UC-NRLF 
 
GIFT OF 
 
 PROFESSOR C.A. KOF3ID 
 
INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 
 
INDIA 
 
 AND 
 
 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 EEV. EDWARD STORED W, 
 
 OF THE L OX DOS' MISSIOIfAKT SOCIETY, CALCITTTA. 
 
 LONDON : 
 JOHN SNOW, 35. PATERNOSTER EOW 
 
GIFT OBJ 
 
 WFE8SOR C.A, : 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IN preparing these pages for the press, I intended 
 neither to write a large nor an elaborate book. 
 In pleading the cause of Missions in various parts 
 of England, I was struck with the large number of 
 persons who felt greatly interested in the progress 
 of Christianity in India, who knew comparatively 
 little, in a definite form, of the country as a field 
 for missions, yet who were quite prepared eagerly 
 to accept of all the information that could be 
 given them. It is for such that this volume is 
 designed. 
 
 It has been my aim, in conjunction with 
 this leading missionary purpose, to give as much 
 information as possible without seriously digress- 
 ing from the subject in hand respecting the 
 character, and the social as well as religious state 
 of the people of India. 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 Deep love for India, and pity for her sins and 
 sorrows, have forced me to write. Next to the 
 wish to " spend and be spent," in helping to raise 
 that magnificent but ill-fated empire nearer to the 
 throne of God, is my desire to stimulate others 
 to give, to pray, and to labour in her behalf. 
 
 E. S. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PEOPLE . 
 THE OBSTACLE* . 
 THE AGENCIES 
 THE EESULTS 
 THE PEOSPECTS 
 THE DUTIES 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 CHAPTER III. 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 1 
 
 14 
 
 43 
 
 56 
 
 81 
 
 106 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 A. COMPAKATIYE VlEW OP EUROPEAN CATIONS AND 
 IXDIA 
 
 13. EEMALE EDUCATION 
 
 C. THE EFFECTS OF ASGIO-ISDIAN EDUCATION 
 
 121 
 122 
 124 
 

INDIA 
 
 AND 
 
 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PEOPLE. 
 
 ENGLISHMEN ought to be better informed about 
 India than any other heathen land. Christian 
 Englishmen should pray and labour for it, as they 
 pray and labour for no other country. Its magni- 
 ficent physical features, its romantic and myste- 
 rious history, its unique literature, and its extra- 
 ordinary religion, combine to invest it with an 
 interest of the highest kind. 
 
 India ! what a crowd of exciting and conflict- 
 ing ideas does it call forth ! For ages it has been 
 the dream-land of some of the most reflective and 
 imaginative minds of Europe. Archaeologists have 
 found in it their most insoluble puzzles. Poets 
 have been inspired by it. Infidels have turned to 
 it as to an arsenal and a land of hope. Historians 
 
:2 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 have in vaiii tried to write its history. Statesmen 
 have been baffled by it. Christians have wondered 
 and wept over it. Like Japan, it is a land full of 
 paradoxes, and the intelligent European mind has 
 its conclusions strongly disturbed and shaken by 
 the study of its peculiar characteristics. Its soil 
 is most rich, but its people are most poor. The 
 Hindus are one great race ; but physically, intel- 
 lectually, and lingually, they are as diverse as the 
 nations of Europe. Though bound together by 
 caste as no other people are, none are so wanting in 
 patriotism and deep human sympathy. They possess 
 great intellectual subtlety and speculativeness, but 
 proportionately little original force and practical 
 power. Their literature is vast, profound, meta- 
 physical, and imaginative ; but it is a question 
 whether the world would gain or lose were it 
 utterly to perish. Viewed from different stand- 
 points, their religion would be called monotheistic, 
 pantheistic, tritheistic, polytheistic, and atheistic. 
 Professedly and theoretically they are .the most 
 religious of mankind; practically and morally 
 they are the most irreligious. Perhaps no people 
 so affectingly illustrate what the profound Pascal 
 calls the grandeur and the meanness of man. 
 
 The extent of India is seldom appreciated. 
 From the Himalayas to Cape Comorin it covers 
 
THE PEOPLE. 3 
 
 1900 miles; and from the Indus to the boundaries 
 of the Burmese empire, its extent is almost as 
 great. Within these limits it spreads over an area 
 of 1,309,200 miles. Great Britain has an area 
 of 90,038 square miles ; it is, therefore, but one- 
 fourteenth the size of India, and all Europe, with 
 the exception of Russia, covers but the same ex- 
 tent of surface.* 
 
 This vast region is the abode of 180,000,000 
 of our race. Contrast and comparison will best 
 enable us to comprehend their numbers. The 
 entire population of our earth is about 
 1,200,500,000; India contains, therefore, more 
 than one-seventh of the human race. The conti- 
 nent of America has 59,000,000 of inhabitants ; 
 India has, therefore, more than three times as 
 many inhabitants as that whole hemisphere. The 
 population of Great Britain and Ireland is 
 29,000,000 ; India has more than six times that 
 number. What a weight of responsibility, then, 
 rests on the Christian people who have gained 
 dominion over this vast empire ! 
 
 Four races inhabit India, and each race has its 
 own religion. 
 
 The Hill Tribes are undoubtedly descendants of 
 the aboriginal possessors of the country. They 
 
 * Appendix A. 
 
INDIA AND CHRISTIAN* MISSIONS. 
 
 were driven from the plains by successive hosts of 
 Hindu conquerors, who, entering India from the 
 north- west, gradually spread themselves like the 
 waters of an inundation over the surface of the 
 country, leaving the upland forests as a refuge to 
 the scattered savages, who were too weak to resist, 
 or too free to submit. In the Vindhya mountains, 
 the hills west of Orissa, those between the Ganges 
 and Brahmaputra, and similar ranges elsewhere, 
 they are found. They are severally distinguished 
 by the name Ghonds, Coles, Santals, Khasiyas, 
 Paharis, etc., but their physical characteristics are 
 substantially the same. They are below the 
 middle size, have an expansive chest and strongly 
 made limbs, round heads, broadish faces, flat 
 turned-up noses, small eyes, dark brown skins, 
 and cheerful intelligent countenances. They bear 
 much the same relation to the Malay that the 
 Hindus do to the Germanic race. They have 
 vague ideas of one supreme God, but worship a 
 variety of divinities, most of whom are little 
 better than fetishes. They are excessively super- 
 stitious, and less intelligent than the Hindus, but 
 more honest and truthful. It is impossible to tell 
 their numbers, but probably they amount to 
 2,500,000. 
 
 The Pariahs, who abound in Southern India, 
 
THE PEOPLE. 5 
 
 are mainly, not outcasts from Hinduism, but of 
 the same race as the hill tribes. 
 
 The Hindus amount to 160,000,000. They 
 are more numerous than all the Protestants in the 
 world put together. 
 
 In what manner the great Hindu race broke 
 off into so many branches, and became located in 
 their present seats, no one can tell. It is most pro- 
 bable that subsequent to the first great settlement 
 of the Aryan race in the north-west of Hindustan, 
 successive emigrations of a kindred people took 
 place, and, like the advancing waves of the sea, 
 passed onward to territory hitherto untouched, or 
 drove previous settlers of their own race from 
 lands which they themselves coveted. Some of 
 the Hindu races have been largely formed by an 
 admixture of tribes, but others of them are evi- 
 dently more pure and distinct. Such are the 
 llagputs, the Mahrattas, and the Bengalis. The 
 Hindus of southern India differ greatly from those 
 of the north, and evidently are of less pure descent. 
 The aboriginal element, driven to the extremities 
 of the peninsula, seems to have gathered strength 
 from compression, and to have forced itself into 
 the Hindu body politic. Many of the Shudra 
 castes no doubt thus originated. 
 
 The Hindus have the European cast of coun- 
 
INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 
 tenance ; they are less muscular than we, but have 
 a silken softness of manner, and a grace and ease 
 we seldom possess. Their intellect differs from 
 ours in being less powerful but more subtle. 
 Deceitfulness, indifference to crime and suffering, 
 hospitality to relatives and dependents, and a low 
 appreciation of political and social freedom are 
 the most marked characteristics of the people. 
 
 The Mohamedam as conquerors entered India 
 in large numbers during the eleventh and twelfth 
 centuries. Persians, Arabs, Turks, Moguls, 
 Uzbecks and Afghans, chiefly took part in this 
 fierce, formidable, and fanatical invasion. Their 
 success drew crowds of adventurers from the 
 Moslem regions lying to the north and north- 
 west of Hindustan. The proselytizing zeal of the 
 foreigners, backed by the political power they had 
 gained, and did not scruple ofttimes to use, led to 
 the conversion of many Hindus to Islamism. 
 This faith is professed by about 20,000,000 in 
 India, or one-ninth of the entire population. 
 About one-half of this number apparently are of 
 foreign descent; the other half are Hindu Mo- 
 hamedans. 
 
 The inhabitants of India who claim an Eu- 
 ropean descent are but a fraction of the entire 
 population. Exclusive of the English soldiers, 
 
THE PEOPLE. 7 
 
 the Europeans do not amount to 20,000. India 
 is not a colony, nor can our countrymen ever find 
 a home there as they do in Australia and North 
 America. The climate is ungenial; our race 
 would rapidly degenerate, if not die out, beneath 
 its wearing power ; and natives can live on so 
 little, that European labour, unless skilled, cannot 
 compete with theirs. Our countrymen, however, 
 who have capital and energy, find it advantageous 
 to establish themselves as indigo planters and 
 merchants ; and few things would so benefit India 
 as the increase of this class of men, who might in 
 these pursuits, or in others, such as zemindars, 
 manufacturers and cotton purchasers, greatly 
 benefit the natives and enrich themselves.* 
 
 The East Indian or Eurasian population pro- 
 bably amounts to 80,000. These are chiefly 
 descendants from European fathers and native 
 mothers. They are mainly of Portuguese paternal 
 origin. 
 
 The following is, I believe, an accurate state- 
 ment of the Christian population of India : 
 
 * What is here said refers to India generally, but the 
 southern slopes of the Himalayas are well fitted to be the home 
 of a race of colonists. They are not without a fair proportion 
 of mineral wealth, and there is every advantage of climate and 
 of soil for the cultivation of such productions as tea coffee, and 
 spices. 
 
