The Land of the Veda/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI.
RESULTS THUS FAR OF THIS WORK.
Explanatory Note.—In arranging for this new edition the extensive statistical tables formerly here have been superseded, being outgrown by the progress of the work. Other tables, presenting the results to 1894, have been prepared, and will here appear. Our readers can thus appreciate the great development which God has given to his Gospel, notwithstanding the fearful resistance with which heathenism met its introduction, as narrated in the early portion of this volume.
As a significant sample of this advance, made during the twenty-four years past, we present our Theological Seminary, the intellectual and religious center of our cause in India, which has already done so much to advance its interests in the past, and is getting ready to accomplish far greater results in the blessed future that is opening before it.
Equally necessary is it now to furnish a correct account of that development of grace which the Holy Spirit has recently granted to our Mission. Only a person who knows it thoroughly, and knows it all, could do this in a way to give full satisfaction. The publishers and the author both felt that the man who could best render this service to our readers was the beloved Bishop under whose administration the work has developed its present extension and power. Very kindly has Bishop Thoburn consented to render this service, for which the author heartily thanks him.
The new statistical exhibit will close the chapter.
I. The Theological Seminary, Bareilly.—While using every instrumentality available to spread the Gospel among the people no matter how humble their ability, our brethren in India are at the same time wide awake to the value and importance of the highest possible culture to meet the keen and violent heathenism that confronts their precious work. They cannot be intimidated by any show, or pretence, or bitterness exhibited by the enemies of the Lord Jesus and his cause. In their hearts is the full and patient persuasion that truly converted men, thoroughly trained, with the Bible in their hands and the unction of the Holy Spirit in their hearts, can cope with any resistance, and that such an agency is yet to lay low in the dust the proud and hostile heathenism of India. For such a result they cherish this evangelistic training center at Bareilly.
From the Report for 1894 we cull a few extracts to show the history and value of this institution to our work:
“The need of trained helpers was felt from the opening of the Mission. Rev. D. W. Thomas, one of the missionaries, in 1871 offered to donate from his private means $20,000 for the foundation of a Theological Seminary for India if the Mission Board would furnish $10,000 for some buildings. The proposition was accepted. Of this donation the editor of The Christian Advocate wrote at the time: ‘We regard it as one of the most important benefactions, all things considered, that the Church has ever received.’ E. Remington, Esq., of Ilion, N. Y., donated $5,000 of the money required from the Board for buildings. To these gifts a layman of Baltimore added $17,000 more. The seminary was opened in April, 1872, with a class of sixteen students. In 1876 Remington Hall, seen in the center of the picture, was finished, and dedicated by Bishop Andrews.
“Since opening the seminary over two hundred native missionaries have passed through the regular course of three years, and sixty have taken a partial course.”
As the year 1888 opened upon our Mission with a wondrous visitation of grace, that has since added over fifty thousand souls to membership, it became more than ever apparent that our seminary must without delay have enlargement, both in buildings and resources, and this was accompanied with a divine call to an increasing host of young men on whose hearts God had laid “a burden for souls.” Where to accommodate them and where to teach them if they could be accepted now became an anxious question. Two wings, one on either side of Remington Hall, became at once imperative, and were providentially provided for to the great joy of the faculty. The result is that the classes are doubled in number. This year the names of eighty-one students are on their roll, and this will probably soon rise to the requirement of accepting one hundred candidates every year.
The faculty gratefully acknowledge in their report the providential aid which so opportunely come to their assistance:
“Several friends have given $1,000 to found scholarships. As mentioned, Rev. E. S. and Mrs. E. R. Kiplinger gave $2,000 to build a lecture hall. A worthy physician gave his gold watch and jewels, worth $350, and laid the foundation of a library, for which also an officer in India contributed some $2,000. A sum of $2,000 was contributed by many friends to build a Butler Hall in memory of the founder of the Mission. We have now a total endowment of about $45,000, with buildings worth some $18,500. Many friends are sending very valuable aid for students and greatly enlarging our opportunity. We hope such help will continue.”
Nor is the training of a native ministry all that this precious institution is doing for the work in India. There is here, in addition, a “Christian Woman's Training School,” in charge of Mrs. M. E. Scott and Mrs. S. Dease, with Mrs. Mukerje and three teachers, for the training of the wives of the married students, which has been kept up for the past twenty years. These women are taught to read and write in Hindi and Urdu, and then take a regular course of Bible study and other subjects that prepare them to work among the women of the country. Forty-eight such are now enrolled, and one hundred and sixty have taken the course and gone out prepared to work in the villages and zenanas, as the necessity demanded, side by side with their husbands.
But the faculty need more financial help, and need it at once. Teachers have to be paid, appliances furnished, and many wants met. They greatly need a teacher of music (which is a very effective evangelistic agency in this field), and also an instructor in a simple course of medicine, which would give the preachers and their wives great access to the people in the villages, with one or two dormitories more for the accommodation of the students. They remind us in their report of the serious and important character of their position and work and of the high indorsement which it has received when they say to us that:
“This is the first Methodist Theological School organized in Asia. It should be raised at once to the highest effectiveness. Our immediate work is educating a native ministry for a population of forty million and in a language that can reach one hundred million. There is a pressing demand for trained men in a rapidly expanding work. Now is the time for a shoulder to the wheel. The great deep in India is breaking up. The Church should move with wisdom and power at this supreme moment. Anti-Christianity is trying to preempt the field. It is a burning shame that infidels and scoffers from Europe and America are found here doing the work of their father, the devil, villifying Christianity and withstanding the missionaries. These are scattering infidel literature and trying to organize the natives against us. A native ministry under God must save India. If a trained ministry is needful anywhere, it is in a field like this. Our pressing work and rapidly growing Church demand it.
