christian character which will impress itself upon the non-Christian community there must be firm guidance, stern repression of evil and wise inspiration to good on the part of the native pastoral force under the bracing influence of missionary guidance. To those who are conversant with the condition of the native Church in India there is a supreme conviction that its greatest danger lies in the irregularity of the life of its members and in its want of firm discipline and the preservation of purity rather than in the fewness of accessions from heathenism. Hence the importance of the work of shepherding Christ's feeble flock in that land. The training of suitable native agents for this work is a duty of paramount importance; and the training must be continued through their life by the presence of the missionary to guide, restrain and inspire.



(c) The Educational Department.

In large, well-organized missions, the educational department is now perhaps the most important and all-pervasive. As a mission grows, this department usually develops more rapidly than any other of its organized activities. This work is divided into three classes:



Schools for Non-Christians.

These are especially established with a view to reaching and affecting the non-Christian community. They have developed wonderfully during the last half-century and hold an important place in the economy of missions. They represent the leaven of Christianity in India. They are preeminently an evangelistic agency. They furnish excellent opportunity to present Christ and His Gospel of salvation to a large host of young people under very favorable circumstances. These institutions are of two classes—primary schools in villages and high schools and colleges at centres of influence and culture.

They have been the object of attack from men of narrow missionary sympathy and of limited horizon. These men claim that money expended on such institutions is a waste of mission funds. But they have failed to recognize the significant fact, which I have already mentioned, that these institutions undoubtedly furnish the best opportunity for missionary evangelistic work. And I fearlessly maintain that more conversions take place, and more accessions are made, through these schools than through any other agency, apart from the Christian Church itself. Not a few of the village primary schools become nuclei to Christian congregations, which flourish and develop into Christian churches. And through the higher institutions some of the best and strongest members of the Christian community have been won from Hinduism. All this, apart from the fact that these institutions perform an unspeakably important function in the dissemination of light throughout the whole Hindu community and in the leavening of the whole mass of Hindu thought and institutions. The good done by this class of institutions is beyond computation in that land.



Schools for Christian Children.

It is the worthy ambition of every mission and missionary to train the children of the Christians so that they may rise, not only in intelligence, but also in social life and position. Under this class of schools the native Christian community is being rapidly developed and educated, so that it is already in advance of any other community in general literacy.

Among these schools for Christians are industrial institutions for the training of boys and girls in manual labour. At the present time there seems to be a growing tendency to magnify this department of work. These schools are given to training in carpentry, blacksmithing, weaving, brass-work, rattan-work, etc. The Germans have entered more fully into this effort than any other missions in India. But they are not loud in its praise as a department of mission work. It certainly has both merits and demerits which we shall consider later.

During the last decade a few missionaries have launched out upon a new enterprise in the shape of Peasant Settlements. One object of these is to train the poor and improvident members of the community, especially the socially submerged classes, to habits of thrift, economy and independence. It is also conducted as a philanthropy for the purpose of raising the people socially and industrially through new methods and forms of agriculture. This movement is still in its infancy.



Training Institutions for Mission Agents.

It is the duty of every mission to train for itself an efficient class of men and women who shall conduct all the departments of missionary work and gradually relieve the missionary of many of his duties. These schools are of many kinds corresponding with the various classes of agencies required.

This may be illustrated by the institutions now found in the Madura Mission. Nearly every one of the twelve out-stations of that mission has a boarding school for Christian boys and girls. The best students who graduate from these schools, especially those who are deemed worthy to become future candidates for mission service, go to Pasumalai and to Madura for further, and professional, training. At Pasumalai young men may pass through the High School and even the college department. They are then placed in the normal department, to qualify them as teachers, or in the Theological Seminary, to prepare them as preachers and pastors. So, also, girls are placed in the Madura Girls' High and Training School and are there qualified for one of three grades of teachership. Or they may be placed in the Bible Woman's Training School where they receive a two-years' course of training for work as Bible women.

The only class of agents which is not trained by the Madura Mission is that of medical assistants. I trust that the mission's desire for funds to establish this work also may be gratified and that thus we may have the means of training suitable agents for every department of our missionary work. No mission can be complete unless it has some means of furnishing itself with an efficient agency to conduct all departments of its activity.

The only danger connected with the excellent educational department of work is, lest it should outgrow and overshadow all other departments. This danger is at present manifesting itself in some missions. It is an attractive form of work which allures the missionary; and, for several reasons, he yields to the temptation of emphasizing it out of proportion to its relative value and gives more time and money to it than a wise place in mission economy demands. The ideal arrangement for a mission would seem to be to keep well in front its evangelistic and pastoral endeavour, and to utilize all forms of educational work with a view to strengthening and furthering these. It is true that certain missions, like certain individuals, have a special genius or talent of their own; and their highest success will depend upon their following that bent. For instance, the Free Church of Scotland, in South India, has shown eminent ability and taste in the work of education. It has met with distinguished success in that line of effort, and its college for boys and high schools for girls in Madras bear testimony to its eminent success in this department. In evangelistic work it has thus far neither shown much interest nor large aptitude. The Wesleyan Methodists, on the other hand, are born evangelists and find their chief success as preachers of the gospel. Each mission should not only consider its field and its claims and needs, it should also study its own corporate gift and bent and then strive to develop its work mainly upon those lines which are most congenial to it.



(d) Literary Work.

The creation and circulation of a healthy Christian literature has always been recognized by our missions as a work of paramount importance. While not many missionaries have devoted themselves exclusively to this work, yet not a little has been accomplished in it by the missions. If not much that is original and brilliant has issued from the missionary pen; and if it stands sadly true that too few have seriously undertaken this work; it is nevertheless a cause of thanksgiving that Christian truth has been extensively expounded and defended by them, and that they have sent forth from the press a continual stream of blessing to all the people.

In India, three strong societies aid the missions by engaging directly in the production and dissemination of Christian literature. These are the Bible Society, the Tract Society and the Christian Literature Society. These institutions have spent large sums of money in the translation, revision and circulation of the Holy Scriptures and in the furnishing of fresh, readable and informing tracts and books in explanation, illustration and defense of Christianity. The far-reaching results of the work of these societies no one can adequately estimate. The need of this department of work is not only great, it is growing annually. Missions feel this keenly and are unwilling to depend entirely upon the above mentioned societies. Each mission of any importance has one, or more, printing establishments with which it can prepare and issue tracts and books of its own, and whereby it may present special truths and teachings which seem to it urgently needed by its people. Through these presses the missions publish also 147 newspapers and magazines for the special use of the Christian people and others. In this way forty-one printing establishments, employing no fewer than 2,000 men, are utilized by the Protestant missions of India in the production of healthy literature for the furtherance of the cause of Christ in that land.

In this department two special classes are kept in view. The growing Christian community must be provided with suitable books in the vernaculars. Books devotional for the mass of Christians, and text-books for the students in our professional schools, and helpful books of instruction for the large body of Christian agents are needed. All these make an increasing demand upon the literary fertility of writers and authors on the mission field.

There is also a growing demand, and an urgent need, for good books adapted to the non-Christian community—such tracts and books as can present to them, in an attractive and convincing way, the special truths and the supreme excellence of our faith. The number is annually increasing, both among native Christians and in the non-Christian community, of those who can read and whose taste for books is growing.

This method of approach to the mind of the people has peculiar advantages of its own. The prejudices connected with Christian instruction, as it proceeds directly from the lips of the teacher or preacher, does not exist in connection with tracts and books. These printed messengers of truth and salvation quietly and effectively do their work in the silent hours of the night and in the secret recesses of the woods or of the solitary chamber. And this message is the more effective because it may be read and pondered more than once, until its truth grips the soul in convicting and saving power.