8 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 European soldiers 80,000 
 
 European civilians 20,000 
 
 East Indians 80,000 
 
 Protestant Native Christians . . 125,000 
 
 Syrian Christians 150,000 
 
 Roman Catholic Native Christians . 620,000 
 
 1,075,000 
 
 Let us now survey India in its main geogra- 
 phical divisions. Looking northward from Cape 
 Comorin it thus unfolds itself to the view : To 
 the right lies the district of Tinnevelly ; it is under 
 British rule, and Christianity has here a larger 
 proportion of adherents than in any other part of 
 India. To the left is the small, partially indepen- 
 dent state of Travancore, where the number of 
 Christians is unusually large. In these two tracts 
 of country the Episcopalians have 47,000 converts, 
 and the London Missionary Society 16,300 just 
 one-half the entire native Christian population of 
 all India. Northward of Travancore, near the 
 western coast, lies Cochin, and beyond it Coorg. 
 To the eastward, covering the southern regions of 
 an extensive table-land, lies the Mysore territory. 
 Beyond this are extensive tracts, once possessed 
 by the Mahrattas, but now under British rule; 
 and still further to the north of the table -land, 
 
THE PEOPLE. 9 
 
 Avliicli stretches from the western to the eastern 
 Ghauts, lies the extensive kingdom of Hyderabad. 
 The government is Mohamedan, and whilst itself 
 fearfully corrupt, can be expected to do but little 
 for its 10,000,000 of despoiled and demoralized 
 subjects. Leaving Tinnevelly we pass, on the 
 eastern coast, a number of districts under English 
 rule, and inhabited by a population having in it 
 more of the aboriginal element intermixed with 
 the Hindu than is found anywhere northward. 
 
 Leaving the Madras Presidency, with its 
 30,000,000 of inhabitants, we come to that of 
 Bombay, on the western coast, with its 25,000,000. 
 The Maliratta race chiefly predominates in its 
 southern and eastern provinces. Their formidable 
 political power has long since passed away, but 
 several of their states still have an independent 
 existence. Gwalior, with its 3,500,000 of subjects, 
 is the chief of these. The Bombay Presidency, 
 with the adjoining states and provinces to the 
 north and east, have by far fewer missionaries 
 than any other part of India. 
 
 South-east of Hyderabad, lies the little-known, 
 but extensive regions of Saugor and Nerbudda 
 territory, and Nagpore. Between these and the 
 province of Orissa, where the General Baptists 
 have one of the most interesting missions in all 
 
10 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 India, lies an irregular tract of jungle and hill 
 territory, hardly known to Europeans, and in- 
 habited by some of the most debased and super- 
 stitious of the aborigines of the country. North- 
 east of this region lies Calcutta, the capital of the 
 empire the seat of a commerce surpassed by 
 not more than two cities in the world out of 
 England. 
 
 Calcutta lies at the base of the great Gangetic 
 valley. This magnificent valley, for fertility, ex- 
 tent, and populousness, can only be compared 
 with those of the Yang-tse-keang, the Amazon, 
 and the Mississippi. It drains a region 1400 miles 
 long and 600 broad, and supports a population 
 large as that of Great Britain and all North 
 and South America united. 
 
 The Bengalis, numbering at least 28,000,000- 
 the same population as England and Ireland inha- 
 bit the whole of the southern portion of this valley.* 
 They are the most cowardly and intellectual of all 
 the Hindu races. Lord Macaulay's celebrated 
 sketch of them will be remembered. Bahar lies 
 next as you ascend the Ganges a rich and fertile 
 
 * The entire population of the Presidency of Bengal is not 
 less than 48,000,000, equal to that of France and Spain united. 
 It includes the provinces of Bengal, Bahar, Orissa, and the 
 territory bordering on Burinah and the Brahmaputra. 
 
THE PEOPLE. 11 
 
 province. Benares, the religious capital of India, 
 lies in the midst of it. The Bahares are more 
 stolid, ignorant, and superstitious than their 
 southern neighbours; they number 8,500,000. 
 North of the Ganges and the large cities of 
 Benares, Allahabad, and Cawnpore (of mournful 
 memory), lies Oude, once made into a kingdom 
 by us, then unmade, and the scene of some of the 
 darkest and grandest episodes in British-Indian 
 history. North-west of Oude lies the great pro- 
 vince of Rohilcund, having on its southern borders 
 Agra, the capital of the south-western provinces, 
 and Delhi, the siege and capture of which will be 
 ranked in future ages, as one of the most heroic 
 deeds which history can exhibit. Here ends the 
 great Gangetic plain. Westward is the water- 
 shed which divides it from the valley of the Indus, 
 and southward the Yindhyan mountains, beyond 
 which stretches for 900 miles the table-land of the 
 Deccan. 
 
 Between the Jumna and the Indus, and 
 partially watered by the tributaries of both, lie the 
 Rajput states, inhabited by a people who have a 
 nobler and purer history than any other Hindu 
 race. In chivalrous sentiment, unselfish courage, 
 and lofty honour, they stand pre-eminent. In 
 Indian history they have often acted a prominent 
 
12 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 
 part, and will do so again. The Punjaub is the 
 extremest province of the empire, and thence it is 
 that the Indus receives its five streams. The 
 Sikhs and Punjaubis both inhabit it. They num- 
 ber at least 12,000,000. They are of the same 
 race, but the Sikhs are seceders from Hinduism 
 and Mohamedanism. Should nothing occur to 
 give them political importance and to excite their 
 love of rapine and war, their faith, there is reason 
 to believe, will rapidly decline. Southward of the 
 Punjaub lies the fruitful Gujerat, and the hot and 
 sterile Scinde. 
 
 Of the 180,000,000 of India, at least 
 140,000,000 are under British rule, the remainder 
 belong to such " subsidiary states" as Hyderabad, 
 such " protected states" as Cashmere, or to such 
 "independent states" as Nepaul. The first two 
 kinds are the most populous ; over them all British 
 power is paramount. 
 
 Such is the splendid empire over which Eng- 
 land rules. Greek, Persian, Roman, or Spaniard 
 never looked on such a magnificent possession. It 
 is the most extensive, rich and populous empire 
 ever governed by a foreign race. How tremen- 
 dous the responsibility attached to such splendid 
 power ! How great the honour of spreading truth, 
 goodness and prosperity over such an empire, and 
 
THE PEOPLE. 13 
 
 of lifting it upward to the throne of God ! How 
 deep the shame, and how heavy the sin of using 
 it for our own selfish ends, and leaving it in its 
 misery and superstition ! 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE OBSTACLES. 
 
 THE obstacles to tlie progress of Christianity, 
 presented by tlie rude superstitions of Africa and 
 the islands of the seas, are far less formidable than 
 those connected with the great religious systems 
 of Asia. The former are like a Burmese stockade 
 or a Caffre entrenchment, the others resemble the 
 defences prepared by a Vauban or a Totleben. 
 They have their professedly divine revelations; 
 their learned expounders and teachers; their philo- 
 sophic as well as popular forms; their religious 
 literature; and their rites and customs rendered 
 venerable and sacred by the usages of hundreds 
 and of thousands of years. To Hinduism, even 
 more than to Buddhism and Molmmcdanism, this 
 applies. It is inextricably intertwined with the 
 history of the race professing it; it breathes 
 through all their national life; it forms the essence 
 of all their philosophy and literature ; it is asso- 
 ciated with evexy act of life, from childhood to the 
 grave. The hold it thus has upon an intensely 
 
THE OBSTACLES. 15 
 
 conservative people may be imagined, and to 
 abandon it seems to them an act of denationaliza- 
 tion. In itself this aspect of Hinduism offers a 
 strong barrier to the progress of a purer faith, and, 
 in addition to this, it will easily be perceived how 
 it adds strength and definiteness to the other hin- 
 drances that will be mentioned. 
 
 Christianity has no foe in India so fierce, un- 
 yielding, and formidable as Mohamedanism ; its 
 inherent hate and intolerance have been deepened 
 by the fact, that we robbed it of a supremacy 
 which for centuries it held. 
 
 Though doctrinally Islamism approaches nearer 
 to Christianity than any idolatrous system, no 
 religion is so different in spirit. The humility 
 produced by our pure and sublime faith is 
 strikingly contrasted with the pride it engenders ; 
 ours leads to purity, it stimulates to sensualism ; 
 ours softens, it indurates human nature; ours 
 leads to freedom, it necessarily to despotism ; 
 ours excites pity toward the unbelieving, it only 
 hate; ours teaches forbearance and liberality, it 
 dark, unyielding intolerance. The Mohamedan 
 has for Hinduism a sentiment of which dislike 
 and contempt are its main elements, but for 
 Christianity he has unmixed hate -and fear. He 
 seldom condescends to read our Christian books ; 
 
16 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 he is not so disposed as the Hindu to hear what 
 the missionary has to say, but is far more ready 
 to cavil and controvert ; his power is usually em- 
 ployed to check by every means the spread of the 
 truth, nor is he disposed like the Hindu to send 
 his son to missionary or government schools and 
 colleges, for the purpose of acquiring a knowledge 
 of our Western learning and civilization. Like 
 a relentless and stubborn foe, he shuts himself up 
 in the fortress of his iron faith, refuses every 
 overture, and stands ready to repel every advance. 
 
 The religious hostility of the Mohamedan is 
 deepened by political considerations. His system, 
 indeed, is essentially politico-religious ; he is never 
 satisfied with a government which is not Mo- 
 hamedan. Rebel he will whenever there is a 
 chance of success; and where his system is su- 
 preme, then farewell to improvement and reform. 
 
 Hinduism exhibits no such bitter antagonism 
 to Christianity; like all idolatrous systems, it is 
 disposed to admit the validity of worship and of 
 faith other than its own. " Yes, what you say is 
 very right ; your religion is true, and so is ours ; 
 yours is good for Englishmen, and ours is good 
 for Hindus," is a common remark to missionaries. 
 But Hinduism induces a state of mind and heart 
 ivhich strongly indisposes its professor to embrace 
 
THE OBSTACLES. 17 
 
 Christianity j and to no small extent incapacitates 
 him for comprehending some of its most peculiar 
 and glorious features. 
 