“What friends say of this institution: Bishop Foster, in his visit here, pronounced this “the most important missionary enterprise in India.” Bishop Ninde wrote: ‘I was strongly impressed while in India with the invaluable aid which this school affords to our work. The marked efficiency of our native ministry in North India is largely due to the vigorous and careful training so large a proportion of them have obtained here. The seminary should be liberally sustained and its facilities enlarged.’ Bishop Thoburn wrote: ‘Our Theological School at Bareilly has become more than ever a necessity to our work, especially throughout North India. It will continue to exert a blessed influence far and wide by educating men who will take the place of leaders.’ ”
With a full right do they appeal to the Church at home not only for the further financial help so much needed, but also for grace from heaven to increase the effectiveness of this fast growing work, when they say:
“Pray for us that we may train mighty preachers of the word. Give to the institution all you can till we are fully on our feet for the greatest mission work of modern times. Inform friends of the institution who may be able to help us.”
The seminary stands on the highway of the city, and many of the thousands that pass it daily stop to gaze and think. They have good taste to admire its beauty, but they certainly feel that the people who erected it and the men being trained there are in earnest in the work which they are doing to spread their religion. Strangers and foreigners declare it to be a “credit to our denomination,” and no doubt this representation of what it is will be a joy to the liberal hearts which furnished the means for its erection. It was wisely planned for the purposes which it was to serve, and was solidly yet economically builded. India has many evidences that good taste and economy may be united, and that beauty is about as cheap as deformity when one has prepared a good plan and works to it, as was done here.
I know I voice the thought of each member of the India Mission when I say that we may well pray that God may long spare to guide this precious institution its devoted principal. Dr. J. T. Scott, to whose eminent abilities and hard toil for twenty-two years are so largely due the extensive results which have been accomplished by it. I now resign the pen to the dear Bishop.
II. Thirty-five Years of Progress.—In the good providence of God I enjoyed the privilege of being one of the second party of missionaries sent out to join Dr. Butler in the work of founding a new Mission in North India. We landed at Calcutta, August 21, 1859, and after a few days spent in preparing for the journey set out for the special field which had been selected for occupancy by our Missionary Society. On Saturday afternoon we crossed the Ganges at Cawnpore, and set foot upon our own chosen field. Every object possessed a peculiar interest in our eyes, for we already regarded the land as, in one sense at least, our own. We were strangers, it is true, and among a strange people, but, like Abraham, by the anticipation of faith we looked upon the field as our own. Scarcely a dozen of the people would have confessed to any allegiance to us, however remote, in a religious or any other sense. A thousand obstacles confronted us, and we knew but too well that every inch of progress would be contested. We were none the less eager, however, to enter upon the task which God had set before us, and hastened on to Lucknow, where the pioneers of the Mission had already assembled, and were waiting to greet us.
We spent a week in Lucknow, during which the first annual meeting of our Mission was held, and here we were able to gain a clearer view of the field which had been chosen for us. Taking the Province of Oude, with the smaller Province of Rohilcund on the north, and the little mountain district of Kumaon, our field contained seventeen million inhabitants. It is not strange that we gave little thought to the limited territorial extent of our field, in the face of the immense population which confronted us. At that time this population amounted to almost half that of the United States, and as America had been more than all the world to us, it seemed as if we were going abroad to attempt the conquest of a new world.
As we took counsel together in reference to new mission stations, new schools, and other enterprises, and new plans for occupying all the region assigned us, it is not strange that our field seemed at times to assume imperial proportions. Even at that early time, some of us could not but feel as if we were about to lay the foundations of an empire. The only objection that was made, so far as I can now remember, to the field assigned us was that it was too large. It did not seem possible that we could occupy so much ground, and make anything like adequate provision for the exigencies which would be sure to arise in the progress of our work, nor did it seem to any one that the Church which had sent us out would ever be strong enough to attempt more than the limited task which had been proposed by Dr. Butler, and approved by our authorities at home. In those days a favorite idea, which was much talked about, and sincerely cherished by most leading missionary authorities, was that of dividing the heathen world into sections, each of which was to be assigned to some particular branch of the Christian Church in Europe or America, and thus the whole work distributed in such a way as to secure the most rapid consummation of the task, and also the best possible conservation of labor. Our own missionaries accepted this view, without giving it very much thought, and certainly without any misgiving as to its practical wisdom. As we then looked at the situation, the great empire of India was to be evangelized, and our share of the common work was the little field on the eastern side of the upper Ganges, where we had pitched our tents and hoisted our banners.
Before many years had elapsed, it began to be felt among us that the circumstances of the country were changing. Great lines of railway had been projected immediately after the mutiny, and as these, one after another, began to be opened, the people of India were quick to discover that the former isolated conditions, under which they had lived from time immemorial, were giving place to an entirely new order of things. Distant points were brought close together; long journeys could be made in a few hours; the ancient pilgrimages began to lose nearly all their merit when made upon comfortable railway trains instead of being prosecuted by long and painful marches on foot; provinces separated by wide distances of space seemed to be made neighbors, and people who had never seen one another before were brought into close contact. Almost immediately it was perceived that converts to Christianity would inevitably become more active and enterprising than other portions of the community, and that it would be impossible to expect them to remain within narrow provincial limits where their forefathers had chanced to reside. As these converts would go out into different parts of the empire, it was reasonable to expect that they would carry their preferences and ideas with them, and that this would almost inevitably result in the establishment of those forms of Christianity with which they had been familiar. It thus came to pass at an early day that a question was raised among our missionaries as to the possibility, and even probability, of our being obliged to extend our boundaries, especially on the western side of the Ganges, which at that time limited our progress in that direction. Dr. Butler was among the first, if not indeed the very first, to perceive the inevitable tendency of a work like ours, situated as it then was, to move forward without much regard for artificial barriers, and I can very well recall a proposition which he made near the close of 1863, for us to establish a mission station at a point on the western side of the Ganges, where there seemed to be a special call for us. In my own mind the proposal did not meet with a moment's favor. It seemed to me that we were already staggering under burdens which we could not carry, and that a great many long years, if not generations, must elapse before we could think of moving so far beyond our chosen limits. Nearly every one in the Mission looked with equal disfavor upon the proposal, and no one dreamed that within the short space of seven years our missionaries, after a careful canvass of the whole subject, would deliberately resolve to cross that river, which lay on our westward border like another Rubicon, and open work in a field which thereafter was to have no permanent boundary until it reached the sea.