The power of the printed page, as a Christian messenger in India, is second to none at present; and its influence will multiply mightily as the years increase. Missions and individual missionaries should enter more fully into this work; none needs increasing emphasis more than this; and none has larger hopes of preeminence in the great work of India's redemption. Missionary societies also should devote more men, than in the past, to the creation of a strong Christian literature.

And even where missions are too weak to publish anything of their own and are unable to write books or tracts; there is a wide field of usefulness open to them in a thoroughly systematic and energetic work of distributing the existing literature produced by the great societies. In some missions this work of circulating Scriptures and Christian books has been reduced almost to a science and has become an exceedingly efficient help to the cause in those districts. Other missions have yet to learn the importance and blessing of this activity.



(e) Medical Work.

This department of missionary effort has a wide sphere of usefulness. Though not so urgently necessary now as in former times in India, owing to the ubiquitous and efficient Government Medical Department, it is nevertheless popular and very useful. This is specially so when the whole work and its agency are brought into full subjection to the Christian, as distinct from the purely humanitarian, motive. No other department is more capable of being utilized as an evangelizing agency; and in many missions its influence is thus widely felt. Everywhere its aid to other departments of mission work is much appreciated through its ability to gain friends for our cause among those who would otherwise be inimical; and in preparing the hearts of many to receive spiritual help from the Great Physician. No fewer than forty hospitals, besides many dispensaries, are conducted by Protestant missions in India today. Many of the medical missionaries give their whole time to this work; others conduct the medical as only one of the departments of their missionary activity. To each method there are advantages and disadvantages; though, perhaps, the medical missionary finds greatest usefulness when he gives himself entirely to his profession as physician. But, in that case, he needs tenfold caution lest the distinctively missionary idea of his life-work should be subjected to, or lost in, the professional and the humanitarian spirit.

Medical work for women and children finds in India today perhaps its most urgent call. There is more need and suffering among them than among men.



(f) Work for Women.

From the first, missions have not neglected woman. She has been their care, and her conversion and elevation their ambition. But, in recent times, much has been added to this. Not only have separate and definite forms of work been opened for women; organized work by women in their behalf has suddenly taken high rank and attained considerable popularity among Christian peoples. Under Women's Missionary Societies fully 1,000 ladies have come to India and are giving themselves exclusively to work for their Indian sisters. All forms of effort are undertaken in their behalf. Assisted by an army of thousands of native Bible women, Zenana workers and mistresses, these ladies perform their noble service. Hindu homes are daily and everywhere visited, and the seed of Christian life and truth sown; thousands of non-Christian girls and young women are instructed and initiated into the mysteries of Bible truth and Christian life; and Christian womanhood is being developed, more rapidly indeed than Christian manhood, into a thing of strength and beauty. In the town of Madura alone thirty-one Bible women have access to 1,000 non-Christian homes where Bible instruction is gladly received. Another staff of twenty-one Christian workers instructs daily, in five schools, 500 Hindu and Mohammedan girls. Also a High and Training school for Christian girls, with 256 pupils; and a Bible woman's training school, with seventeen students, complete this organized work for women in that town. From it, as a centre, seventeen other women visit and work in seventy-two different villages and instruct 1,005 pupils. No work at present is more important or finds more encouragement than this organized activity for women.







(g) Work for the Young.

Ours is preeminently the age of youth—the time when the importance of work for the young is fully appreciated, and when manifold activities are put forth by the Christian Church in their behalf. During recent years such activity has been extensively introduced into mission fields. In India at present, Y. M. C. A., Y. W. C. A., Y. P. S. C. E., Epworth League, Sunday-school Union and a host of other less-known organizations for the young have established themselves and are working with much enthusiasm. In former years little was done for the young of the infant Christian communities. The old Oriental idea that young people are of no account, and that effort in their behalf is hardly worth while, obtained in India until recent years. The consequence was that the children of Christian congregations were neglected and allowed to absent themselves from Christian services and to grow up in ignorance and heathenish darkness. As a result of this many of these boys and girls, when they grew up into manhood and womanhood, reverted to heathenism; and many flourishing Christian congregations of the last generation became defunct. It is now understood, with increasing distinctness, that the permanent success and growth of a Christian congregation, as of the whole Christian community, depends more upon the effort which is exercised in behalf of the young than upon any amount of labour lavished upon those of maturer years. Hence, more activity, of an organized type, is being wisely put forth in behalf of the children and of young people. The more plastic, responsive, tenacious mind of the young takes in more readily, appreciates more keenly and clings with more persistence to religious instruction and inspiration imparted to it than does that of the older members of the community. The Christian worker thus finds earlier and greater fruit to his labour among the young than among the old. Any enthusiasm imparted by him to the young people is also, sooner or later, apt to be carried by them to the older members of the congregation or church. The hope of the Church in India lies in the young people; and that missionary, or native agent, who can best organize the young into useful forms of outgoing Christian activity, will do most for the Church of the present and future. And, while so excellent an agency as the Christian Endeavor Society is available for use in this line of work, the missionary need not be discouraged, but may feel confident that he has within his power an organization rich in promise of blessing to his whole community.



(h) Organizations for the Special Activities of the Native Christian Community.

Every mission should encourage all forms of wise and necessary organization for the furtherance of the highest life of the community itself. And this chiefly with a view to developing self-dependence in the community. These organizations will be naturally divided into two classes.

Those Which Promote Self-Government.

The Christian Church in the mission field should be organized ecclesiastically and administratively in such a way that it may ultimately, and as speedily as may seem wise, become entirely self-governing. Every mission should aim to so teach the people that they may control and conduct successfully their own affairs. It should establish a Church which sends its roots deep into the soil of the land and which will become, in the highest sense, indigenous. One of the necessary evils of missionary life is the early Western control and guidance of everything. I should like to see the day, when the native Church can establish that polity which is most congenial to its taste and run its affairs independently and on Oriental lines, in such a way as to win more effectively the people of India to Christ. The question is sometimes asked,—"Must our Congregational missions bind, to our Congregational form of ecclesiastical government, the people whom they bring over from heathenism? Must our church polity, in the mission field, be Congregational, or Presbyterian, etc., regardless of its adaptation, or want of adaptation, to the people?" The affirmative answer has usually been given by all societies (and wrongly I think) to this inquiry; and thus every denomination transplants into heathen lands, with renewed emphasis, not only its own peculiar shibboleths of doctrine; it also exalts to a heavenly command the government and ritual which it represents.

Missions in India are conscientiously endeavouring, with varying degrees of wisdom and success, to lead forward their people in the line of self-government. But both love of power and a conviction of the inability of the infant Church to wisely control its affairs, combine to render this transfer of power from the mission to the native Church a very slow matter—more slow than seems wise to many besides the leaders of the native Church themselves. It is a significant fact, in India today, that the Methodist missions, by their compact organization, are able to, or at any rate do, confer more ecclesiastical and administrative power upon the native Church than any other mission; while Congregational missions—the least organized—are the most backward in this matter. A study for the causes of this would be instructive.

Those Organisations Which Promote Self-Extension.

One of the first things that a mission should do, after gathering the Christian community, is to organize, in the community, such activities as are outreaching and self-extending. In the Madura Mission there has been for many years a Home Missionary Society whose aim is to help support weak churches and also maintain a force of evangelists to preach to non-Christians. It is the society of the native Christians—supported and largely directed by them. It has created, maintained and increased the interest of the people in furthering the cause of Christ.