 Hinduism recognizes 330 millions of gods ; of 
 course the names of such a multitude are unknown. 
 Of these about thirty are now popularly worshipped. 
 There is not one of them to whom is attributed a 
 noble, blameless, virtuous character ; most of them 
 have a reputation which would exclude any man 
 or woman from decent society. In the Shastras 
 their actions are recorded, and they contain little 
 else than a dark disclosure of contention, deceit, 
 war, cruelty, anger, seduction, impurity and mean- 
 ness. The chief notion conveyed to the mind of 
 the inquirer respecting them is, that they are just 
 like intensely bad men and women, only far more 
 powerful. Crishna, one of the favourite deities of 
 Hindu women, for instance, has a history so crimi- 
 nal and impure, that the English public would exe- 
 crate the man who dared to print it without alter- 
 ation. The effect of having such objects of worship 
 may easily be imagined. To contemplate them is 
 to meditate on vice ; to think of them is to become 
 impure ; to imitate them is to be wicked. They 
 have many qualities which excite fear and dislike, 
 but few to call forth respect and love. The love, 
 indeed, which the Christian has towards God the 
 
18 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 purest and loftiest feelings the human soul can 
 possess the Hindu cannot have for any one of 
 his idol gods. He worships for amusement, be- 
 cause he- is selfish, and since he is afraid; but 
 beyond these motives he seldom soars. He attri- 
 butes to his gods all the passions and vices of 
 humanity, along with enormous power ; his con- 
 duct towards them is substantially such, therefore, 
 as he displays toward a bad but influential earthly 
 superior. He dreads their anger, he desires their 
 protection, and hence he does his best to humour 
 their caprice, to keep them good tempered, and to 
 induce them to bestow such gifts as they have at 
 their disposal, and to protect him from calamity 
 and the displeasure of other gods. Hinduism 
 absolutely stimulates the worst passions of our 
 nature, by presenting such objects to the imagina- 
 tion; and if its votaries be intensely wicked, they 
 do not on that account necessarily dread the wrath 
 of the gods. The term " godlike" suggests to us 
 all that is dignified, elevated, benevolent and pure; 
 to the Hindu, by a mournful reversion of ideas, it 
 means the antithesis of these. 
 
 There is another feature of Hinduism requiring 
 our notice. It is not based on any great moral 
 principles, nor does it exact moral obedience. In 
 the Shastras there are good moral lessons and long- 
 
THE OBSTACLES. 19 
 
 drawn ethical speculations, but they are not an 
 essential part of Hinduism. Its requirements 
 are social and ceremonial only. To keep caste is 
 the one law binding on a Hindu. He may be- 
 lieve what he pleases respecting goodness and 
 virtue ; he may hold that all moral distinctions 
 are imaginary, and act out his theory in practice. 
 He may be a perjurer, an adulterer, a thief; he 
 may oppress the poor, and neglect his family; 
 yet he comes not beneath the anathema of Hin- 
 duism, and may still have the reputation of a 
 religious man. 
 
 This divorce of Hinduism from morality so 
 strangely at variance with our views of religion 
 has deadened to an appalling extent the moral 
 sense of the people. A Hindu thought it not a 
 crime but an act of merit, to cast his infant 
 daughter into the sacred Ganges, and to set fire 
 to the funeral-pile on which his mother devoted 
 herself to death, in company with the body of her 
 deceased husband. He gave up these rites, not 
 because he was convinced they were wrong, but 
 because the English Government made them 
 penal. He still thinks it a commendable act of 
 friendship only, to perjure himself for some one 
 who, he knows perfectly well, has killed a poor 
 ryot, got an estate by forgery, or privately impri- 
 
20 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 soiled and fearfully tortured an innocent man, 
 whom it was necessary to keep from appearing in 
 a court of justice. 
 
 The Thugs, before going on their expeditions, 
 usually put themselves beneath the protection of 
 the goddess Kali, and on their return present to 
 her an offering taken from the treasures of which 
 they have robbed their murdered victims. Colonel 
 Sleeman says, that though he examined scores of 
 Thugs, many of whom had aided in the strangu- 
 lation of scores of victims, he never met with one 
 who looked upon Thuggism as a sin. Many of 
 these, he tells us, were amongst the most amiable- 
 looking men he had seen in all India. A Hindu 
 seldom has any deep revulsion from crime. A 
 landholder knows that a gang of dacoits live on 
 his estate ; on the understanding that they rob not 
 him, he leaves them unmolested to pillage his 
 neighbours. A servant may know that his fellow- 
 servant has cheated his master every day for years; 
 a shopkeeper knows that he is supplying drugs to 
 one who systematically administers them to procure 
 abortion, or to destroy adult life ; a villager knows 
 that his neighbour is a skilled burglar, and has 
 committed more than one murder; a confidential 
 officer in the court of an English judge, knows of 
 innumerable cases of bribery ; that many of his 
 
THE OBSTACLES. 21 
 
 fellow-servants are in the pay of influential cli- 
 ents; that forgery and perjury, in many specific 
 cases, ruin the innocent and shield the guilty; 
 yet will they pass such things by as if they con- 
 cerned them not. They had rather baffle justice, 
 when, like a blood-hound, it is on the track of its 
 victims, than offer it direction and aid. 
 
 The burning detestation with which every 
 Englishman thinks of the crimes of Nana Saib, 
 and which would lead them to delight in nothing 
 so much as some enterprise, though fatiguing and 
 dangerous, for the purpose of bringing him to 
 justice, has no parallel in the mind of the Hindu. 
 Nana Saib, or any other wretch stained with 
 enormous crime, need fear no spontaneous out- 
 burst of public or private vengeance for iniquity, 
 simply as such. If he can avoid the wrath of 
 those he has greatly injured, and of those whose 
 cupidity would largely gain by his apprehension, 
 he has little to fear. Even the native police, when 
 left to themselves, seldom put forth much exer- 
 tion to repress crime, save when a harvest is to 
 be reaped by means of bribery, extortion, and 
 intimidation. 
 
 This moral apathy is closely allied with a want 
 of appreciation of the distinction between truth and 
 error. 
 
22 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 Whatever else it is, religion is not with the 
 Hindu a question of evidence and of truth. To 
 prove his religion true, or to reject it because he 
 cannot do so, are alternatives he does not see the 
 necessity of accepting. Hinduism is the religion 
 of the Hindu race ; it has been so from the be- 
 ginning. It is the " duslour," the custom of his 
 caste, to worship certain gods, and to maintain 
 certain usages, and that is all he cares to know, 
 and thinks it a statement which ought to prevent 
 you in future troubling him on the matter. To 
 us who have been taught by Christ to ask habi- 
 tually, in reference to every form of belief and 
 every variety of action, "Is it true?" "Prove 
 it" " Is it right ? " this seems not only extraor- 
 dinary, but incredible. 
 
 Some of the causes which have thus led cre- 
 dulity to usurp the place of veracity may be sug- 
 gested. When untaught by Christ, man is more 
 disposed to credulity than to scepticism in matters 
 of religion. His fears work upon his imagina- 
 tion, and this fills all nature with spiritual exist- 
 ences, and invests all things with a religious cha- 
 racter. His hopes and his fears alike impel him 
 in this direction. Even his selfishness and his 
 prudence suggest that he had better believe too 
 much than too little that there can be no harm 
 
THE OBSTACLES. 23 
 
 in worshipping deities if they do not exist ; but 
 that if they happen to exist, and are not worship, 
 ped, the consequences may be tremendous. This 
 state of mind disposes men to become the ready 
 dupes of priestcraft. The fanatic and the knave 
 alike find it an easy thing to gain credence from 
 such for whatever they assert, and obedience in 
 whatever they command; and neither Hinduism 
 nor any polytheistic system has in itself a check 
 upon this tendency of human nature. They 
 never teach their votaries to ask, with earnest 
 heart, "What is truth?" The Hindu mind is 
 essentially speculative and credulous, not inqui- 
 ring, and, in obedience to its promptings and 
 vagaries, has grown up a system of religion, or 
 rather a congeries of systems, comprehending 
 every form of opinion and every caprice of imagi- 
 nation, but alike unsubstantial as a dream, or 
 incongruous as the " terrible " image which the 
 king of Babylon saw in his troubled dreams. 
 
 The spirit of investigation and inquiry now 
 brought to bear in England on all religious ques- 
 tions has certainly been largely indebted for its 
 development to the principles of inductive reason- 
 ing taught by Bacon. Developed first, and proved 
 in the favourite and most befitting walks of 
 natural philosophy, they have thence passed into 
 
INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS, 
 
 the higher and more abstract regions of morals 
 and religion. Unfortunately for the Hindus, they 
 have despised all physical science, and, therefore, 
 have never had one of the finest fields open to 
 them for the cultivation of the habit of looking 
 for evidence and proof where best they can be 
 exhibited. 
 
 The practical result of all this is, that the 
 Hindu vrill believe anything, but is not moved to 
 action by deep religious convictions. With us, 
 belief necessitates corresponding action ; with the 
 Hindu it is merely a state of mind. He will tell 
 you that " an idol is nothing," but he will go on 
 worshipping it ; he will denounce caste, but still 
 keep it ; he will acknowledge the folly and cruelty 
 of the customs of his country about women, but 
 not permit his own wife to eat with him, nor 
 delay, for the world, the marriage of his sister 
 beyond her eighth year, nor venture to send his 
 daughter to school. He believes one thing, but 
 he does another; nor does he seem to be aware 
 of the inconsistency of doing so. The extraordi- 
 nary weakness of will exhibited by Coleridge 
 much resembles the universal moral obliquity of 
 the Hindus ; only his. to a great extent, arose 
 from physical causes, theirs is the result of meta- 
 physical speculativencss, combined with moral 
 
THE OBSTACLES. 25 
 
 apathy. It need not be remarked how difficult it 
 is to influence such a people. The intellect and 
 the life are like two planets obeying totally 
 different attractive forces. You enlighten the 
 former, but you do not on that account per- 
 ceptibly influence the latter. The mind 
 admits the validity of the arguments in favour 
 of Christianity, but Hinduism is still professed 
 in one form or another. And this want of moral 
 sensitiveness, this divorce between opinion, and 
 conduct, renders persons singularly impervious 
 to the deductions drawn from all earnest religious 
 controversy. Indeed the Hindu, though excessively 
 fond of metaphysical discussion, seldom thinks of 
 making a practical use of it ; and if he admits the 
 truth of an opinion, he acts as though the admission 
 should free him from any further trouble, it is 
 sufficiently honoured if he acknowledges it. 
 Human nature is disposed everywhere to act thus, 
 but nowhere to such a degree as in India. 
 
 Many facts might be mentioned illustrative of 
 these statements. I have seldom witnessed a case 
 of conversion where relatives and friends could be 
 persuaded that it was the result of deliberate con- 
 victions about religious truth. The more super- 
 stitious usually suppose that a determination to 
 embrace Christianity is the result of some charm 
 
26 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 r that 
 
 or fascination exercised by the missionaries, or 
 it is destiny or fate hurrying the poor stricken 
 victim to his own ruin. Others think that the 
 force of passion or caprice can alone account for 
 such a step. That it should spring from convic- 
 tion a belief that Hinduism being false, and 
 Christianity true, the former must be repudiated 
 and the latter professed at any cost is a notion 
 they can hardly comprehend, and the wisdom of 
 which they altogether doubt. 
 
 It will readily be supposed, from what has 
 been written, that the Hindus have very perverted 
 ideas of the nature of sin. 
 