Such an enlargement was inevitable from the first, although none of us were able at that early day to anticipate what afterward happened. If a similar attempt were to be made at the present time, if a body of twenty men, inspired with an enthusiastic confidence in the success of their work, moved by an ardent zeal for God and for the salvation of souls, and profoundly believing that the testimony with which they were intrusted was to be carried to the uttermost parts of the earth—if these men were to be put down on another continent, and told to confine their efforts within an area half as large as an average American State, the attempted restriction placed upon them would prove utterly futile. For a very few years they might be restrained within narrow territorial limits, but if successful in even a moderate degree they would be sure to break over the barriers, and move forward as God's Spirit and providence led them, precisely as the early Christians did when they once fully entered upon their mighty task of evangelizing the ancient Roman world.
In India an outward expansion of our work was inevitable for several reasons. In the first place, the men and women who were sent to our field were inspired by the spirit which has characterized practical missionary efforts since the days of Barnabas and Paul. The first disciples were more slow to take practical notice of our Saviour's specific direction to bear witness for Him to the uttermost part of the earth, and many Christians of the present day are prone to fall into the same error. The modern missionary enterprise has been from the first a practical protest against this mistake. In spirit it is utterly opposed to all barriers, artificial or otherwise, which are erected to limit its progress. Without waiting until all Antioch was evangelized Barnabas and young Saul set forth to bear witness in other cities, and this holy ambition to press on, and still on, into regions beyond, became from that time the inspiration of every Christian evangelist.
The men who were first sent to our Mission in India were animated by a like spirit. They were impelled forward, from one point to another, and no sooner had they gained a foothold in one city or town than they wished to establish themselves in the next city which lay in their pathway. This restless spirit of aggressive enterprise is inseparable from the earnest faith which characterizes every successful evangelist. A similar spirit manifests itself in England and America, but when once domiciled in a vast empire like India, with unlimited numbers presenting themselves in every direction, it would be little short of folly to expect men full of holy, aggressive zeal for God and souls to live for years and generations upon one bank of a great river, and refuse to carry the message which God has given them for all mankind to dwellers on the opposite bank.
There was something also in the ecclesiastical system which Dr. Butler introduced into his mission field which tended to make an extension of the work inevitable. Other systems may be equally scriptural and equally acceptable to God, but this system has some peculiarities in this special direction. It was not devised by any one man in a single day or a single year, but is the outgrowth of a movement extending over a long series of years; and as the product of an active movement it is adapted to the condition of things similar to that in which it first took shape. In other words, it can only work successfully while it is actively aggressive. It propagates itself as naturally as it makes provision for the immediate wants of that part of the work which is permanent. One of the most striking features of our work in India at the present time is the apparently natural manner in which Hindustanee presiding elders and superintendents of circuits adapt themselves to the system in which they have been religiously educated, and push forward their work into new regions.
The most successful workers that I have met in India are men who know very little about ecclesiastical systems, but who seem almost instinctively to use the system with which they find themselves connected to extend the work of God into new regions. A man, for instance, is given a new circuit. It consists of a central town, with three or four villages around him. At the end of two years he has ten or twelve villages within his circuit, in each of which is found a Christian congregation. Another year or two passes and a new group begins to form around each one of these villages or towns, and beyond these again there will be a further extension, until at length the man who originally had charge of a little circuit has a field large enough for a presiding elder's district. In a number of cases movements of this kind have actually occurred, under my own supervision, and nothing that I have witnessed in India has so encouraged me to believe that all India can yet be evangelized by simple men of God, raised up from among the sons of India, as the success achieved in this way. If no other reason existed for the outward extension of the work than this one peculiarity, the system introduced by Dr. Butler would in a large measure account for it.
But reasons of this kind will weigh less with the thoughtful reader than the fact that our people have been providentially led in extending the sphere of their labors, not only into regions immediately adjoining our first field, but to all parts of the empire. With the extension of the vast railway system of India thirty years ago, small colonies of Europeans and Eurasians were gathered into settlements at distances varying from one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles, for the most part along the leading lines of railway. These settlers were almost exclusively connected with the railways, and were, of course, Christians, in the general sense of that word, and were known as Christians to the people among whom they lived. Most of them were deprived of the ordinary privileges of the sanctuary, and, as always happens in such cases, very many began rapidly to forget their religious obligations when thus cut off from their early associations. In the providence of God, our missionaries were led to preach, not only to these people, but to other English-speaking people living in the larger cities, many of whom were in government service, while others were engaged in such kinds of private business as India affords. When the word was preached among these people God blessed it in a peculiar manner, and in a short time companies of believers were gathered together in a number of large cities, and from these centers the work spread, in the course of a few years, throughout the length and breadth of the empire.