Many such societies exist in India today and they render valuable service in keeping before the mind of the people the deepest characteristics of our faith and the highest privilege of a Christian community—that of outgoing love, and self-extending enthusiasm.

Those Organisations Which Further Self-Support.

How extensively should the idea of self-support be at present urged upon the native Christian community? This is a question which we will discuss later on. There is no question however but that every mission should so organize its benevolences that the infant Church may, at as early a date as possible, cease to seek support from a foreign land; and that it cultivate at the same time a spirit of self-denial and of self-reliance. The poverty of the people is, and will long remain, a serious barrier to this consummation. But the evil of poverty may be counterbalanced by a careful system whereby the benevolent feelings, generous impulses and the sense of obligation of the people are conserved, strengthened and made fully effective. This matter should not be left to haphazard or to spasmodic appeal. Every Christian, even the poorest, should be so directed and inspired in his benevolence that he may effectively contribute to the worthy object of self-support.

These three desiderata of the native Christian Church—self-support, self-propagation and self-government—are to be desired above all other blessings by the missions and should be sought with a persistence and a well-organized intelligence, which will mean advance and ultimate success. When these three have been attained, missions, with all their expensive machinery, may gladly disband and feel that their end has been accomplished and that they are no longer needed.



Chapter IX.

PRESENT DAY MISSIONARY PROBLEMS.

Every age has its own problems to solve; and so has every department of life. The problems which belong to missionary life, method and work are many. The permanence and future success of the missionary effort of the Church of God depends upon the wise solution of these problems. Nowhere is this more manifest than in India. In that land Christian effort for the conversion of the people has been made for many centuries by numerous nationalities and Christian communities with varying success or want of success. Unwillingness or an inability to thoroughly confront and master the deep problems of the field, the work and the people, with a view to adapting Christianity to them has largely been the cause of the slow progress of our faith in that land. Successive efforts by the Greek, the Syrian, the Romish and the Protestant Churches have not been prolific in marked and permanent results, simply because they have not adequately studied the novel and strange conditions of the land and the best methods of presenting Christ and His truth.

We need in India, today, highest wisdom in order to establish worthy missions, and to conduct them in the right and best way so as to attain results commensurate with the resources of the kingdom and of the great King whose we are and whom we preach.

The missionary problems of today are many.

1. The initial and preliminary question as to the right of the Christian Church to send forth its missionaries, and to establish its missions in heathen lands.

This question is now raised by many. They ask it because they believe in the integrity of the doctrine of evolution. "Why do you not," they say, "leave those non-Christian peoples to work out their own salvation through a natural evolution of their own faiths? Let those old crude religions pass into something higher through the natural process of evolution rather than resort to the cataclysmic method of over-throwing the old and introducing a faith that is entirely foreign. Why not let the process of growth work out its own results even though it takes a long time for it?"

This objection to our work is modern and thoroughgoing. Of course it is equally pronounced against supernaturalism in all its forms and ramifications. It would be futile to reply to this by appealing to the command of our Lord to go and disciple all nations. It is enough to remind this objector that the doctrine of evolution admits that the highest altruism is a part of the evolution process. And if that is so, then the highest Christian altruism must find its noblest exercise in the work of bringing, by Christians to non-Christians, those ideas and that life which they deem the best and of which those outside of Christ stand in urgent need. The highest evolution of our race has been, and ever must be, through that Christian altruism which will not rest until the noblest truth and the fullest life are brought to all the benighted souls of our race. Is not this the last message of evolution to us at this present? And is it not identical with the last commission of our Lord to His followers—to go and disciple the nations? And while it is the function of Christianity to maintain the evolution principle of the survival of the fittest, it does this by indirection—by seizing upon the most unfit and unworthy and making them fit to stand before God and worthy to enjoy the life eternal in all its glory.

Moving a step forward we come to,—

Another problem kindred to the one mentioned—one which concerns the aims and the results which should animate missionary endeavour.

2. What shall a man or a mission entertain as a motive or as an aim to be attained and as results worthy of achievement in missionary work?

This question also is based upon and will cover very largely the character of the work accomplished.

There are two distinct and separate motives and aims impelling Christians, at the present time, to missionary effort. They are, in the main, an emphasis given, respectively, to each of Christ's two final commands to his disciples upon earth.

In the first instance his last commission to his followers to go and make disciples of the nations is taken as the watch-word; and this has always meant thorough, patient, all-inclusive effort for the redemption and elevation of all the races of the earth.

The other class has taken as its watch-word our Lord's last utterance upon earth—"Ye shall be My witnesses." "Witness-bearing" has become to them the expression of the Church's great duty to the world.

There is a great difference between these two classes of aims and motives, and they are associated with two classes of theological thinking. According to the former theory the Kingdom of our Lord, under the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, is to spread in regenerating power and triumphant efficacy until all the nations of the earth shall come under its sway. This is a great and arduous undertaking. The planting of this Kingdom in heathen lands and the discipling of those people until the Church of God shall have become a living and a self-propagating church in all the regions of the earth is a work of ages, worthy of the combined effort of heaven and earth. And this consummation will surely take place. God has promised it; Christ's work involves it; the Holy Spirit came into the world for its realization. They who entertain this belief are Christian optimists. No reverses can daunt them; no opposition can discourage them. They lay broad and deep the foundations of their work and labour patiently but hopefully for the great and final consummation.

Those, on the other hand, who are pessimistic as to the triumph of the Kingdom of Christ under the dispensation of the Spirit, maintain, with exclusive emphasis, the Christian duty of witness-bearing. They claim, in Dr. Pierson's words, that our mission to the heathen world should be one of diffusion and not of concentration; that we should bear witness concerning Christ to the people who know Him not and then pass on to others, rather than remain to expand, to convert, to train and to establish living churches. They maintain that our duty is preeminently to bear witness to Christ, that we have no responsibility for the conversion of the people and for the building up of strong churches.

This claim that it is the duty of the Church to herald the good news of redemption to all men as speedily as possible apart from the expectation that they will accept it: does not commend itself to me either upon Scriptural grounds or upon grounds of reason.

The idea of preaching the gospel to the heathen "for a witness," in the ordinary acceptance of that term, does not constitute a worthy Christian motive. Dr. W. N. Clark well analyzes this thought in the following words, (page 53, in "Study of Christian Missions"),—"At the outset, there is one motive, often, though not necessarily, associated with the theory of heralding, that must be rejected as no Christian motive. It is often held that in this rapid work the gospel is not to be preached mainly in order that it may be believed unto salvation, but rather 'for a witness,'—which is taken to mean 'for a witness against,' the hearers when they meet the judgment of God. The hearing of the gospel marks a turning-point, both in experience and destiny. When once men have heard the gospel, they will be saved if they believe, and justly condemned if they do not. Only a few will be saved by the missionary preaching; the elect will be gathered out of the mass, and the many will remain indifferent. But the blame of their ruin will be upon themselves, not upon God or the Christian people; and it is to insure this result that the gospel is preached to them for a witness. But this is no Christian truth. Such teaching cannot truly represent the motive of God the Saviour. We must maintain that God acts in good faith in the offers of His grace, or Christianity becomes a delusion. We must preserve our own good faith also in conveying the offer of grace, or our hearers will rise in the judgment to condemn us. No allowance should be made for any such unchristian motive in our plans for Christian missions, and we must hold no theory of missions that implies it."

Moreover the view is thoroughly pessimistic, so far as this dispensation is concerned, and fails to realize the power and the glory of Christian truth and of the kingdom of Christ as inspired by the Holy Spirit. A theory of missions which is pessimistic at the core can hardly be a safe or an inspiring one.