 Caste, chiefly, is the cause of this, but it is not 
 the only one. Anticipating what will be more 
 fully explained presently, it may here be remarked 
 that its entire drift is, to substitute the idea of 
 external cleanness for that of internal purity, the 
 notion that to keep caste is everything, and there- 
 fore that moral distinctions are of quite a second- 
 ary nature. To kill a cow, to eat beef, to partake 
 of food with foreigners, or men of inferior caste, 
 and to be wanting in respect for Brahmins these 
 are the " sins " which the Hindu regards as most 
 heinous and polluting. Similar ideas he enter- 
 tains on all the affairs of life ; what he eats and 
 what he touches, even unwittingly, affects his caste. 
 
THE OBSTACLES. 27 
 
 It follows, that from having his thoughts capri- 
 ciously and habitually directed to the question of 
 caste pollution, he loses sight, and even conscious- 
 ness, of what moral pollution really is. Sin, in 
 the Scriptural sense of the term, he hardly feels 
 or understands. If you talk to him of guilt, he 
 freely acknowledges himself a sinner, but he at- 
 taches to the word an idea which astonishes and 
 grieves you. He will be driven into paroxysms of 
 the wildest grief and think himself undone, even 
 if against his will he taste beef-broth, or unknow- 
 ingly take food with an outcaste ; but he will lie 
 and deceive, he will oppress and defraud, he will 
 have an imagination filled with all that is impure, 
 and a life loaded with crime, yet it sits lightly on 
 his conscience, and hardly casts a cloud over the 
 future he anticipates. One great cause, un- 
 doubtedly, of this moral obliquity, is found in 
 the doctrine believed by many Hindu sects, that 
 faith alone is necessary, and conduct altogether 
 immaterial. Professor H. H. Wilson, speaking 
 of the influence exerted by such a notion, says : 
 <( It matters not how atrocious a sinner may be, 
 if he paints his face, his breast, his arms with 
 certain sectarial marks ; or, which is better, if he 
 brands his skin permanently with them with a 
 hot-iron stamp; if he is constantly chanting 
 
X! INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSION-. 
 
 liymns in honour of Vishnu ; or, what is equally 
 efficacious, if he spends hours in the simple re- 
 iteration of his name or names; if he die 
 with the word Hari, or Rama, or Cushna on his 
 lips, and the thought of him in his mind he 
 may have lived a monster of iniquity he is 
 certain of heaven." It hardly need be said how 
 far this frightful perversion of the ideas of holi- 
 ness and sin indispose might it not be said 
 incapacitate, to a great extent any one for re- 
 ceiving the Gospel. Christ came to call sinners 
 to repentance. The heart alone that is burdened 
 with a consciousness of guilt will press in broken- 
 hearted penitence to his cross, and supplicate for- 
 giveness with an agony which alone can be allayed 
 by pardon. The Hindu seldom feels the burden 
 of his sins, and, therefore, he passes by the cross 
 coldly indifferent, or proudly complacent, as if it 
 were not for him. 
 
 Great, however, as are the obstacles thrown in 
 the way of Christian effort by the previous causes, 
 a yet more formidable obstacle exists in caste. 
 This will be seen by glancing at the state of 
 mind it induces, and the practical obstacles it puts 
 in the way of any one disposed to break it. 
 
 Caste, in the opinion of the Hindu, involves 
 distinctions not only of a secular and social kind, 
 
THE OBSTACLES. 29 
 
 but also of a religious nature, and these distinc- 
 tions are not accidental, arbitrary, and temporary, 
 but immutable, fundamental, and divine. 
 
 The legendary account of the origin of caste 
 is well known. At the creation, the Brahmin 
 caste, the highest of all, proceeded out of the 
 mouth of Brahma; the Khetriya, or warrior 
 caste, came from his arms ; the Vaisya, or re- 
 spectable trading caste, sprang from his loins; 
 and the Shudra, or servile caste, came from his 
 feet. This account is accepted as true by every 
 Hindu. He regards it as a divinely revealed fact* 
 that men are not equal to one another, nor ever 
 can be, and that it is unnatural and blasphemous 
 to assert that they are to act as if they were. 
 
 " It is difficult, if not impossible, for Europeans 
 even those living in India fully to understand 
 the feelings, mental habitudes, and principles, 
 which have given birth to, and still maintain, the 
 distinctions of caste. Perhaps an illustration 
 from natural history may serve as a convenient 
 means of giving a popular idea of the matter : 
 As birds, beasts, fishes, and other tribes of ani- 
 mated beings, are divided into genera or orders, 
 which must have sprung from so many different 
 originals, so, in the Hindu conception of it, the 
 race of man was, from the very beginning, divided 
 
30 IXDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 by tlie Creator himself into four yenera, orders, or 
 castes, which did spring from an equal number of 
 different originals. In our belief, founded on 
 authentic revelation, all the race-lines of the 
 human family, however widely dissimilar, or 
 divergent now, if traced backwards, would be 
 found to converge towards, and ultimately meet 
 in, a single primordial stock, or procreative 
 centre ; but, in the belief of the Hindus, founded 
 on what to them is a revelation, all the race-lines 
 of the human family, if traced backwards, would be 
 found, not to converge toward a common point, but 
 to rvn parallel, and ultimately terminate in distinct 
 and independent stocks, or centres of production. 
 <{ Accordingly, as in the case of animals, not- 
 withstanding the similarities of shape, instincts, 
 and habits, the great families of birds, beasts, and 
 fishes are composed of a number of different 
 yenera, and these again, of multiplied species, 
 which are easily distinguished by learned natu- 
 ralists, though they may be more or less con- 
 founded by the ignorant; so, notwithstanding 
 the resemblance of bodily shape, and apparent 
 mental and moral attributes, the great family of 
 man, in the opinion of the Hindus, is made up 
 of different genera and species ; each as essen- 
 tially distinct from the rest, as one genus or 
 
THE OBSTACLES. 31 
 
 species of birds, beasts, or fishes is from another. 
 Each such genus of man constitutes what is 
 reckoned one of the four primeval castes; and 
 each such species one of the subsequent divisions, 
 or subdivisions, which now amount to many hun- 
 dreds. However closely different birds, beasts, 
 and fishes may resemble each other in outward 
 appearance and general characteristics, each kind 
 will keep itself distinct by its food, its habits, and 
 its sympathies ; will associate and congenialize 
 with those of its own kind, in preference and to 
 the exclusion of others. It would be monstrous 
 if the members of one genus would cease to re- 
 semble and unite with the members of its own 
 genus, and mix with and adopt the distinguishing 
 marks and habits of another. It would be 
 strange indeed were the lion, to graze like the ox, 
 or the ox to slay its prey like the lion. The spe- 
 cial capabilities also of service to be derived from 
 any particular genus or species of animals cannot 
 be transferred to another. A sheep or an ox_, 
 for example, cannot be made to answer the same 
 purpose as a horse. It would be unnatural to 
 expect that an ox should carry a rider as swiftly 
 as a horse can, and wrong to make the attempt to 
 train him for the race-course. 
 
 " Ideas somewhat akin to these seem to form 
 
INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 the ground-work in the Hindu mind of the pre- 
 nt notions of caste, and may help to account 
 for the fact, that the points considered most essen- 
 tial in caste are food and its preparation, inter- 
 marriage within the same caste only, hereditary 
 occupation, and a peculiar sympathy with the 
 whole caste, which, taking the form of imitative- 
 ness, leads an individual Hindu to follow the 
 example of his caste, just as a sheep or a wild 
 pigeon follows the example of the flock. These 
 ideas also may so far explain the ground of the 
 local variations observable in the customs and 
 usages of the same caste. In one place a Hindu 
 will consent to do what in another he would per- 
 emptorily refuse to do, simply because in the 
 former he is countenanced by the example of his 
 brethren, and not in the latter; just as a flock of 
 sheep or pigeons may, from accidental causes, 
 somewhat vary its habits or movements in dif- 
 ferent localities. These ideas also seem to account 
 for the supreme contempt with which a high caste 
 Brahmin usually looks down on individuals of low 
 caste or no caste, as if they really were not human 
 beings at all. Before any of these the lordly 
 Brahmin will expose his person in ways utterly 
 shameless, and contrary to all proper notions of 
 decency. His defence, if expostulated with, will 
 
THE OBSTACLES. o3 
 
 iu substance be ' What ! Would there be any 
 harm in thus exposing yourself before cats, dogs, 
 or cattle? And don't you know that these low 
 caste or no caste people are mere animals?' These 
 ideas further show how, to a Hindu, every viola- 
 tion of caste presents itself in the light of a hateful 
 sin against nature. The raven, in the fable, who 
 assumed the plumes of the peacock, 'appears 
 ridiculous, and if the peacock made an attempt 
 to pass himself off for a raven, he would appear 
 still more ridiculous. That fable, however, gives 
 only a very inadequate idea of the kind of impres- 
 sion which the violation of caste produces upon a 
 pure Hindu of the old traditional school. The 
 impression is rather somewhat analogous to that 
 which would be made upon us by an attempt on 
 the part of a man to become a woman, or of a 
 woman to become a man. And, lastly, the pre- 
 valence of these ideas may serve to account for the 
 peculiarly abominable nature of the sin which, 
 according to Hindu notions of morality, attaches 
 to intermarriages between different castes, as well 
 as for the dread of familiar contact with Europeans, 
 who are regarded as the offspring of such foul mar- 
 and consequently, mletchas, or wholly unclean"* 
 
 * "The Indian Rebellion, its Causes and Results;" by Dr, 
 Duff. 
 
34- INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 It is impossible to describe the extent to which 
 the thoughts and feelings of the Hindu are affected 
 by caste. Even the lowest Shudra regards himself 
 as immeasurably superior to the most high-horn 
 pariah or mletcha. His origin is sacred, peculiar, 
 and honoured, for it is a link and what though 
 it be the lowest of that chain of humanity which 
 alone proceeded from the gods; theirs, on the 
 contrary, is base, contemptible, and impure. The 
 feeling of a Greek towards a Helot, a Virginian 
 planter towards a slave, or a Popish priest towards 
 a married nun, but partially and feebly resemble 
 his feelings towards an outcaste. To become a 
 Christian is to lose caste, to lose sanctity, honour, 
 purity, and indeed all that is precious ; and it is to 
 become vile, despicable and impure as well. Need 
 we say how the Hindu turns away with loathing 
 from the very thought ! It is only after long effort, 
 and as the result of deep religious conviction, that 
 he can be brought to break away from a fascina- 
 tion more potent and nattering than any other the 
 mind or the imagination ever acknowledged. 
 