During the first year or two no very definite plan was adopted in reference to this new work, but in the ordinary course of providence it happened, as it might have been expected to happen, that the people asked for church privileges and for pastoral oversight. It seemed not only natural, but in every way just, that their request should be granted, and it thus came to pass in the space of two or three years that churches of our own communion were organized at nearly all the important centers throughout the empire. This new work was destined to admit us definitely and permanently to a still more important work among the masses of the natives of India. Let me quote from Light in the East, a new book now in press:
“For some years it did not seem very clear what value would be permanently attached to our English work in India. Many of our friends in America looked upon it with great misgiving, fearing that it would divert the attention of our missionaries from the greater work of giving the Gospel to the Hindoos and Mohammedans. Others thought that among so sparse a population no important churches could be built up, and no material help received from the prosecution of the general work. Time, however, soon began to teach its lessons, and it was found that wherever a foothold had been gained among the English-speaking people a corresponding work was sure to manifest itself among the natives. It thus came to pass in due time that our missionaries were found preaching to the people, not only in the Hindustanee language throughout North India, but in Bengalee, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamul, Canarese, and Teloogoo, in other parts of the empire. As the years went by the work was extended into Burmah, and later still down the southeastern coast of the Bay of Bengal to Singapore and Penang. It is needless to narrate the successive steps by which our work was extended throughout all this vast region. It often seemed unwise to our best friends for us to plant our stations at so many distant points, but on the other hand it never seemed possible for us to hold back from doors which God so plainly opened before us. To sum up the result in a few words; our one Annual Conference in North India was at first reinforced by the creation of a second Conference; this in process of time was divided into two, and the two were again divided into four, so that we now have five Annual Conferences within the limits of India proper, and a Mission Conference, which includes our work in distant Malaysia.”
This outline of our immense mission field is, of course, a mere outline as viewed upon the map. We do not pretend to occupy all the country, and as yet have no missionaries nor native preachers in some large cities and towns. Very recently a party of our missionaries have been exploring a vast region lying southwest of Calcutta, where no Christian worker of any kind is found. In a report recently sent to me by one of these missionaries it was stated that between six and seven millions of people were living in that region, among whom no one had yet preached Christ. In other parts of the country, no doubt, similar neglected areas might be found, but after making all due allowance we still find ourselves with a field extended so far beyond its original limits that our task may now be said to be ten times as great as the one which was originally set before us.
One interesting feature of the work in its more recent development is the creation of what we sometimes call “our foreign mission.” I have spoken above of the extension of our work down the southeastern coast of the Bay of Bengal to Penang and Singapore. These large cities are not in India at all, nor in any way under the Indian Government, but belong to the colony known as the Straits Settlements. By the ordinary sea route down the coast, Singapore is nineteen hundred miles from Calcutta, and thus, both politically and geographically, the whole region is foreign to India, indeed as much so as Liverpool and the British Islands are to the United States. Led by providential indications, which space will not permit me to mention here, it was resolved at the beginning of 1885 to send an expedition to Singapore with a view to begin a new mission in that city, which should make itself felt among all the adjacent islands. The importance of Singapore, especially in the almost certain position which it is destined to hold in the future, had been appreciated by our missionaries in a way which Americans and Europeans could not at that time fully understand. A vast Chinese population is settling upon all those shores, and the future of that entire region will yet be in the hands of these colonists. We believed them to be accessible in a peculiar way to gospel influences, and felt sure that it was of the utmost importance to the future unborn millions that Christianity should gain a foothold, not only in the colony, but in all the adjacent islands, at the earliest possible date. We had no money with which to equip a Mission, and very few workers from whom to choose the first pioneers. Dr. W. F. Oldham was selected to lead the advance movement, and, with his wife, entered upon his work vigorously in the early part of the year.
The story of the founding of this Mission is one of peculiar interest, but cannot be detailed further here. Suffice it to say that a foothold was gained, while the Chinese received our missionary with unexpected favor, and in due time a church was built, a school building erected, and up to the present time the Mission has been making steady progress. We have now a vigorous Chinese Church at Singapore, a smaller Malay Church, an English organization, and regular preaching to the Indian colonists in the Tamul language. We have a second station in operation in Penang, while a third has been established at the town of Ipoh on the Peninsula. In every respect the Malaysian Mission has proved very successful, and in no part of our history has the hand of God appeared more manifestly present with us than in directing our steps to that remote part of the world.
The most marked feature of our Mission in India during recent years has been the wonderful development of the work among what are called the “depressed classes” This term is common to all low caste people, and is popularly applied to about fifty million of the population. All these millions live below the line of social respectability. Their children are seldom seen in the public school, although legally entitled to admittance. The ban of social prejudice against them is so strong they are practically excluded. In all the missions of India it has been noticed from the first that the majority of converts come from the depressed classes, and perhaps this fact has operated to some extent to create a prejudice in the public mind against missionary labor. Most persons forget that in the earliest and purest age of Christianity Christians were exposed to the constant taunt that their community was composed almost exclusively of slaves and wretchedly poor people. The same peculiarity has attended the progress of pure and undefiled Christianity in all ages. The simple fact in the case is that our Saviour deliberately adapted the conditions of membership in his kingdom to the wants of the poor, knowing that the vast majority of the human race belong to this class. Hence, those who work in accordance with the Divine will, and in harmony with the only possible conditions upon which the kingdom of Christ can be made to flourish in this world, will never shrink from receiving the poor, and will never feel surprised when they see the poor coming to them in unwonted numbers.
Some six years ago it began to be noticed in our Mission in North India that a movement of some magnitude was evidently setting in among this class of people. At the close of 1888 no less than eighteen hundred baptisms were reported, while several thousand converts were waiting to receive baptism as soon as the missionaries were willing to admit them to the privilege. Much attention was excited by this new development, but no one at that time anticipated so rapid and wide an extension of the work as has since occurred. The following year a still more marked increase took place, while in the third year the number of baptisms, including children, went up to the startling number of eighteen thousand. From that time to the present hour the movement shows no sign of abatement, but on the other hand is constantly spreading more widely, and apparently gaining a firmer hold upon the people. The total number of Christians of all ages in the mission at this time is probably more than eighty thousand, while all the reports for three years past indicate that fifty baptisms occur every day in the year. So far as can now be seen, there is no reason to anticipate any abatement of this work whatever, but on the other hand it seems certain that it could be extended almost indefinitely, if means could be found for conserving the work.