It should be remembered also that missions are not an end in themselves. They should aim at making themselves unnecessary by the establishing of vigorous churches which shall become self-extending and indigenous in all the lands of the earth. The hope of missions, and the hope of the world through missions, lies not, ultimately, in the missions, but in the churches which they establish. Therefore they should be well established and patiently developed. The Church of God must take up its missionary work with a full appreciation of its supreme greatness and difficulty. Let it not be supposed that it is called simply to "bear witness." This heralding of the gospel of Christ, is only a part, and indeed a small part, of the great duty of the Church to the world. It is also specifically, and with greater urgency, called upon to disciple the nations—to bring them into full possession of saving truth and into joyful acceptance of, and life in, Christ.

Let us not delude ourselves with the idea that this work is easy, that we can pass over it lightly or that we have no responsibility for the conversion of the world. As I have preached for the first time to a heathen village I have felt that my obligation to its inhabitants for their salvation was thereby increased rather than fulfilled. There is no doubt that Christian missionaries realize today as never before the greatness of the task set before God's people to disciple the nations. The obstacles to it and the conflict which it involves seem greater than ever. The romance of missions has largely given way to sober work and the rush of battle has been succeeded by a great siege. This is preeminently the condition in India today. Let us not forget this in our missionary enterprise lest we lose courage by the way. But let us also remember that it is God's work. He is pledged to bring it to its ultimate triumph, and He will do it. He will fulfill His promise and give to His Son the heathen for His inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession.

This theory of missionary work is the only one that has produced, and can maintain, all the present organized activity of the missionary Church. The aim of the manifold activities and various departments of missionary effort, as witnessed in India today, can be nothing less than the ultimate conquest of that land for Christ through the establishment of a living, an ever-growing and self-extending Indian Church there.

Let us now consider some of the problems which specially exist in India.

3. THE CASTE PROBLEM.

The caste problem has been, and continues to be, the most troublesome and obtrusive among all the questions which confront missions in that land. It is a more serious problem—more pervasive and intense—in Southern than in Northern India.

This is radically different from social problems in all other lands, in that it traces its source to, and gathers its authority from, religion. It enforces all that it sanctions by the most compact and relentless religious system the world has known. It maintains that men have been created into a great number of castes or classes from none of which can they, by any possibility, pass into another. In whatever social stratum a man is born there must he live and die. It is impious for him to attempt to evade or to violate this heavenly classification. His interests and all his rights are confined to that one caste of his birth. It is sin for him to marry out of it or, in any way, to transgress his natal compact with it. Neither added wealth, growing culture, a new ambition, nor anything else can enable him to change his caste. All the forces of religion are directed, like a mighty engine of tyranny, to bind him to it.

This sentiment of caste, after millenniums of teaching, of rigid observance and custom, has become even more than second nature to the Hindu,—it has grown into a sweet necessity of his life, from whose claims and demands he neither expects nor desires relief. To the ordinary Hindu a change of caste would be as unexpected, yea as impossible, as his sudden change into the lower brute, or into the higher angelic, kingdom.

When Christianity was first established in India the problem of the adoption or the rejection of caste by the Christian church had to be faced. It was rejected by the earliest Christian community in India; for we find no traces of it in the Syrian church on the coast of Malabar today. Even caste titles, that dearest remnant of that system to all other native Christians in India, have entirely disappeared from that community. It is a great pity that the history of that victory over caste has not been preserved as a lesson and a heritage to later Christians.

The Romish Church, which next invaded India, unfortunately despised the Syrian community, sought no instruction from its history, made a friend of the caste system and adopted it in all its hideousness. It did not wait to consider the terrible fact, so patent to all at present, that Hinduism and caste are convertible terms—that one cannot cease to be a Hindu who maintains the caste system in its integrity. Its intention was, no doubt, good in its way. It was an effort to make an easy way out of Hinduism into Christianity and thus to swell the tide of incoming converts. But, unfortunately, the path was made too easy; the narrow gate was sufficiently enlarged for the Hindu to enter with his burden of heathen prejudices and superstitions, and it soon became the highway of insincerity and hypocrisy. Moreover, the Romish Church has found, to its cost, that an easy way from Hinduism to Christianity is an equally easy path to return. A man who carried much of his Hinduism with him into the Christian Church was easily drawn back by the remaining old ties and affections. The consequence is that, while Romanism has made large inroads upon Hinduism in some places, it has only been for a time; and the back-sliders have been as numerous as the new converts; so that Roman Catholicism has made little net progress in India for many years.

This alliance which Christianity made, four centuries ago, with caste was, thus, a fatal one. It gave also a clue to the earliest Protestant missionaries—a clue which they, in a weak moment, decided to follow. For, the first Danish missionaries also made a sad compromise with this monster evil. I presume that this may be regarded as a continental failing of that day, when in Europe class differences were great and almost insurmountable. Human rights and individual liberty were not held so sacred, or so scrupulously defended, in Europe in those days as they are in Anglo-Saxon countries today. Otherwise any alliance by the Church with the caste system would have been an impossibility in India. Even today some Protestant missionaries from the European continent are found in India who defend the adoption of the caste system by the Christian Church. How different would have been the attitude of the Protestant Church towards this heathenish institution had men of the Anglo-Saxon type of today rather than Continentals of two centuries ago started its work in South India! In any case, the attitude of compromise assumed towards the caste system in those early days has led to interminable evil and to constant trouble in the Christian Church in that land.

After caste had first found admission as a friend and then was discovered to be an uncompromising enemy to Christian life and principles, much effort was made to expel it. Nearly all Protestant missions now denounce it, root and branch, and preach against it, and in various ways try to check and to cast it out. But with no great success thus far. The false step taken at the beginning has cost the Church terribly. Today in South India more than nine-tenths of all Protestant native Christians, while they seek an alliance only among Christians, nevertheless marry not on lines of Christian affinity so much as on Hindu caste lines. It is not often that we find a man among common Christians who has courage and sense enough to seek a match for son or daughter outside of the limits of that caste to which he and his people belonged in Hinduism. This custom is found not only extremely inconvenient and troublesome to them; worst of all, it perpetuates, in the Christian fold, the old heathen lines of cleavage. And thus life in the Christian community is still running somewhat in the old channels of Hinduism and largely preserves those social distinctions of the past which should have been buried with them at baptism and forever abandoned.

Under these circumstances what should missions do? What should be their attitude towards caste spirit and customs? Through former misapprehension and neglect the evil is in the Christian Church and exercises a potent influence. How shall it be overcome or expelled? Some believe in the laissez faire method. They maintain that, if left to itself for a time, it will die out, or the general spirit of Christianity will naturally drive it out. The spirit of caste is not exorcised in that way. So long as it is perpetuated by marriage affinity, the source of the whole evil, and by habits of eating together on caste lines, it will not diminish very much or cease to torment the Church. A century of such waiting, in some missions that I have known, finds the evil not much diminished. It is only in those missions where it is attacked and constantly denounced and its terrible evils exposed, that progress is evident.

That which can do speedy and sure work, in the destruction of this evil in Christian missions is inter-caste marriage. And through this I am glad to see that increasing good is wrought. Missions should in every way encourage and put a premium upon marriages among their members from different castes. They should teach frequently and emphatically that membership in different castes does not constitute a prohibited marriage relationship; but rather does it furnish the best ground for marriage. In this way, and in this way only, will this wretched caste feeling speedily die a natural death and Christians come to marry, eat, sympathize, love and live on Christian, rather than on Hindu, lines. A mission which does not improve every opportunity to show its hatred of the caste system and to antagonize it positively and persistently can find no peace; nor will it find any permanent prosperity. Missions are feeling this increasingly and are acting accordingly.