 But loss of caste is not an imaginary evil ; it 
 is attended by various " pains and penalties " of the 
 severest kind. Until 1850 the Hindu who aban- 
 doned his ancestral faith could not inherit pro- 
 perty; now, thanks to the justice of the British 
 
THE OBSTACLES. 35 
 
 Government, the Hindu Christian has a claim 
 equal to that of his idolatrous brother. But 
 though the law makes no distinction, society does. 
 He who breaks caste is never permitted to live 
 with his family, or to eat with them. The circle 
 in which he formerly moved avoid him as Jews 
 would a leper, and all the associations in which a 
 Hindu takes such pleasure intermarriage, con- 
 course with equals, and status in society arc 
 his no more. All the ignominy, pollution, and 
 disgrace associated in the minds of the most 
 bigoted and superstitious with the ideas of out- 
 law, ostracism, excommunication, and foul disease, 
 are heaped upon his head. Even when Christian 
 faith enables a man to surmount that intense pre- 
 judice, fear, and loathing with which he has habitu- 
 ally regarded the loss of caste, the relative obstacles 
 thrown in his way are of the most formidable 
 nature. Every friend he has will regard his act 
 with a singular degree of grief and abhorrence, 
 paralleled by no emotions which an Englishman can 
 call forth amongst his relatives by any act of folly 
 or of crime he might commit. They will do their 
 utmost to dissuade him from so fatal a step, and 
 the knowledge of the intense grief and humiliation 
 he may give them, though not perhaps able to 
 shake his resolution, makes the struggle more 
 
36 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 deadly and sorrowful than perhaps any that poor 
 humanity has to endure in its efforts to be saved. 
 
 The condition of female society greatly impedes 
 missionary effort. 
 
 Women in India are looked upon as invariably 
 inferior to men. They are held to be necessarily 
 vain, weak, frail, and sensuous ; having an inevi- 
 table and irremediable predisposition towards folly 
 and vice, and only able to be preserved from them 
 by the watchful care of man. This notion has 
 chiefly led to a series of customs which make the 
 position of women in India more degrading and 
 saddening than it is anywhere else. 
 
 Very few women can read. Ignorance is 
 thought to be better for them than learning, 
 because the latter is sure to make them vain, con- 
 ceited and unmanageable, and only gives them 
 power for evil, for a woman who can read, it is 
 held, will never read good, but always bad books. 
 Very few indeed are they who can be induced 
 to send their daughters to school. Even should 
 they do so, they remove them to be married almost 
 as soon as their education is begun. * 
 
 All women connected with the higher and 
 middle ranks of life are secluded from general 
 society. The former never leave their own apart- 
 
 * Appendix B. 
 
THE OBSTACLES. 37 
 
 ments save in a covered conveyance, and under 
 watchful protection. The latter are less confined, 
 but never do they move about as freely as English 
 women. The poorest only are allowed some degree 
 of freedom, but if they join a crowd who are 
 listening to a missionary, they will most likely be 
 suspected of a sinister motive, or be told con- 
 temptuously that they have no business with 
 religious questions it is sufficient for them to go 
 through the religious ceremonies they have been 
 taught. 
 
 Every Hindu girl is married before she is eight 
 years of age. It is considered both a sin and a 
 shame for her parents to delay her nuptials beyond 
 that period. 
 
 These usages fundamentally affect the relations 
 of women to the gospel. The jealous seclusion 
 in which females live prevents them ever hearing it, 
 and the numbers who gather to listen to a mis- 
 sionary are almost exclusively men. Nor are our 
 zealous efforts to spread the Christian Scriptures 
 and tracts of much avail for women, though largely 
 successful among men, for they cannot read them, 
 if they fall in their way. 
 
 It would be difficult to imagine any customs 
 and usages more calculated to keep in ignorance 
 and superstition one half a people, than those of 
 
 E 
 
38 1XDIA AXD CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 
 Hindustan. Barrier is added to barrier lest they 
 should be reached by the angel of mercy. It is 
 as if to prevent a poor victim seeing, he not only 
 had his eyes put out, but were thrust into some 
 underground prison, into which no beam of light 
 could pierce. And the religious position of women 
 powerfully affects that of men. The former being 
 intensely ignorant and superstitious, have the most 
 erroneous and dismal ideas of what it is to become 
 a Christian. They will move heaven and earth to 
 prevent what they deem such a calamity, and the 
 influence of a mother' s, a sister's, or a wife's tears 
 and entreaties, may well be supposed to weigh 
 heavily when the mind contemplates a change of 
 religion. 
 
 The social state of a large proportion of the 
 population, is a great obstacle to the spread of 
 Christianity. 
 
 The masses of India live by agriculture. The 
 country has no middle class ; the rich and power- 
 ful zemindar, and the weak and poor ryot alone 
 exist.* We know not a class upon the face 
 
 Where Europeans reside, or the Government has fixed its 
 seat, a middle class is rapidly springing up. In and around 
 Calcutta there are thousands of clerks, tradesmen, and artizans, 
 maintaining much the same position as the corresponding classes 
 in England. These owe their position to English enterprise, 
 liberality, and philanthropy. 
 
THE OBSTACLES. 39 
 
 of the earth who are more uniformly selfish, 
 exacting and unprincipled,, than the landholders 
 of India. Most of them pay a fixed rental to the 
 Government for their estates, but they are left 
 entirely at liberty to exact what they please from 
 their tenantry.* They never dream of seeking the 
 elevation or happiness of these. To keep them 
 ignorant that they may be powerless, and to 
 deprive them of the last available rupee, are what 
 they chiefly aim at ; and if you were to talk to 
 them about the elevation of the masses, and the 
 rights of the poor, they would either not compre* 
 hend ideas so foreign to their thoughts, or deride 
 you as a fool for thinking of any one's interests 
 besides your own. It is customary for these men 
 to wink at the existence of organized bands of 
 dacoits, or house-breakers, who live on their 
 estates; to have at their beck bands of lattee^ 
 wallahs or club-men, who are alike available for a 
 conflict with similar bands, to act as perjured 
 witnesses in the courts of law, or to coerce a re- 
 fractory tenant; and to have tribunals of their 
 
 * The amount they exact of course varies, and is unknown } 
 because, besides the rent, they require various gifts, and the 
 servants of the zemindar live for the most part on what they 
 gain by force or fraud from his ryots. From all I can learn, 
 however, it cannot be less than double the sum paid to G-overn- 
 ment. 
 
40 INDIA AXD CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 own, "from which are practically banished every 
 check, which can distinguish a court of law from a 
 butcher's shambles." Next to direct oppression, 
 the chief causes of the social degradation of the 
 people lie in the excessive -usury and unlimited per- 
 jury to which they are subjected. From thirty- 
 five to seventy per cent, is commonly paid for 
 borrowed money, and frequently the interest paid 
 reaches far beyond the latter sum. " I have seen," 
 says the Rev. J. "\Yeitbrecht, " a man suing ano- 
 ther for a debt of one hundred and fifty rupees, 
 the capital of which, two and a half years before, 
 only amounted to eight rupees." The agricultural 
 population are largely indebted to landholders. 
 Frequently they are obliged to borrow, else their 
 lauds are unsown, and nothing but ruin is before 
 them. Under such circumstances they fall into 
 the hands of men who know not what generosity 
 and pity mean, and when once thus entangled, 
 it is seldom they can get freed from a serfdom, 
 in which theirs is all the labour without any of 
 the gains. 
 
 Perjury is undoubtedly the chief instrument 
 by which authorized injustice is perpetrated. It 
 emanates out of the iu tense deceitfulness of the 
 native character. The courts of justice, even those 
 where Englishmen preside, are daily polluted by it. 
 
THE OBSTACLES. 41 
 
 It is a fact, that any number of false witnesses 
 may anywhere be obtained to swear to anything 
 taught them, at sixpence a-head, or less. Every 
 native knows this. Decisions at law are far more 
 a matter of chance perhaps, more correctly, it 
 should be said, more a question of power to bribe 
 some witnesses to appear and others to keep out 
 of the way than of justice. The people know 
 that English magistrates are incorruptible, but 
 they know still better that our courts of law 
 are intolerable for delay, chicanery, bribery, and 
 falsehood, and nothing that we have do they so 
 detest and dishonour. It will easily be seen how all 
 this operates to corrupt the rich, to tempt the weak, 
 and to oppress the poor. What must be the con- 
 dition of the people who live beneath such a reign 
 of terror ? The rich scruple not to use against them 
 open force and secret fraud, and they are power- 
 less alike against both. Nine-tenths of the fami- 
 lies of India live on less than ten shillings a month. 
 If all that they possess, to the very clothes they 
 wear and the houses they live in, were sold, it 
 would not produce sixty shillings for each house- 
 hold, They live under a despotism far more 
 searching and relentless than that of Robespierre, 
 and seldom without an ever recurring struggle 
 with debt and starvation. All independence and 
 
42 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 manly thought is wrung out of the people : they 
 arc too depressed to give heed to religious questions, 
 and if they venture to embrace the faith of Christ, 
 they know that sooner or later the zemindar or his 
 myrmidons will teach them what it is to bear the 
 cross. 
 
 Such are the difficulties with which the gospel 
 has to contend in India ; such the causes which 
 impede its course. The intense sinfulness of the 
 people has corrupted everything; " the whole head 
 is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole 
 of the foot even unto the head there is no sound- 
 ness in it ; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying 
 sores : they have not been closed, neither bound 
 up, neither mollified with ointment. " There is the 
 Augean stable; it needs a strength and a perse- 
 verance more than Herculean to cleanse. The 
 most sanguine and hopeful might well despair of 
 such a country, if left to mere human resource and 
 skill, but "our sufficiency is of God;" "greater 
 is He that is for us than all they that be against 
 us," and therefore it is that " we faint not." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE AGENCIES. 
 
 THE agents of twenty-five Protestant missionary 
 organizations are now labouring in India. Most 
 of them are British, but several belong to Ger- 
 many and the United States of America. The 
 following is a list of the principal English So- 
 cieties, with the number of their agents: 
 
 Societies. European and Native 
 
 Ordained Missionaries. 
 
 Church Missionary Society . . , . 124 
 
 London Missionary Society . 53 
 
 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 52 
 
 Baptist Missionary Society .... 48 
 
 Free Church of Scotland 28 
 
 Wesleyan Missionary Society ... 28 
 
 General Baptist Missionary Society . 9 
 
 Church of Scotland Mission .... 5* 
 
 The most important foreign societies are the 
 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign 
 Missions, which has recently had about forty mis- 
 
 * These numbers do not include the missionaries in Ceylon 
 and Burmah. Uniformly in this volume India Proper is alone 
 alluded to. 
 