The people are extremely ignorant, and, unless instructed according to our Saviour's directions, it is found that they do not go forward in the Christian life, but, on the contrary, are almost sure to become unsatisfactory in many ways, and either go back to heathenism or bring a reproach upon their new faith. Hence the vital question at the present time is that of providing instruction for converts. The converts themselves are so wretchedly poor that they can do nothing in the way of self-help. If teachers could be sent among them, and they gathered into groups and instructed, at the end of a very few years we would be able to send out two or three thousand more workers, and the eighty thousand converts of to-day might then become two hundred thousand in the space of two or three years. A prospect of this kind ought to arouse the whole Christian Church, and call forth an immediate effort to meet an emergency so full of promise. Strangely enough, our friends in Christian lands, with few exceptions, fail to comprehend that this is a day of God's visitation in India. It requires the most strenuous efforts on our part to secure the slender aid with which we are able to carry on the work on its present basis; but we are looking forward constantly to increased resources, and trust that the time will speedily come when our converts will number at least one hundred thousand every year.
If space permitted it would make a very interesting story to lay before the reader, the steady and indeed remarkable progress which has attended what might be called the internal development of our Mission in India. A great work of this kind touches a community or a province at many different points. While the main object kept in view is that of evangelizing the people, other objects are always found in subordination to the main enterprise. Take, for instance, the work among women. Female education has been almost revolutionized since Dr. Butler first took up his residence in Bareilly. When I first entered the field, I can remember well that only a feeble attempt had been made to establish a girls' school, and that, aside from the very few Christian converts, there were not half a dozen girls who even nominally were receiving instruction in all that region. Now, however, we see not only a Christian college for women established at Lucknow, but what would have seemed absolutely impossible thirty years ago, a rival woman's college established in the same city for the daughters of Hindoos. The Mission established by Dr. Butler can also lay claim to the honor of introducing the first lady physician ever seen in India. The first Indian women ever educated in medicine were also trained in this same Mission, and it was not until the missionaries had successfully demonstrated the fact that lady physicians could gain access to the women of India, and that educated Indian women and girls could be successfully trained in medicine, that the much vaunted Lady Dufferin movement became a possibility. It would be impossible to give Lady Dufferin too much credit for the noble work which she has achieved for Indian women, but it should always be borne in mind that missionary ladies first made the movement which she leads possible.
It would be interesting also, if space permitted, to trace the successive steps by which a great publishing work has been set on foot in connection with our now widely scattered Mission. As early as 1860 Dr. Butler gathered a few rupees together with which to purchase a small press, and a very modest beginning was made in the way of printing at Bareilly. This press was afterward removed to Lucknow, where it has flourished greatly, and is at the present time perhaps the most vigorous Mission press in all the empire. A second large publishing house has been opened at Calcutta, a third at Madras, and a fourth at the distant city of Singapore. Most of these enterprises are still in their initial stage, but there seems no reason to doubt that all four of these publishing houses will soon enter upon a wide sphere of active usefulness.
Our Sunday-school work has met with special success and proved an unexpectedly valuable auxiliary in our great work. I can remember very well the morning after I entered Lucknow in company with Dr. Butler that I was strangely moved when I heard two boys singing to a familiar tune a Hindustanee hymn. At that time perhaps not more than half a dozen children in all that region could have joined in the song, but now there are probably seventy thousand who could take up the strain if called upon. Many of the Sunday-schools are largely attended by adults as well as children, but, in view of the fact that the majority of our adult converts are themselves but children in knowledge, and in some respects in character also, the instruction received seems as well adapted to them as to those of younger years.
It remains to notice an important measure which was adopted some years ago for the better administration of our affairs throughout the vast region which we now occupy. At an early stage in our history it was felt that some central authority was needed which would be empowered to deal with all such interests as belonged in a peculiar sense to our own field in India and Malaysia. Questions of various kinds were constantly arising, for the settlement of which no provision had been made by our missionary authorities, and not a few of these questions were of such a nature that it would have been impossible for any party or parties on the other side of the globe to have satisfactorily dealt with them. In order to meet this want the General Conference of 1884 made generous provision for the organization of what was called a Central Conference; that is, a representative body of ministers and laymen meeting every two years, and authorized to deal with all questions of general interest to our own peculiar work. At the outset this measure was looked upon as pointing in the direction of ultimate independence, but those who advocated it were careful to raise no issue of this kind. Their object was simply to make a present provision for a present want, and the history of the past ten years has abundantly demonstrated the wisdom of those who first devised this plan for the better administration of the affairs of a very widely scattered Mission. The Central Conference meets every two years, and its sessions are constantly growing in interest and importance. It has to deal with common interests which affect the welfare of the work at points very widely scattered. Two of our presiding elders, for instance, live at stations which are no less than four thousand miles apart. Our missionaries and other workers are preaching in sixteen different languages. A meeting of this body is somewhat like a gathering of delegates from all the nations of Europe, with a few added from Egypt and the upper Nile. It is evident that as time goes on the gathering of delegates from such widely scattered communities will constantly grow in interest, while the feeling will become more and more deeply rooted among all our people that they are truly engaged in building up a mighty Christian empire which is to affect for good the whole of Southern Asia.