4. SELF-SUPPORT OF MISSIONS.

Every mission seeks, as its ever-present ambition, to attain unto independence from all outside financial aid and a thorough self-support of its own institutions. We await the day, and believe in its no distant coming, when a large number of mission churches will entirely support their own institutions. Indeed there are now many churches, on mission ground, that have grown into self-dependence and that maintain, at their own expense, all those normal forms of work that are connected with Christian activity.

The question is frequently asked,—how far shall missions place before them, as the supreme and immediate aim, the self-support of their separate churches? Among missions and missionaries there are two tendencies in this matter. One class, represented by the Church Missionary Society Mission in Tinnevelly, place all moneys received from their mission churches into one fund, and from this fund they pay the salaries of the pastors and catechists, so far as possible. Bishop Sargent told me that he did not think any church should be allowed to directly support its own pastor lest they consider that thereby they had a right to exercise authority over him! That mission, therefore, and for other reasons also, has relegated the direct question of the self-support of each church into the limbo of the undesirable. In the American Madura Mission, on the other hand, the responsibility is urged upon every individual church to support its own spiritual instructor; and all rules and methods are directed towards emphasizing and enforcing this. Self-support thus becomes, in that mission, its ever-present cry and the growing ambition of its every church and congregation. And the progress of the Church and of the mission is largely measured by this standard.

The self-support of a mission, as such, is a question which is not looked upon with the same urgency, or with the same idea of importance by all missions, or by all missionaries. One party, for instance, would make self-support the supreme end; everything else must be subordinated to it. Nothing should be undertaken, they say, which is not within the means and the desire of the people to support. For instance, they maintain that the salary of all mission agents and the support of mission institutions must be pecuniarily within the means of the Orient and within the limits of its ambitions. I ought to say that no mission, to my knowledge, carries out this principle in its integrity, although there are some missionaries who urge it and proclaim it at all times.

The other party believes that the principal duty and highest privilege of a mission, as such, is not immediately to seek self-support or to pare everything down to the capacity of the people to give; but to push forward the work energetically; with economy indeed, but regardless of expense, knowing that vigour and enterprise and a strenuous Western energy today will be both amply rewarded in results and will also set a pace for the native Church in coming years. They therefore seek the best trained agents regardless of the immediate ability of the people to pay their salary. And they establish schools and hospitals and various other institutions which are altogether beyond the present ability of the Indian Church either to found or to maintain.

We must not forget that self-support, entire self-support, is possible in any mission from the very first day of its organization, if the mission only makes this paramount and has the boldness of its convictions to shape its work according to the offerings of the people. And there are some advantages to that method. Many of the best missionaries have often felt that they would like to try that system in India. Bishop Thoburn, while maintaining that it would be impossible to radically change the method of an old mission, expressed the conviction that it might be well to establish in India a new mission on the basis of complete self-support from the beginning. This, doubtless, was the Pauline method; and it operated well under the then existing circumstances in those lands. And had our missions in the East been established and conducted by the Orient instead of the Occident they would have had adequate patience to pursue the method of self-support ab initio. But as we are of the West, Western, our missions must partake of the characteristics of our nature; and be imbued with that energy, push, impatience for results which distinguish us in everything. I am sure that neither the churches at home nor their missionaries abroad are prepared to limit their efforts by the poverty, slowness and apathy of the East, and thus perhaps delay for years, or generations, the results which, through the expenditure of more money, they possibly might reap today. The method which missions have adopted is the western method, characteristic of our haste and strenuous spirit, and partaking of the evils incident to that spirit and method. It is, on the whole, perhaps the best method that can be used and fully realized by us.

5. MISSION EDUCATIONAL WORK.

In connection with the increasingly important department of mission educational work in India not a few perplexing questions arise. We have seen that this department has conquered for itself general recognition as a legitimate part of missionary effort.

But there is a serious conflict ahead, in the not distant future. And this is in part owing to the attitude of the Government Educational Department and of the local governing bodies towards mission institutions. There is no concealing the fact that most of the English officials of the Educational Department in India deem mission schools the most serious rivals to, and regard missionary educators as quasi enemies of, their departmental schools. These men have recently assumed, and are increasingly assuming, an attitude of jealousy, if not of hostility, to mission institutions, chiefly because of their strength and excellence as rival schools, and partly because of the Bible training which is imparted to all the students of these schools—a training with which those officials have no sympathy and which they are wont to regard as an educational impertinence.

Missions must expect that the jealousy and the antagonism of that department will increase. It is true that the great State Educational Despatch of 1854 and later enunciated government policy, declare that it is not the purpose of the government to establish schools of its own, except where private bodies fail to do so; and that it is its purpose to encourage, so far as possible, private institutions. But the general declaration of the Imperial and Provincial governments is one thing and the purpose and ambition of its Educational Department a very different thing. Departmentalists find it to their interest to strengthen and increase government schools at all points; and as the funds appropriated for educational purposes are inadequate for all schools they seek the lion's share for their own, and grudgingly give an ever decreasing quota to mission institutions. It will be an ill day for missions when the Educational Department and its schools will become sufficiently strong to affect the policy of the general government as against private, and in favour of government schools.

Another fact, of equal significance, is the attitude of District Boards and Municipal Commissioners towards the schools of Mission Bodies. Nearly all the members of Local Boards are native gentlemen. They see the large influence of mission schools, scattered as they are through their districts and towns, and they regard them as Christian propaganda and as evangelizing agencies; and it is but natural that, under the impulse of their new nationalism and of their interest in a Neo-Hinduism, they should be jealous of mission schools which are the rivals of their own indigenous and growing institutions. And as they have the power of the purse and make and withhold grants to different schools at their pleasure; and as all the subordinate officers of the Educational Department are natives and are not in full sympathy with mission schools; it can be easily seen how our schools are doomed to suffer through an ever decreasing government aid towards their support.

Thus, there are two problems, in this connection, which will confront us. One is the question whether it be worth while for missions to conduct their schools entirely at their own expense, i.e.—without any government aid. This problem must be faced ere long; and it means either the curtailing of this department of work or the expending of a very much increased sum of money upon it.

The question may also be urged upon us, more speedily than we anticipate (indeed it has been raised already), whether any schools aided by government shall be allowed to be used as religious propaganda. In other words, whether mission schools shall enjoy the privilege of teaching the Bible to all non-Christian students in attendance, even against their will. This question is exercising the mind of not a few natives and others today; and it is claimed that the present practice is contrary to the Royal Proclamation of Religious Neutrality in the land. There is some reason for this contention; and, under increasing religious rivalry and jealousy, it may, at an early date, lead to a crisis in mission schools. And the problem may confront us as to whether we are prepared to continue all our schools for non-Christians under conditions which make it impossible for us to give Bible, or even any religious, training in them.

Another serious problem, in this same connection, is whether missions should conduct, to any extent, educational work apart from other indirect aims and purposes. In other words, how far, if at all, should a mission give itself to the work of education, per se, and not as a Christian training or as an evangelizing agency.

Many at present maintain that education—general education—is in itself a good and a blessing which it is the business of a mission to impart, independent of any direct religious instruction or spiritual training which might be given through it. They maintain that mission funds should thus be used for the intellectual advancement of the people apart from their Christianization. The majority, however, would claim that a mission's educational work should be conducted only so far as it can be the medium of communicating religious truth, or only in so far as it can be made a direct auxiliary to the Christianizing of the land. This class would claim that no work should be undertaken by a mission which does not contribute to the Christianizing of the people as a result distinct from their progress in civilization. And it is here that these two classes of missionaries take issue with each other. It is an important difference in the conception of the Church's work in heathen lands. As I shall consider this later I only call attention to it here.