 
 44 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 sionaries in India and Ceylon; the American 
 Presbyterian Missionary Society, which, before 
 the mutiny, had twenty-eight ; and the Basle Mis- 
 sionary Society, which has about thirty. The 
 total number of European and American mis- 
 sionaries is 440, and of native ministers and cate- 
 chists 730. This is just about one-third of the 
 Protestant missionary agency employed through- 
 out the entire heathen world. 
 
 But let us compare this agency with the 
 extent and population of India. "Were all the 
 missionaries equally distributed amongst the 
 people, there would be one for every 400,000, 
 that is, in the proportion of six for London, one 
 for Liverpool, one for Glasgow, six for all Scot- 
 land, and one for each of the counties of Durham, 
 Essex, Hampshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, 
 and Sussex, or the whole of North AVales. 
 Viewed geographically, there is one missionary 
 for every 3000 square miles, or for an area as 
 large as each of the counties of Lancashire and 
 Lincolnshire \ exactly two for the whole of York- 
 shire; one for Devonshire and Oxfordshire, or 
 Durham and Norfolk, united; and little more 
 than two and a-half for the whole of "Wales. 
 
 It will be obvious that vast portions of the 
 empire must be left without any Christian instruc- 
 
THE AGENCIES. 45 
 
 tion whatever.* The E/ajputana States contain a 
 population of 18,000,000 nearly as large a number 
 as England and there is not a missionary amongst 
 them. The kingdom of Hyderabad contains 
 10,000,000 of people as many as dwell in both 
 Scotland and Ireland and no missionary labours 
 there. Nepaul has more than 2,000,000 inhabi- 
 tants; Gwalior has 3,000,000 ; and in neither of 
 them is there a missionary. Again, there are 
 many provinces as large as several of the European 
 states, where less than six missionaries labour. 
 Oude, with her 3,000,000 people, has three mis- 
 sionaries.f Nagpore, with 4,500,000, has two. 
 Scinde, with 1,500,000, has one. Rohilcund, with 
 6,000,000, has four. These are the most destitute ; 
 but a long list of districts and revenue divisions 
 might be added, containing more than 500,000 
 
 * I have left out of view in the preceding remarks the native 
 agency attached to our missions, not from any desire to under- 
 value it, but to afford the reader a definite view of what European 
 and American Christians have contributed toward the conversion 
 of India. Our native agency is most valuable. We must look 
 to it for an increase of our strength, more than to Em-ope ; and 
 if it be judiciously trusted and depended on, it will be found 
 to justify that trust. 
 
 f In reading the number of missionary agents, it should be 
 remarked that they are painfully liable to vary. Death and sick- 
 ness ofttimes reduce a mission suddenly much below its ordinary 
 numbers. I have usually followed the latest accessible reports. 
 
[XDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 people, where not more than one solitary labourer 
 is striving to " turn the wilderness into a fruitful 
 field." 
 
 Nor are the larger towns of India better sup- 
 plied. The following list, though brief, and capable 
 of large extension, suffices to prove this : 
 
 ,, , ,. X umber of 
 
 Cil Population. Missionaries. 
 
 Jyepore . . . 300,000 . . . None. 
 
 Hyderabad . . 250,000 . . 
 
 Lucknow . . 300,000 . . 
 
 Dacca .... 200,000 . . 
 
 Delhi . . . 200,000 . . 
 
 Patna .... 200,000 
 
 Surat . 
 
 Poonah 
 
 Ahmedabad 
 
 Bareilly 
 
 Murshedabad 
 
 Gwalior 
 
 Indore . 
 
 160,000 
 
 100,000 
 
 100,000 
 
 110,000 
 
 110,000 
 
 90,000 
 
 70,000 
 
 None. 
 
 Two. 
 
 Two. 
 
 Two. 
 
 One. 
 
 None. 
 
 Two. 
 
 None. 
 
 Two. 
 
 Two. 
 
 None. 
 
 None.* 
 
 How painfully these facts remind us of the 
 small amount of effort that has really been put 
 
 * See, for much valuable information, " The Urgent Claims of 
 India for More Christian Mission?," and " Bengal as a Field for 
 Missions," both by M. "SYylie, Esq., of Calcutta, published by 
 Daltoiij London. 
 
 
THE AGENCIES. 47 
 
 forth for the evangelization of India. I press not 
 this consideration now, but surely it is one which 
 ought to sink deep into every Christian heart. 
 
 Missionary effort is put forth in three direc- 
 tions chiefly. 
 
 Preaching is the chief of these. Oral ad- 
 dresses, however, to the heathen have none of the 
 uniformity and stiffness of ordinary pulpit exer- 
 cises. They are less in the form of attacks on 
 Hinduism than formerly, and more generally arc 
 attempts to explain the great features of Christi- 
 anity, or to awaken the dormant faculties of the 
 conscience and of the heart. They are of very 
 varied lengths. If people are disposed to listen, 
 two preachers will alternately address them, and, 
 thiis relieved, they will continue their work, with 
 slight intermission, for hours. Controversy and 
 inquiry are not unfrequently elicited by such ad- 
 dresses. Preaching chapels exist around most of 
 our mission stations. They are close to the 
 public thoroughfares. The front of them being 
 composed of mats, can be entirely taken away, so 
 that the people in passing can easily see in. They 
 can hear all that is said whilst standing outside, 
 and their approach nearer, as well as the duration 
 of their stay, depends on the amount of interest 
 they feel in the preacher or his message. 
 
48 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 when 
 
 Preaching-journeys are very common when 
 the favourable season comes -round. In a boat, 
 or with a tent, having a good stock of Scriptures 
 and tracts, and as few impedimenta as possible, 
 the missionary goes forth along some route where 
 usually the gospel has never been proclaimed 
 oftener than twice or thrice, and wherever people 
 can be induced to listen in the market, at the re- 
 ligious festival, in some rich man's court -yard, in 
 the quiet eventide, does he " preach the gospel," 
 gliding, if he can, into a conversation, which may 
 the more deeply interest his hearers, and draw 
 out the expression of their own thoughts and 
 feelings. Happy are they who are honoured with 
 gifts for such labour as this ! It is the most 
 Christlike of all forms of doing good ! 
 
 The preparation and distribution of Scriptures 
 a nil tracts, extensively occupy the attention of 
 missionaries. 
 
 The work of translation derives great impor- 
 tance in India from two circumstances : the exist- 
 ence of a licentious and idolatrous literature, 
 which it is most important to supplant, and the 
 great variety of language and of dialect prevalent 
 among the people. Christian truths and prin- 
 ciples have to be explained and illustrated; Hin- 
 duism has to be refuted, and its customs exposed; 
 
THE AGENCIES. 49 
 
 our native Christian community needs supplying 
 with suitable books and tracts ; and modern infi- 
 delity has to be met and vanquished. All this has 
 to be done not in one language but many, for the 
 languages of the empire amount to at least fif- 
 teen, and the dialects requiring distinct transla- 
 tions are numerous. " The entire Bible has been 
 translated into ten languages ; the New Testament 
 into five others, and separate Gospels into four 
 others. Besides numerous works for Christians, 
 thirty, forty, and even seventy tracts have been 
 prepared in these different languages, suitable for 
 Hindus and Mussulmans. Missionaries maintain 
 in India twenty -five printing establishments." * 
 Thousands of thousands of Scriptures and tracts 
 are annually put into circulation. 
 
 The Gospels are chiefly distributed. They are 
 bound up separately, and if more of the Scriptures 
 are asked for, a price is usually demanded for them, 
 unless there is reason to believe that they are de- 
 sired from purely religious considerations. 
 
 There are four Bible and four Tract Societies 
 in India. They receive the most liberal support 
 from the British and Foreign Bible, and Lon- 
 don Religious Tract Societies, and lay every mis- 
 
 ** "Kevised Statistics of Missions in India and Ceylon," by 
 the Rev. J. Mullens. 
 
 F 
 
50 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 
 sionary under the deepest obligation to them, on 
 account of the liberality with which they supply 
 him with their publications. 
 
 The instruction of the young receives much 
 attention from missionaries. The schools of India 
 may be divided into three classes : 
 
 1. Purely Native schools. Common schools, 
 in which reading, writing, and a very small amount 
 of arithmetic are taught, are scattered everywhere. 
 The education given is of the most meagre descrip- 
 tion, and no moral influence is connected with it. 
 Institutions for the education of Pundits in Hindu 
 learning are, of course, more rare. The course of 
 study is profound, and requires enormous efforts 
 of memory, while it is of little practical value. 
 The Pundits of India are undoubtedly the most 
 intellectually cultivated and morally respectable 
 class in the community, but they are by far the 
 most unimpressible. 
 
 2. The English Government has established a 
 large number of schools, in which a useful edu- 
 cation is given in the vernacular languages. In 
 large cities and wealthy districts colleges exist, in 
 which a very superior education is given in Eng- 
 lish science, philosophy, and literature, to the 
 sons of high caste and wealthy natives. The 
 education given by Government is purely secular. 
 
THE AGENCIES. 51 
 
 Direct Christian instruction is prohibited.* I 
 shall speak of the effects of this system hereafter ; 
 it is sufficient now to observe that Missionary 
 Societies do, and ought to give, a widely different 
 sort of education. 
 
 3. Missionary schools and institutions chiefly 
 claim our attention. The former resemble the 
 Government schools, the latter the Government 
 colleges, with this important difference, they give 
 
 * Very vigorous efforts have recently been made to have the 
 Scriptures read in every Government school or college. Where 
 a number of the pupils desire this, such permission ought to be 
 accorded. Moderate men, however, have need to watch care- 
 fully such questions. They will drift us, if not checked, onward 
 toward an expensive State-Church and a proselyting, sectarian 
 system of education. If the Bible is to be taught in Government 
 schools, who is to teach it ? The ordinary native teachers of the 
 schools ? They are usually bigoted Hindus or Deists, largely 
 imbued with the spirit and the principles of Paine. Shall 
 missionaries be allowed to offer their services? We are in 
 danger of injuring both ourselves and our cause most deeply 
 when we become associated thus with Government, and wo 
 bring upon it the suspicion and distrust of both thought- 
 ful and bigoted Hindus and Mohamedans. Even if Government 
 were to ask our services, would there be no attempt made to ex- 
 clude the ministrations of all excepting Episcopalian and Presby- 
 terian clergymen ? Happily we have hitherto kept clear of the 
 odium tlieologicum in India. It will be a dark day for us when 
 it comes, and heavy, indeed, will be the guilt of those who 
 cause it ! 
 
INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 a large amount of Christian instruction, and are 
 avowedly proselyting. The following sketch of 
 the institution with which the writer has had the 
 happiness of being connected, will give a correct 
 idea of the system they all follow. At the open- 
 ing of the institution every morning, all the 
 pupils assemble in a large hall, when the mis- 
 sionary offers up a short prayer, asking the bless- 
 ing of God on the instruction about to be given, 
 the conversion of the scholars, and the spread of 
 Christianity throughout the land. Prayer also 
 closes the work of the day. The books used in 
 the lowest classes contain a large amount of 
 Christian instruction. In the middle classes the 
 Scriptures are read, sometimes in English, at 
 other times in the vernacular. In the college 
 classes, besides reading such books as Way land's 
 "Moral Science," Smith's "Wealth of Nations," 
 Stewart's " Mental Science," Milton's "Paradise 
 Lost," and receiving lectures and instruction in 
 history, mathematics, and literature, they read 
 the Scriptures and Butler's "Analogy," Paley's 
 "'Evidences," or some similar work. Many of 
 the students remain until they are eighteen or 
 twenty- one years of age. It is obvious that such 
 a course of education, continued throughout years, 
 under missionary supervision in the lower classes, 
 
THE AGENCIES. 53 
 
 and personally by them in the upper ones, must 
 produce very decided results.* 
 
 To the schools resort the sons of the poor 
 and low caste natives. They usually leave be- 
 fore their twelfth year. The institutions have a 
 much higher class of students the sons of the 
 wealthy and high caste. The missionaries, of 
 course, recognize no caste distinctions, but freely 
 give an education to whoever chooses to come ;f 
 but various causes have led to the difference here 
 pointed out. The poor feel that the higher 
 education is , hardly suitable for them, nor can 
 they afford the books or the time it requires. 
 With the influential classes, at least such of them 
 as live around the seats of government and the 
 centres of English commerce, an English edu- 
 cation has become at once a fashion, an accom- 
 plishment, and a gain. Learning has ever been 
 highly prized by the Hindus. The presence of a 
 highly civilized, powerful, and learned people 
 amongst them, excited a deep desire to acquire 
 what they knew; and when the Government 
 and missionaries gave facilities for such an 
 
 * Appendix C. 
 
 t Hitherto, the education given has been gratuitous; but 
 Recently some of the institutions have charged a- small monthly 
 fee. It is to be hoped this charge will become general. 
 
' 
 
 54 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN 311SSIOXS. 
 
 acquisition,, they were eagerly embraced. Every 
 native is proud of being able to speak the lan- 
 guage of the great English nation ; he feels ele- 
 vated nearer to the level of the masters of his 
 country, and, with all his prejudices and exclusive- 
 ness, he cannot but see how much they know 
 which it is well for him to learn. But his inte- 
 rests are largely secured by learning English. The 
 cumbrous and absurd policy of writing and re- 
 writing about everything, obliges the Government 
 to employ an extraordinary number of penmen. 
 The best situations are filled by those who know 
 English well, and there are few respectable natives 
 but who can manage to secure such posts for 
 their sons. In addition to liberal pay, a status 
 is associated with such situations, which greatly 
 enhances their value. In English schools, mer- 
 chants' offices, and in connection with the rail- 
 roads and electric telegraphs, a large number of 
 natives are also employed. To fit themselves for 
 such situations do they chiefly resort to Government 
 colleges and to missionary institutions. In the 
 latter they gladly give instruction, knowing full well 
 that even secular education saps the foundations 
 of Hinduism, and that our religious instruction 
 presents Christianity in its stead. 
 
 These measures for the diffusion of religious 
 
THE AGENCIES. 55 
 
 truth seem the best that man can adopt. They 
 admit of a wise and convenient latitude of opera- 
 tion, however, of which missionaries are not slow 
 to avail themselves. Neither all missions nor 
 missionaries agree in their appreciation of these 
 modes of operation. The Baptist missionaries 
 devote less attention to teaching than others, but 
 they honourably hold the first rank as translators 
 of the Scriptures, and preparers of Christian lite- 
 rature. Both the Free and Established Churches 
 of Scotland throw nearly all their strength into 
 educational establishments. The Wesley ans at- 
 tend chiefly to English and vernacular preaching. 
 The Episcopalians and Independents attend less 
 to specialities than the others, and, without par- 
 tiality, both teach and preach. 
 
 It need hardly be said, that whilst mission- 
 aries labour chiefly in the spheres indicated, they 
 are ever ready to devote their time and influence 
 to any scheme which favours the elevation of the 
 people, the diffusion of information, and the main- 
 tenance of justice and righteousness in the land* 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE RESULTS. 
 
 IT is natural to ask, "What progress has been 
 made in lifting India upward to the throne of 
 God ? '"' We have an answer to give, which speaks 
 more of hope than of actual success ; yet success 
 has been largely granted, and the promise of yet 
 greater things is as surely guaranteed. 
 
 " What dost thou see, lone watcher on the tower ? 
 Is the day breaking ? comes the wished- for hour ? 
 Tell us the signs, and stretch abroad thy hand, 
 If the bright morning dawns upon the land." 
 
 " The stars are clear above us, scarcely one 
 Has dimtn'd its rays in reverence to the sunj 
 But yet I see on the horizon's verge, 
 Some fair, faint streaks, as if the light would surge." 
 
 In considering the results of missionary effort, 
 there are two or three considerations which ought 
 not to be lost sight of. The first has reference to 
 the amount of direct Christian agency that has 
 been spent on India. 
 
THE RESULTS. 57 
 
 It lias been stated that there are now 440 
 missionaries in connection with all onr Protestant 
 Societies. It should be borne in mind that this 
 number has only been reached within the last ten 
 years. Until 1816 there were scarcely twenty 
 missionaries in all India at one time. From that 
 date until 1833 the average number was not 100. 
 If we take the last sixty years, the number of mis- 
 sionaries has not been 150, nor of native agents 
 300. If we compute from 1706, when the first 
 Protestant missionaries, Bartholomew Ziegenbalg 
 and Henry Plutscho, landed at Tranquebar, there 
 have not been 80 of the former, nor 150 of the 
 latter. 
 
 A similar growth has taken place in all the 
 agencies that the Church in India has originated 
 and fostered; school, tract, Bible, and Christian 
 school-book societies, have all risen from com- 
 parative insignificance into great power. This 
 is one of the most satisfactory results of Christian 
 effort, but I refer to it now to remark how little 
 labour has really been expended in this great field! 
 
 In contending with superstition, the Church 
 has been partly helped and partly hindered by 
 European secular influence. I need not allude 
 to the jealousy long exhibited by the Government 
 toward missionary effort, and the drift of its 
 
58 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 policy to check innovation, and to preserve Hin- 
 duism and Mobamedanism intact. Other influ- 
 ences, however, have been powerfully at work, 
 helping missionaries, and unconsciously preparing 
 the way for the spread of Christianity ; and these 
 influences have been none the less valuable, be- 
 cause indirect and unintentional. The Govern- 
 ment has shed the light of secular knowledge far 
 and wide by its schools and colleges. Europeans 
 have come largely into contact with natives, and 
 with their keen penetration the latter have not 
 failed to observe the presence of a higher sense of 
 honour, a more elevated and beneficent moral 
 quality, a higher tone of thinking and feeling, 
 and a healthier prosperity than they themselves 
 have experienced. The purity and elevation of 
 our social system has partly been exhibited to 
 them. Our railways, our steani-boats, our electric 
 telegraphs, and even our military prowess, have 
 convinced them that we have a higher civilization 
 than their own, and a far larger amount of ma- 
 terial prosperity. They have seen, in some cases, 
 the manifest superiority of our customs to their 
 own ; this has disposed them to change. In not 
 a few instances they have gained largely by accept- 
 ing what we have been disposed to give. The 
 emoluments open to those who receive a good 
 
THE RESULTS. 59 
 
 English education are of this nature. Thus the 
 stagnant pool of Hindu society has been stirred. 
 Thought has been stimulated ; comparisons have 
 been made ; change and reform been rendered 
 practicable, and these have largely tended to 
 weaken Hinduism, and prepare the way for Chris- 
 tianity. In the following observations, then, let it 
 be kept in mind that, whilst the direct spiritual 
 results are all owing to purely Christian effort, the 
 more general results are largely owing to the 
 influences I have just sketched. 
 
 1. A very wide diffusion of Christian truth has 
 taken place. Our mission schools contain 75,000 
 natives. In all of these Christianity is taught ; in 
 some of them a superior course of apologetic and 
 systematic theology is studied. Every year, there- 
 fore, thousands are passing out of our schools into 
 active life, instructed in our principles, familiar 
 with our Scriptures, and intimately acquainted 
 with ourselves. 
 
 Preaching has largely contributed to this end. 
 In many cities a number of sermons and addresses 
 are delivered every day ; and there arc few mission 
 stations, around which the Gospel has not been 
 proclaimed literally hundreds of times. But evan- 
 gelistic effort is not confined to such stations. 
 Every year for some weeks, and in many cases for 
 
INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 months, a large number of missionaries leave their 
 homes, and, in company with native assistants, go 
 forth, and in the most 'populous localities preach 
 the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. All who 
 are anxious to hear can listen, and all who wish to 
 inquire into the truths of Christianity have the 
 opportunity of doing so. Thus it happens that the 
 intelligent and inquiring are informed, and the de- 
 vout and anxious are drawn into the Church. It need 
 hardly be said what fine opportunities such journeys 
 afford for the distribution of the Sacred Scriptures. 
 There are one or two causes worthy of notice, 
 which open up great facilities for the prosecution 
 of our evangelistic efforts. I have already alluded 
 to the advantage to be derived from education. 
 The Hindu, however, values knowledge on its 
 own account. To be educated is to be respected, 
 perhaps to be feared. The national appreciation of 
 learning is chiefly seen in the universally admitted 
 law, that it is the appropriate and becoming 
 privilege of the higher castes ; and the higher the 
 caste the profounder the arcanum of learning into 
 which man is favoured to penetrate. The Hindu 
 may listen to the Puranas, but he must not read 
 the Vedas; the Khetriya may read the Yedas, 
 but he must not be a teacher of sacred things, that 
 office is only becoming the holy lips of the Brah- 
 
THE RESULTS. 61 
 
 ii. Religious knowledge is especially sought 
 after. There are but two things about which the 
 Hindu talks more than about religion using that 
 word of course in its broadest sense. He delights 
 in religious speculation and inquiry ; the nature and 
 attributes, or qualities, of the Supreme ; the actions 
 of the gods and their characters; the most effi- 
 cient modes of worship; the nature of the soul; 
 the moral quality of actions ; the connection be- 
 tween our conduct and our state ; the bearing of 
 the long past in some previous state of being on 
 our present circumstances, and of the present 
 upon the remote future; the nature of the state 
 immediately succeeding death, all these engage the 
 frequent meditations of the Hindu. Nor has he 
 that reluctance which appears to characterize the 
 Englishman to converse freely on such topics. 
 This peculiarity disposes him to listen to a Chris- 
 tian preacher, and to read Christian books; he 
 wishes to know what we believe, and to observe in 
 what respect our faith differs from his own. 
 