Perhaps I could not do better than to insert here a brief extract from Light in the East, containing a reference to the last meeting of the Central Conference:
“Early in last March our Central Conference held its biennial session in the city of Allahabad. Delegates were present from all parts of the empire, and also two, Dr. Luering and Mrs. Munson, from the distant Malaysian Mission. This Central Conference has authority to deal with all questions which pertain to our general interests throughout the vast field which we occupy in Southern Asia, and its last meeting was an occasion of extraordinary interest. A number of our Hindustanee brethren were present as delegates, and I was greatly struck with the impression made upon them by those who had come from such immense distances in the interests of our common work. It was also noticed that the old-time missionary spirit, which used to be manifested in the early years when the missionary enterprise was new to most Christians, developed itself in a remarkable way on this occasion. An extraordinary impression was made upon the delegates when Dr. Luering gave in simple language a report of his work in Borneo.
“All the interior of the great island of Borneo, an island, by the way, which is as large as France, is inhabited by tribes of wild people called Dyaks. These men, without exception, are said to be ‘head-hunters;’ that is, men who make it an object in life to possess themselves of the skulls of persons killed by themselves. It is said that a young man is not considered worthy of acceptance as a husband until he has killed somebody ; and every man's standing is much influenced by the number of polished skulls which he is able to hang up under the ridge-pole of his bamboo dwelling. A common belief is entertained, when a man kills anyone and possesses himself of the skull of his victim, that as long as he keeps it he will have incorporated into his own person all the courage and other virtues which belonged to the murdered man ; and hence every Dyak warrior is extremely unwilling to part with one of these trophies.
“After giving some details in regard to his life in Borneo, Dr. Luering went on to speak of the terrible ravages caused by this custom of head-hunting. During his comparatively brief stay he was able to master one of the Dyak dialects sufficiently to converse freely with the people, and among others a man of considerable local influence seemed to be much influenced by what he heard concerning Christ and his mission among men. He had frequently talked to Dr. Luering about becoming a Christian, and at times it seemed as if he was really inclined to take that decisive step. This man had no less than ninety skulls suspended in his dwelling, and his visitors would always see them occupying their conspicuous place, and know that an awful story of crime was probably connected with each one of them.
“When Dr. Luering received his summons to return immediately to Singapore, he called on this man to say farewell. It was a little after sunset, and the evening shadows were already beginning to fall upon the village. The Dyak was much surprised, and apparently sincerely sorry, when the missionary told him that he must leave next day, and that he had come to say farewell. The Dyak remonstrated warmly, and urged him to remain, but was told in reply that there seemed no prospect that, even if he should remain, he or any other Dyaks would give up their sins and become Christians. He was assured that possibly in a little time the man of the house himself would take that much-desired step, whereupon Dr. Luering said to him, ‘If you are sincere, you will give me a token of your honest purpose. You have often told me you would be a Christian, and you now repeat it again; if you will become a Christian I will take the responsibility of remaining, to help the rest of your people into a better life; or, if you will even give me a pledge of your sincere purpose to become a Christian in the future, I will see to it that some one comes to you without delay. The pledge which I ask is this: let me take one of those skulls and carry it back with me to Singapore, and I will keep it as a token on your part that you wish us to return, and that you honestly intend to become a Christian man.’ At the mention of so startling a proposal the Dyak grasped his long knife—a terrible weapon in the use of which they are fearfully skillful—and looked as if he would revenge the insult offered him on the spot. His friends also looked startled, for according to their notions no proposal could have been more insulting. The missionary, however, remained calm, and persisted in repeating his proposal. There was silence for a little time, and then the Dyak, pointing to his skulls, said to Dr. Luering, ‘Take one.’ The permission was immediately accepted, and the horrible trophy was carried back to Singapore.”
It is given to few men of the present generation to see the work of their own hands, begun in the face of many obstacles and in the midst of startling perils, move steadily forth to such grand proportions as the Mission founded by Dr. Butler has assumed. He began the work among a people speaking one language; his successors preach in sixteen different tongues. He entered a field containing seventeen million souls; his successors are planting missions among three hundred and twenty-five million—one fifth of the human race. He lives to see his younger brethren coursing up and down as messengers of life and peace in a vast region which contains two and a half times as large a population as was comprised in the whole Roman Empire in the days of Barnabas and Paul. His sole assistant, Joel T. Janvier, still survives, but he is now a patriarch in the midst of a great host of men and women whom God has raised up to bear a noble part in the work. Instead of timid, doubting men, who at first came at long intervals to inquire concerning the way of life, the inquirers of the present day are numbered by the thousand. All the year round they stand before us, twenty thousand strong. Truly God has vindicated the counsel of his servant, verified the promises in which he trusted, and crowned his life with tokens of blessing, such as seldom fall to the lot of toilers in the Master's vineyard.
III. Statistical Exhibit in 1894.—Thus far Bishop Thoburn's article, connecting the past and the present, clearly shows “what God has wrought” among the heathen through the instrumentality of our Church. It now remains for me to present the results in statistical tables to enable our readers to comprehend the standing and significance of this great religious movement, and then weigh their own duty in regard to it. God's chosen instruments have evidently been “building better than they knew,” for even here, before the first generation has passed away, we are allowed to behold, with adoring amazement, the divine growth of the precious seed, which they sowed with tears amid the dark and trying scenes of thirty years ago.
English rule some time since nobly struck off the shackles with which the Hindoo code and Brahmin pride had bound the common people of India, leaving them free to do the best they could for themselves. These downtrodden millions never before in the history of the world have had a chance to rise, but somehow, of late years, by the circulation of Gospel truth among them, they have grasped the great idea that in Christ and Christianity alone is there hope for them in this life and in all that may come after it.
The sympathy of the Saviour was especially given to this class. He rejoiced that “to the poor was the Gospel preached.” His early ministry taught that God, who “made of one blood all nations of men,” had forbidden these false distinctions and that any man was to be “called common or unclean.” In this spirit our Mission went to this people, and the following table presents the blessed results so far realized.