Another matter, of no little consequence in this connection, is that of the amount of educational privilege which a mission should furnish to its people. President Stanley Hall has recently maintained that, even in this country, many are educated who should not be. They should, he says, be left to the hoe and shovel. He claims that not a few are, through education, spoiled for usefulness in the lowest sphere of manual labour for which they were by nature designed; while they are also disqualified for the highest sphere of service and life. If this be true in America it is doubly true in India. Many young men and women in that land have had lavished upon them the blessings of education to an extent that was unprofitable both to them and to the cause. They have received an education and training which not only carried them away far outside the social realm for which they were intended by nature; it also left them incapable of doing the higher thing for which they were intended by the mission.

There is adequate excuse for this in the early stages of mission progress. The greatest need of a mission is a good, strong, native agency. And in its desire to furnish this agency the mission, as well as the individual missionary, eagerly seizes upon every boy and girl who shows any signs of promise as an applicant to be trained for missionary service. This same ambition to develop, in intellectual power and in civilizing progress, the young of an infant Christian community so that they may adorn our faith and give an honourable status to the community leads many a mission to expend upon the education of its boys and girls more than it will in its later and more mature stage of growth.

6. THE INDUSTRIAL AND ECONOMIC PROBLEM.

During the last two decades there has been a marked and strong tendency in Indian missions, as in the home churches which support them, to still broaden the scope of missionary effort by adding to its directly spiritual, and to its educational and medical, work, schemes for the industrial, economic and social advancement of the people. This broadening of the conception of the work of the Church in missionary lands is a most interesting study. Less than a century ago nothing that was not directly and intensely spiritual in its character was regarded as, in any sense, a part of missionary effort. To preach the Gospel to the heathen, to establish and to train Christian churches and to develop and direct a suitable native agency—this embraced the whole work of the mission. Anything beyond this was considered illegitimate. Subsequently the medical department was introduced,—chiefly because of the example of Christ Himself as the Great Healer. Soon the educational work was begun, as a necessity in its elementary stages, and it gradually grew until it has reached its present manifold character and large proportions. Then a few missions began to touch the industrial problem and to establish schools for the training of boys and girls in manual labour. Today that work is finding much increased emphasis, and missions are beginning to take up, in all seriousness, Peasant Settlements as a means of lifting the people economically, and of training them to habits of industry, and to found villages as separate Christian communities. Schools for the blind and for deaf mutes also have been established. In fact all forms of philanthropic effort have now practically been adopted by the missions of India as legitimate forms of their activities. Indeed, it is extensively proclaimed, what has long been strenuously denied, that missions are not founded simply to Christianize but to civilize and to elevate in all matters pertaining to soul, mind and body, the people among whom they are established.

This is a broad question and an issue of fundamental importance. It belongs to the very concept of missions and is largely a question of aim and purpose. The trend of the times is doubtless in favour of the broader, humanitarian, philanthropic, civilizing purpose of missions as against the deeper and more exclusive, spiritual and Christianizing end.

It seems to me to be a question whether missions are ready for this change.

It is also a very serious problem whether, in the mission field, this modern tendency to extend and broaden out is of the spirit of Christ and is a passion to do good unto men in every department and sphere of their life; or whether it is a degeneracy—a drifting away from the lofty and exclusive purpose of soul-winning and soul-saving down towards the lower plane of earthly blessing and general philanthropy. There is certainly a sense in which this widening of missionary endeavour is a part of the broadening of the Christian life of today and is in harmony with the multiplication of the agencies of the Church at home for the general betterment of the people and for preparing them for the highest blessings of our faith; and as such it is both commendable and encouraging.

On the other hand I know of no temptation that is pregnant with greater evil to missions, at the present time, than that connected with this multiplication of what may be called the lower activities of missions. The spiritual work of a mission must ever remain its principal work if it is to succeed in the highest sense. It is also the most difficult work. It bears with it, often, serious discouragement to the worker. And in times of discouragement it is a very easy thing for a missionary, and for a mission, to relax effort at this point and, as a compensation, to seek larger results on the lower planes of social and industrial activities and humanitarian and philanthropic effort. These lower forms of activity are exceedingly absorbing and distracting; and when a mission enters extensively into them it usually means, and, I would almost say, necessarily means, a withdrawal of time and energy and of interest from its highest spiritual work. A man or a mission has only a certain amount of strength and money to devote to his work; and if this is increasingly and extensively expended upon the lower forms of philanthropic effort, the higher, spiritual purposes and endeavors must suffer.

The Basle Lutheran Mission of South India has done more industrial work than any other mission of that land. But the industrial department grew so rapidly and became so absorbing that it was found necessary to make a separate "mission" of it. It has flourished as a commercial enterprise and is self-supporting. But the leader of that mission informs me that its blessings are questionable, in that it tends to demoralize the people and renders little or no aid to their spiritual work.

While I believe that a certain amount of endeavour, by a mission, for the temporal good and social betterment of its people is legitimate and desirable, extreme care should be taken, in the present early stage of progress, lest this form of activity become prominent or dominant; and, above all, lest it, in any way, interfere with the conviction concerning the supreme importance and prime urgency of the spiritual training and growth of the people. This class of work can very easily, by changing the people's ideas of a mission's aim and purpose, demoralize them. It can also, with equally fatal facility, transfer the interest of the missionary from the higher to the lower realm of work, and thus become a curse, rather than a blessing, to him. If the work of missions is to be broadened the greatest care must be exercised lest this breadth be secured at the expense of depth of spiritual purpose and power, and height of spiritual life and experience. I must confess that this new movement, in the present stage of the progress of missions, brings to me as much fear as it does hope. For, while I see reason for taking up such work, I know also the demoralizing influences that so naturally and easily follow it. A mission that allows itself to be secularized, by giving too much emphasis to these social and civilizing agencies, becomes inevitably paralyzed as a spiritual force in its field; and woe be to any mission that gains anything at the expense of its spiritual paralysis.

7. MISSION ADMINISTRATION.

The question of administration is an exceedingly important one to every mission. How wisely are our missions organized for large economy of money and effort and for highest efficiency? Could not missions unite, for mutual counsel and wisdom, as many officers of our societies at home now do; could not missions learn more from one another in this most important respect? The annual expenditure of more than one million dollars on mission work in South India alone is in itself a large trust which requires great care and breadth of wisdom. Hitherto not much has been done by the many missions of India to learn from one another the wisest methods of administration. There is remarkable diversity and even contrast among those missions in the methods of conducting their work and in the administration of their affairs. This is, in no small part, due to the different peculiarities of the several nationalities which conduct the missions; it is also in part due to their denominational affinities. But, by growing familiarity with one another's methods and by more appreciative study of the same, much could be learned by these missions which would tend to increasing uniformity of administrative method, efficiency of work and abundance of results.

Another question of perennial interest, in this connection, is that of the extent to which native Christians should be allowed to participate in the administration of the affairs of a mission. The training of some of the highest members of the native Christian community in the responsibility of missionary administration is a serious duty of every mission. The day must come when the whole administration of the Christian work carried on by missions will be in the hands of the native community itself—when missions, as such, shall have accomplished their work and shall be disbanded. What is being done by our missions today to make that consummation possible and desirable at the earliest moment? Most missions maintain that Indians should have nothing to do with the administration of foreign funds. Is this a wise position to take? Is it consonant with the best training of the highest native Christians for future control? In other words, what administrative preparation is being made by the mission for the incoming of an indigenous, self-governing Church?