We, first of all, present at suitable intervals up to 1888, and from that date yearly up to 1894, the numerical statistics, and then add to these the educational, financial, benevolent, and other aspects of the work.
| Numerical Statistics. | |||
| Probationers. | Full Members. | Total. | |
| 1859 | 5 | 1 | 6 |
| 1863 | 97 | 89 | 186 |
| 1868 | 203 | 388 | 591 |
| 1873 | 599 | 1,173 | 1,772 |
| 1878 | 1,788 | 2,907 | 4,695 |
| 1883 | 2,819 | 3,393 | 6,212 |
| 1888 | 4,782 | 5,065 | 9,867 |
| 1889 | 5,770 | 6,517 | 12,287 |
| 1890 | 17,191 | 9,877 | 27,068 |
| 1891 | 18,017 | 10,615 | 28,632 |
| 1892 | 27,995 | 15,938 | 43,933 |
| 1893 | 36,971 | 20,961 | 57,932 |
Nor do these figures, wonderful as they are, show the full reality of this great ingathering. The statistical reports for 1894 are not yet all at hand, but from such as have reached us we realize that the increase for the present year will probably not fall below the past five years—and we may therefore already rejoice that the membership in our India missions is now fully seventy thousand souls!
The gracious outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon this work since 1889 has given us an average yearly increase equal to the creation of sixty new congregations of two hundred souls each per annum. During the past year in two of these Conferences (the North and Northwest India), the baptisms have amounted to eighteen thousand souls. So that American Methodism has been baptizing at the rate of fifty converts every day during 1893! Does not this look like the dawn of that morning for which the Lord Jesus has so long waited when he should “see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied”—the harbinger of that glad time when India will begin to supply her proportion of that “great multitude which no man can number?”
Even already it is noted that the work among the lower castes does not appear to have prevented successful endeavors among the higher castes. Bishop Thoburn says that an examination of the statistics shows that “the largest number of high-caste converts was reported from the very districts in which the largest number of low-caste people had been baptized.” This is very encouraging. We are glad to have Christianity come with its ameliorating influences to the “depressed” classes; but we are also glad to have it appeal successfully to the educated and influential classes. It is in this way the terrible caste system of India can be, and will be, overthrown.
The genuine character of the experience of these converts is a constant source of joy to our missionaries, who frequently refer to it with gratitude. Low motives are not mixed up with it. They ask for nothing but to be taught “what they must do to be saved.” Many of the women converts (once so timid), Brother Hoskins writes, “are now even more courageous than the men” to endure persecution for their faith.
“Methodist methods,” as some are pleased to call them, have no secrets in them. They are simply the methods of the New Testament. Believing, as we do, that the Lord Jesus, in the same sense and with the same intention, died for every one of these people, and authorizes us to offer to each a free and conscious salvation through repentance and faith in Christ, we earnestly urge its acceptance upon them, as we do on sinners at home. The Holy Spirit indorses the teaching and the offer, and the poor “weary and heavy laden” heathen turns from his idols to the living God and accepts Jesus as his Redeemer, and the work is done. He is saved, and knows it and rejoices, and then goes and tells others “what a Saviour he has found.” This is all, and it is enough.
It may be doubted if converts anywhere have ever sought Christian baptism under a more intelligent impulse than what has led these thousands to us. Look at the facts. For thirty-five years our agency has been going through their villages teaching the way of salvation, distributing the Holy Scriptures, tracts, and books among them. We have also been giving a Christian education to thousands of their children, and the boys and girls have daily taken to their homes and there repeated and sung the texts and hymns which they have learned in their classes. For years these people have been discussing together this wonderful faith, brought thus to their doors, and now upon the good seed thus sown so widely the Holy Spirit has graciously descended and given it vitality, and this wonderful ingathering is the blessed result. In every one of our schools the Bible is read, hymns sung, and prayer offered. The first thing is to teach them to read the Bible in the simple village school; then follows the Anglo-vernacular school for wider training; then the orphanages, to raise teachers and preachers; then the boarding and high schools; then comes the Christian college, male and female, for special training. Adding the theological seminary, we have thus amply provided for the wide Christian culture of our membership and ministry. To all these we might add our numerous camp-meetings, which are practically for those people high schools of instruction in Christian experience as well as helps to its attainment. There has been no undue haste in our baptisms.
We next present the agency by whose labors these thousands have been drawn into the fellowship of our Christian faith. That agency, too, in its surprising growth and adaptation to meet the great demand, will be seen to be as marked a work of the Holy Spirit as is the ingathering of the multitude whom they are leading to Christ.
| Agency. | Number. |
| Foreign and Anglo-Indian missionaries | 84 |
| Wives of missionaries | 75 |
| Native members of Conference | 90 |
| Native preachers not in Conference | 462 |
| Local preachers | 362 |
| Exhorters | 668 |
| Bible readers and colporteurs | 498 |
| Pastor teachers, about | 400 |
| School teachers, about | 450 |
| Lady missionaries, W. F. M. S. | 48 |
| Female teachers, 273, and Bible women, 250 | 523 |
| Total | 3,660 |
It is worthy of note here, as illustrating the devotion of these foreign missionaries to their work, that the records show that of the party of six who, with their wives, reached India in August, 1859, three of them are still at their work. Brother Downey and Judd died, and Brother Baume returned home; but Brothers Parker, Waugh, and Thoburn are in the field to-day. The record of the next party which came on the Sea King in March, 1861, and another in January, 1862, are equally encouraging. Brother Brown died, and Brothers Thomas and Hicks returned, but Brothers Johnson, Messmore, Jackson, Mansell, Scott, and Wilson, are still at the work. And yet, further, the next company, who arrived in India in 1863, can claim a share in this honorable mention, adding the ladies who still survive, and Brother Knowles, who joined us in 1858, and Brother Humphrey, now returning, and we have an aggregate, out of the twenty-five originally appointed, of fifteen still at work in India; that is, thirty-one years after the arrival of the third party, sixty per cent of the three companies are living and at work. Is there any other society that can show a higher percentage of surviving missionaries at their work after thirty-five years of toil in India?