It is true that Indian Christians will not, for a long time, be able to render much assistance to the missions in this line. But if they are to be, at any future time, capable of undertaking the responsibility of the work they must be trained for it; and this training must be conducted with patience by the mission. If they are now wanting in independence and poise of character and breadth of horizon, these can come to them only through an extended training. And it is the duty of missions to give this training to them.

There is danger that missions cling too tenaciously to their right to rule. Power is sweet to the missionary no less than to other men.

I am glad to say that progress is made by missions in this matter. Slowly but surely the native Christian is entering into their counsels and is finding increasing opportunity and responsibility there.

8. PROBLEMS CONCERNING NEW CONVERTS.

There are many interesting and important questions connected with the reception of new converts into the Christian fold in India. Some of these have a growing interest to the Cause and have found an important place in missionary discussion. I shall refer to only a few of them.

(a) Shall polygamous converts be received into the Christian Church?

In Hinduism polygamy (more especially, bigamy) is not uncommon. It is permitted and indeed fostered by that faith and is legalized by the laws of the country. As our faith makes increasing inroads upon that religion, numbers, and yet never a large number, of those who have two or more wives will accept our teaching and, with all earnestness, seek admission into our Christian communion. What shall we say to such? How shall we meet them and their desire? This question has, in a few cases, been sent to the societies at home, the missions seeking from them advice and guidance. From America the instruction has been received against receiving any such into the Christian Church. This is natural enough from a country which is confronted by the Mormon question. But the problem has its Eastern bearing which is not understood in the West and which has led missionary bodies in India almost invariably to decide in favour of receiving such into the Christian fold.

In the consideration of the problem many things must be kept in mind. None more important than the claims to a cordial welcome from the Church of any man who, in true faith and Christian earnestness, seeks admittance. If it be demanded of the man that he put away all but one of those wives taken in heathenism; then we ask whether it is Christian, or even just, to cast away one to whom he was solemnly and religiously pledged according to the laws of the land and with whom he has been linked in love and harmony for years and from whom he has begotten children? And if he is to put away one or more of his wives, which one shall it be? Shall it be the first wife? Certainly that would not be Christian. Or shall it be the second wife who is the mother of his children and whom he probably married at the request of the first, who was childless, in order that he might raise seed unto himself? It is not easy, on Christian grounds, to decide such a problem as this; nor is it very Christian to put a ban upon any woman who, in accordance with their religion and their country's laws, has formed this sacred alliance with a man and has lived with him for years. Nor can it be right to brand with illegitimacy the children born of such a wedlock.

I would not allow such persons, received into the Christian Church, to become officers of the Church. But I cannot see why there may not be an humble place in the Church of God for such and their families.

(b) Should the baptism of a person, in any case, immediately follow his confession of Christ?

This question does not pertain to those who live in Christian communities and within the circle of Christian light and influence. It refers mainly, if not exclusively, to those who accept Christ under the influence of Christian teaching at heathen festivals and who may live far away from Christian communities. In North India, some of those who have accepted Christ under these circumstances have received immediate baptism and have been sent back to their villages professing Christians. At first sight this seems unwarranted and unwise. Men who have received and made an open confession of Christ under these circumstances have not likely received a sufficient knowledge of our faith, or attained an adequate familiarity with its truths; nor have they been grounded in its principles and life, sufficiently to warrant us in the hope and assurance that they will continue this life in their heathen homes and do honour to our cause and the name of Christ which they have professed. And yet who are we to decide adversely upon the application of such a man who may find, or think he finds, in that public occasion the only opportunity of making an open confession of Christ? And what right have we to conclude that he will not stand firm to his pledge and promise if we are convinced that it is made in all sincerity and earnestness, and if we are convinced that the man has really accepted Christ as his Saviour? Or, more properly, what ground have we to believe that the Holy Spirit cannot carry on to perfection the work thus begun by Him in the heart of such a man? And was not this method of immediate baptism that of the Apostolic Church, even though many thus baptized subsequently denied their new faith?

There are, doubtless, cases of this kind where baptism cannot be refused by the minister of God—where it is even imperative and may prove a blessing to the heathen audience as well as to the new convert. And yet, the ordinary method of delay and careful scrutiny and training should still be adhered to as a normal method of the Church in heathen lands. It is the safest way to lead to a healthy and a strong Church.

(c) Another question frequently asked is that concerning secret baptism.

Shall a missionary, at any time and under any circumstances, secretly baptize such as are anxious to make confession of Christ, but are debarred by family opposition, or by similar causes, from public baptism? This problem frequently arises in connection with work for heathen women. Under the influence of the work of a Bible woman, or a lady missionary, a woman may abjure her faith, accept Christ as her Saviour and yearn for baptism. But to be baptized publicly and to confess Christ before her people openly would inevitably result in her being driven from home, separated from her children and people, and robbed of all opportunity to influence them in behalf of her newly found faith. Moreover, by this public confession she is deprived of all family support and becomes a helpless dependent upon the mission for her daily bread. The question rises whether such a woman should be quietly baptized and thus left to pursue her way in her own home and with her family as a pledged, but secret, follower of the Lord. There is much to be said in favour of, as there is against, such a baptism. Many contend that such an acceptance of Christ would be unworthy and would be robbed of its saving power. But such are not conversant with Hindu life and some of its terrible conditions. Some would maintain, perhaps with more wisdom, that it would be better not to baptize such, but to encourage them to believe that they are accepted of Christ and to treat them in every way as Christ's own disciples.

Another problem in this connection is as to the right or wisdom of an unordained lady missionary to administer this initiatory rite to such women converts. This question, of course, will be largely decided in accordance with the ecclesiastical connection of those who consider it. There is a growing number of persons who believe that it would be well that ladies be authorized to administer this rite under such circumstances.

9. Another problem is connected with the revival of thought among the people of India whom we seek to bring to Christ.

This revival is really the result of western influence—largely the product of Christian teaching and activity in that land. In its last analysis it is therefore not to be deplored, but rather to be welcomed. At the same time this new awakening seems to be, for the present, connected with a reactionary and a militant spirit. It speaks in the interest of a new nationalism and a false patriotism which extols everything Eastern simply because it is Oriental. Its aggressiveness is manifest even in America. We are becoming familiar, in this country, with the yellow-robed Hindu monk who has probably been trained in a Christian mission college and who talks Hinduism with a strong Christian accent. Though he has violated a peremptory command of his ancestral faith in crossing the seas; and though, of necessity, he daily tramples in this land the whole decalogue of Hindu life and ritual, he feels competent to champion Hindu philosophy here! And he seems to find a coterie of admirers and quasi disciples in this land of light and privilege! Recently an old classmate of mine informed me, with all solemnity, that Eastern thought is now invading the West; and that he himself had become a theosophist! I have, since hearing this statement, travelled considerably over this country and confess that his statement does not seem so absurd as at first I thought. For, I have seen the recent phenomenal spread of Christian Science and of other vagaries with which we are too familiar in this land. What is Christian Science but the subtle, evasive idealism of India unequally yoked to a form of Christian truth and ritual. What is theosophy, but the stupefying philosophy and the benumbing metaphysics of the East, clothed in its own garb of Oriental mysticism and senseless, spurious occultism. It is a sad reflection upon our Western life that so many people who fail to find rest in the divinely inspiring teachings of Christ, sink into the depths of a credulity which will accept the inanities of Madame Blavatsky and the wild assumptions of Mrs. Eddy. Let these people go out to India and live there for years to see how Hindu thought and teachings have, for three millenniums, worked out their legitimate results in the life of the teeming millions of that land. Let them observe the debasing immorality, the hollow ceremonialism, the all-pervasive ignorance and superstition which rest, like a mighty pall, upon that people and which make life mean and render noble manhood impossible. The situation in India reminds one of the legendary house built upon the banks of Newfoundland. The foundation was completed when a dense fog swept over the place and rested upon all. After the superstructure was built and finished the fog lifted and it was found, alas, that the building was erected some two hundred yards away from the foundation, and rested upon nothing! Whatever one may say about Hindu thought and philosophy as a basis of conduct, that people have been living for many centuries in the dense fog of ignorance, superstition and ceremonialism; and their life has been unworthy and debased because it rested upon nothing.





But there is another form of this awakened Eastern thought which invites our attention and which concerns the missionary work not a little. It appears there in a reactionary form among men of culture and leads many of them to turn away in hearty disapproval from our faith. They are wonderfully drawn towards Christ, our Lord. His praises are in their mouths, and they eagerly study his example and life. They claim him as one of the East and, therefore, as one of themselves. But these same men will have none of Christianity, because it is, as they say, of the West, Western. One of their number recently wrote an article under the following caption:—"Why do We Hindus Accept Christ and Reject Christianity?" He claims that they reject our faith because it is "not Christianity but Churchianity"; that is, it savours of the Western Church more than it does of Christ. There is a great deal that is false and foolish in this contention; and yet it has an element of truth in it. We, of the West, have not realized, perhaps we never can fully realize, the great width of the gulf which, in thought and life, separates the Occident from the Orient. Hence we have in part failed in the duty of adapting our faith, in thought and ritual, to the taste and inherited bias of that people. We forget that they and we usually approach things temporal and spiritual from opposite sides. They are deeply mystical and poetic, while we are obtrusively practical and meanly prosaic. Thus the Western colouring and emphasis which is given to our faith in that land can neither be appreciated nor approved by the educated Hindu. Even native Christians are bemoaning this fact. I shall never forget the eloquent appeal which the Hon. Kali Churn Banerjee, a leading native Christian in that land, made before the Bombay Missionary Conference, begging the missionaries to cease emphasizing, as he said, "adjectival" Christianity and to dwell more upon "substantive" Christianity before the people of India. It is a sad fact that we carry there our Western shibboleths, our antiquated controversies, and our sectional jealousies. Most of these are not only unintelligible in India; they weary the people and largely bury the essentials of our faith from public gaze and appreciation.

The question returns to us with a new emphasis today,—How much of our Western Christianity can we eliminate and how much must we retain in order to present to that people the gospel in its simplicity and saving power? How much of our modern Christianity is the product of Western thought, interpretation and life, and how much is of the very essence of Christ's message? We have yet much to learn and are to be overtaken by many surprises in this matter, I believe. God forbid that we should rob our message of one tittle of its essential truth. But may He enable us to discriminate more and more, and lead us to cease encumbering our gospel to the East with such unessential thought and ritual as are suited to us but not to them.

I doubt whether we of the West can accomplish this—it can be fully done only when the Christian Church in India shall have become indigenous and strong, and, when freed from Western influence and leadership, it shall do its own thinking and shape its own ritual and ceremonial on Eastern lines. Then indeed shall we behold that welcome and mighty movement which will draw completely the culture of India into the Christian Church. Then also, and not until then, shall we begin to see the Indian Church contributing her share to the Christian thought and life of the world. We, of the proud West, are prone to think that our type of life is all-embracing and that our religious thought is all-satisfying. Nothing can be more fallacious or more injurious than such a conceit. The East is the full complement of the West. In life and thought we are only an hemisphere, and we need the East to fill up our full-orbed beauty. The mystic piety of India will correct our too practical, mundane view of things. The quiet, passive virtues which find their perfect realization in that land we must learn from them to accentuate in addition to the more aggressive and positive virtues of the West. All this is to take place in the no distant future. The Kingdom of Christ in the East is to reach out its hand to the West and both, in mutual helpfulness, will cooeperate in bringing this whole world to Christ. Then shall we see a universal kingdom and the beginning of the fulfillment of the blessed vision in which "the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever." God hasten the day.



Chapter X.

MISSIONARY RESULTS.

We are occasionally compelled to read and to hear detailed and emphatic statements about "the failure of missions." An increasing number of our countrymen spend their vacation days in hurried trips through mission fields. They are so impressed by glimpses of the strange life and institutions of the Orient that they have neither time nor inclination to study and appreciate the missionary work and organization which everywhere invites their attention. They return home absolutely ignorant of the work whose power, prevalence and progress they might easily have learned on their travels, and they are wont to hide that ignorance behind the emphatic assurance that "there was nothing to be seen" of missions; and they soon convince themselves, and not a few others, that what they did not see was not worth seeing or was, perchance, non-existent. I have long lived on one of the great lines of travel in India and have sorrowed over the fact that hardly one in ten of our travelling countrymen (and many of them members of our home churches too) turn aside for a moment from gazing upon Hindu temples to study the important work which our mission is carrying forward in that city and district.

Even the friends of missions should learn what constitutes missionary success.

In South India there is found a mission which counts its converts only by the hundreds. It is known in Christian lands only through the severe criticisms which have been heaped upon it by some good Christian men because it is an educational mission.

And yet I sincerely believe that that abused mission is doing a work not inferior to that of any other mission in India for the permanent growth and highest achievement of the Kingdom of God in that land. Its leavening influence upon Hindu thought and institutions is hardly surpassed by that of any other mission. In the wonderful turning of the educated classes of India towards Christ, and the acceptance of him as their Ideal of life, that mission has a position of power. Many of the native Christians of greatest influence, culture and character in South India trace their conversion or highest efficiency to the work and influence of that educational mission. The best educated pastor in the Madura district came from and was trained by that mission; as also its highest and best Christian teachers received their final course of training and discipline there.

That mission is largely ignored and even despised by the too common statistical reckoning of results and success. And yet the illustrious name of Dr. Miller, the leader of that mission, will be cherished in India and in the world a century hence as a chief among those who were instrumental in bringing that great people to Christ.

The mighty and unparalleled revolution which is going on in India at present, as a result of missionary work, is not to be tabulated in our statistical reports. The deepest currents of those great moral and spiritual forces of the India of today are not found within the realm of figures. They defy tabulation; and yet they bring to the keen Christian observer in that land more encouragement, because they have more significance, than all the facts and figures usually found within the covers of an ordinary mission report.

A great deal of the discouragement and pessimism about missions today is born of this statistical craze.

Let us therefore take a broad view of the work of our missions and study some of the results achieved—results which are almost entirely the harvest of the labours of the last century.

These results are threefold.

1. PRESENT MISSIONARY APPLIANCES.

(a) Protestant missions in India have created a plant and have developed appliances which are not only an assurance and a prolific source of encouragement for the future; they are also monuments of the industry and wisdom of those who have passed on, and definite signs of God's guidance of, and blessing to, the work.

In the first place, consider the buildings and other property erected and owned by the missionary societies and utilized for the maintenance and furtherance of their work in that land.

Few people realize the enormous store of wealth which is thus treasured in this elaborate mission plant. Nor can they appreciate the equivalent of this in terms of moral efficiency and spiritual power in the regeneration of India.

The thousands of acres of land and the many thousands of substantial edifices erected and dedicated to the cause of Christ in connection with these missions represent an investment of at least ten million dollars; and this money not only represents the generosity of Christians in the West, it also includes the self-denying offerings of Indian Christians, who from their poverty have given liberally to build up the cause which is dear to their hearts.