We next present the educational statistics of the work in its different aspects, from the simple school to the college and theological seminary, for the culture of these thousands and their families, and for the training of a divinely-called native ministry to guide and guard this work of God in the future that lies before it.
| Number of Schools. |
Number of Teachers. |
Number of Scholars. | |||
| Day-schools | 1,202 | 1,401 | 31,734 | ||
| Sunday-schools | 1,823 | 2,185 | 70,794 | ||
| Boarding and high schools | 14 | 34 | 1,346 | ||
| Orphanages, boys | 5 | 16 | 296 | ||
| Christian colleges, male (363 preparatory) | 1 | 5 | 49 | ||
| Christian colleges, female (151 preparatory) | 1 | 4 | 6 | ||
| Medical students in Agra College, male | .. | .. | 7 | ||
| Medical students in Agra College, female | .. | .. | 21 | ||
| Theological Seminary, Bareilly (206 graduates) | 1 | 5 | 81 | ||
| Training school for wives of students (178 graduates) | 1 | 3 | 45 | ||
| W. F. M. S. female orphanages | 8 | 27 | 368 | ||
| W. F. M. S. homes for homeless women | 3 | 9 | 100 | ||
| W. F. M. S. pupils in schools and zenanas | |||||
| (besides 32,000 patients in hospitals and dispensaries in 1893) | 302 | 345 | 31,259 | ||
| Total | 3,361 | 4,034 | 136,106 |
This table illustrates how thoroughly every interest of this foreign mission bearing on the evangelization and elevation of a great people, and looking to its wide extension among them, has been attended to.
It may be doubted if converts anywhere have ever sought Christian baptism under a more intelligent impulse than what has led these thousands to us. Look at the facts. For thirty-five years our agency has been going through their villages teaching the way of salvation, distributing the Holy Scriptures, tracts, and books among them. We have also been giving a Christian education to thousands of their children, and the boys and girls have daily taken to their homes and there repeated and sung the texts and hymns which they have learned in their classes. For years these people have been discussing together this wonderful faith, brought thus to their doors, and now upon the good seed sown so widely the Holy Spirit has graciously descended and given it vitality, and this wonderful ingathering is the blessed result. In every one of our schools the Bible is read, hymns sung, and prayer offered. The first thing is to teach them to read the Bible in the simple village school; then follows the Anglo-vernacular school for wider training; then the orphanages, to raise teachers and preachers; then the boarding and high schools; then comes the Christian college, male and female, for special training. Adding the theological seminary, we have thus amply provided for the wide Christian culture of our membership and ministry. To all these we might add our numerous camp-meetings, which are practically for those people high schools of instruction in Christian experience as well as helps to its attainment. There has been no undue haste in our baptisms.
The amount and value of the mission property in India accumulated for the accommodation and extension of the work, is a very encouraging portion of this exhibit. If I could here introduce the photographs of the principal items they would add greatly to the interest of this table. It is mostly paid for and free, and has no serious burdens upon it.
| Number. | Value in Rupees. | |
| Churches and chapels | 145 | 775,786 |
| Parsonages | 165 | 46,778 |
| Publishing houses, Lucknow, Bombay, and Madras | 3 | 195,000 |
| Schoolhouses (besides hired halls) | 179 | 446,928 |
| Colleges and land | 2 | 30,500 |
| Theological Seminary | 1 | 22,000 |
| Orphanages, hospitals, etc. | ... | 100,000 |
| W. F. M. S. homes, schools, etc. | ... | 446,500 |
| Total | 2,463,492 | |
| Equal, at three rupees to the dollar, to | $821,164 |
It now remains only to present the yearly contributions—the self-help, realized in India for the support and extension of this growing work of God—ere we close this exhibit of the condition which it has already attained.
| Benevolent Collections, 1893. | |
| Rupees. | |
| Missions | 2,590 |
| Sunday-schools | 1,736 |
| Church Extension | 252 |
| Tract cause | 62 |
| Bible Society | 316 |
| Children's Day | 696 |
| Dispensaries, etc. | 1,869 |
| Total | 7,521 |
| Educational Contributions. | |
| English residents, for schools | 9,333 |
| Government grants, for schools | 53,837 |
| Fees from scholars | 86,839 |
| Total | 150,009 |
| Ministerial Support. | |
| Europeans | 45,541 |
| Natives, for their pastors | 6,482 |
| For Bishops and Presiding Elders | 199 |
| For Conference Claimants | 622 |
| Total | 52,844 |
| Total raised in 1893 | 210,374 |
| Equal to | $70,127 |
The grants in aid of our schools are voted on the merits and results, which the government inspector of schools finds by his personal examination of them yearly, while the contributions of the English officers, civil and military, are given and continued on their intelligent conviction of the value of our work among the native people; and higher endorsement than both of these we cannot desire or look for.
Deeply grateful that I have been spared to present this exhibit of the work which I was honored to found thirty-eight years ago, I close this article, earnestly commending that work, in the flood tide of its divine prosperity and power of usefulness for the blessed future before it, to the sympathy and increased liberality of the ministry and membership of our Church. May God bless them all and our entire staff of workers in India, and their devoted and laborious Bishop, until we meet in that glorious presence where “he that soweth and he that reapeth shall rejoice together” forever, prays their humble fellow-servant in Christ.
William Butler.
Newton Center, Mass.