 The effect produced on such minds by the 
 agencies I have described may easily be supposed. 
 A theoretic knowledge of Christianity, at least, is 
 gained. The greater part of India, alas ! has never 
 yet been touched by a Christian influence, and 
 tens of millions there never listened to a preacher's 
 
G2 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 voice; yet this can now be said, there are hun- 
 dreds of thousands who possess our Gospels, who 
 have read our tracts and listened to the preaching 
 of pure Scriptural truth, and who have, therefore, 
 a sufficient knowledge of the plan of salvation; 
 and around our principal centres of missionary in- 
 fluence there are thousands who, in addition to this, 
 are intimately acquainted with Christian theology 
 in its higher forms, and are more conversant than 
 the great mass of educated Englishmen, with the 
 main arguments and proofs in favour of the inspir- 
 ation of the Bible and the Divine origin of our 
 faith.* The following extract from an enemy, 
 shows the extent to which Christian truth has 
 been spread. I may remark, that it occurs in a 
 prospectus issued by an educated native in Cal- 
 cutta, who wished to issue, periodically, extracts 
 in English from the best European and American 
 sceptical writers, such as Theodore Parker, Emer- 
 son, Newman, and Strauss, as a counteractive to - 
 the teaching of missionaries : " The religious ex- 
 ertions of the preachers of the Gospel have tended ' 
 
 * It is to be regretted that the study of Christian evidences 
 is so much neglected. It is sufficient to observe, that few intel- 
 ligent Christians are prepared to meet the attacks of infidels ; 
 and that a knowledge of apologetic divinity, besides being a de- 
 fence against scepticism, is one of the best means of fostering a 
 healthful and manly religiousness. 
 
THE RESULTS. 63 
 
 to spread widely a knowledge of the Christian 
 religion among the natives of India; there can 
 hardly be found an educated Hindu that knows 
 not something about it. They leave nothing 
 untried that can efficiently contribute to its pro- 
 pagation. By means of schools, sermons, lectures, 
 offering handsome prizes to successful essayists, 
 and other indirect measures, they insidiously cause 
 the youths of this country to be initiated in the 
 doctrines of Christianity. The labours of the 
 missionaries, it must be confessed, have been, in 
 this respect, to a certain extent, crowned with 
 success, though in producing conviction in the 
 Hindu population in regard to the soundness of 
 the claims of their religion, they have not met with 
 equally happy results." 
 
 2. This diffusion of Christian knowledge has 
 largely contributed to the actual termination of 
 some of the worst customs of Hindu society. 
 
 Until the close of the first quarter of the 
 present century, suttee was common throughout 
 all India. The frightful extent of the evil can 
 never be fully known, but it may be conjectured 
 from the fact, that the Serampore missionaries 
 instituted the most careful inquiries, to ascertain 
 the number of immolations occurring in their own 
 neighbourhood, . and found that within a circuit of 
 
64 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 thirty miles of Calcutta, nearly four hundred 
 widows were annually burnt to death. Some- 
 times mere children, who had never lived with 
 their husbands, thus died. It not unfrequently 
 happened that ten, twenty, or even more, of the 
 widows of a Kulin Brahmin would perish on 
 his funeral pyre.* Not unfrequently a reluctant 
 widow would be forced to such a death, by relations 
 who desired the blessings supposed to descend 
 upon them as the consequence of such a meri- 
 torious act, or by those who wished to get quit of 
 the burden of supporting her. This inhuman rite 
 no longer occurs ; throughout all India the suttee 
 fire has been quenched. 
 
 Infanticide was as common as suttee. Dis- 
 appointed greatly because a daughter was born 
 and not a son, the Hindu father would get rid of 
 an encumbrance, an expense, and a trial as he 
 considered a female child and at the same time 
 perform a very meritorious deed, by offering her to 
 the sacred Ganges, or away from the river, by 
 
 * As a rule, the Hindus have but one wife, although, iu cer- 
 tain cases, they are permitted to take a second, or to divorce the 
 first. The Kulin Brahmins follow a different custom, and rnarry 
 sometimes as many as forty vdves. The evils of this practice are 
 indescribable. The wives usually continue to live in their father' 
 houses, and seldom see their husbands. 
 
THE RESULTS. 65 
 
 giving her to the earth, and leaving the innocent 
 to die of suffocation in some living grave. In all 
 British India, happily, this custom is prohibited, 
 and in the native states it has been largely abated. 
 Perpetual ividowhood is now no longer a neces- 
 sity. The number of women who are deprived of 
 their husbands in India, cannot be short of double 
 the number thus left desolate in England, because 
 there it is a custom operating with more than the 
 force of law, that every girl must be married before 
 she is eight years of age. To the ordinary sorrow 
 of widowhood special causes of humiliation are 
 added. A widow can have but one meal a- day ; 
 nor can she then eat whatever she pleases ; she is 
 never permitted to wear fine apparel, or ornaments, 
 of which Hindu women are immoderately fond. 
 This state was unalterable ; if a girl of even four 
 years of age became a widow, she was* doomed to 
 this desolate and humiliating life until life closed. 
 Suttee, or such a miserable existence, were the two 
 horrible alternatives Hinduism placed before every 
 widow.* Three years ago the Government passed 
 
 * All the reasons which led to the institution of such custom 3 
 Cannot now be given, but it will throw some light on Hinduism 
 to remark, that punishment and penance are two of the main 
 qualities supposed necessary -to such A state. Misfortune is sup- 
 posed to be the consequence of sin. The loss of a husband is 
 thought to be a punishment for crime committed either in this 
 
66 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 a law, legalizing the marriage of widows ; it simply 
 declares that, if they choose to marry, they shall 
 have all the rights of married women, and their 
 offspring, in all respects, have the privileges of 
 children born in wedlock. Such a beneficial en- 
 actment prepares the way for a change of custom ; 
 already, to our surprise, several widows have been 
 married in Calcutta, and the progress of enlighten- 
 ment must soon render such events frequent, 
 
 Human sacrifices have greatly diminished, and 
 are contrary to law. Among the Khonds it was 
 common to buy or steal a boy, and to feed and 
 tend him with great care. When their lands were 
 ready for ploughing and sowing, they took the 
 victim, bound him to a stake, and each cultivator 
 cutting a slice of flesh from the living body, ran 
 with it warm and quivering to his fields, and 
 squeezed the blood upon the earth. This was 
 done to propitiate the favour of a goddess, 
 that she might be disposed to render the land 
 fruitful. 
 
 Now all the practices I have mentioned were 
 associated with the name of religion. They were 
 
 life or in some previous birth ; instead, therefore, of exciting 
 pity and compassion, it often induces suspicion and contempt. 
 The malediction of the gods is supposed to rest on such an one, and 
 therefore has she to endure the unkindness of meo. 
 
THE RESULTS. 67 
 
 a recognized part of idolatry. It reveals to us the 
 frightful nature of Hinduism, when we reflect 
 that, for centuries, it sanctioned such crimes and 
 authorized such sufferings. What a gain it is to 
 humanity, what a testimony to the power and 
 beneficence of our holy faith, that such enormities 
 should have ceased, or have received their death 
 wound ! 
 
 3. A very marked change in religious opinion 
 is rapidly passing over a large portion of Hindu 
 society. Thousands, chiefly connected with rich 
 and high caste families, have drifted far away 
 from the Puranic form of Hinduism the more 
 recent and popular development of it. They 
 express themselves somewhat thus : ' ' Idol worship 
 is a very foolish and superstitious custom. We do 
 not believe in Kali, or Krishna, or Durga, or any 
 of the gods. We worship only one spiritual and 
 eternal God, who has attributes such as are 
 described in your Old Testament. We don't need 
 a written revelation of religion; nature can 
 teach us all we require to know. Jesus Christ 
 was a very wise and holy teacher, but he was not 
 God, for it is impossible -there can be a trinity. 
 How can three be one and one be three ? The moral 
 principles taught in the Bible are, on the whole, 
 better than any other we are acquainted with; 
 
68 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 and your religion is a very excellent one, but it 
 is too good ; for how can any one be expected to keep 
 it strictly. Many of our customs are bad : women 
 ought to be educated a little, and widows should 
 be allowed to marry. It would be a good thing, 
 too, if Government would prohibit the Mohamedans 
 and Kulin Brahmins having more than one wife. 
 Indeed our religion and our customs have become 
 very corrupt, just as your religion had become 
 very corrupt before the Reformation." There is 
 much that is crude in such notions, but no one 
 acquainted with what is called orthodox Hinduism, 
 can fail to observe how far behind this class of 
 men have left the faith of their fathers. Most of 
 them are in an unsettled state of mind, evidently 
 quite prepared for another step in advance, when 
 circumstances render it prudent or safe. ' Others 
 have taken a more definite position. They call 
 themselves Brahmists. They unite in religious 
 societies, and are fond of imitating our modes of 
 worship. They meet regularly for purposes of 
 devotion ; hymns of praise are sung to the honour of 
 the Supreme ; they invoke the divine blessing ; pas- 
 sages are read from the Vedas, which some say are 
 inspired, but which most hold only to be venerable 
 for their antiquity and profound sentiments ; and 
 addresses are delivered, illustrative of some moral 
 
THE RESULTS. 69 
 
 or religious truth, or explanatory of some principle 
 maintained by the ee shobha," or society. This class 
 is receiving constant accessions from the upper 
 forms of the Government colleges and missionary 
 institutions ; and it draws to itself a considerable 
 number of others who are imperfectly educated, or 
 whose natural penetration needs but little aid to 
 show them, what an incongruous and indefensible 
 thing Hinduism really is. Besides these there is a 
 large multitude who, in various ways, have been 
 led to look on religious and moral questions 
 inquiringly, who perhaps are convinced that this 
 or that belief is founded in error, and who are 
 disposed to welcome at least some changes. All 
 these have in reality moved away from the Hin- 
 duism of last century, the Hinduism of the last 
 thousand years : like some immense Tartar horde, 
 drawn southward by a more genial climate and a 
 fairer region, and moving forward with the most 
 various degrees of speed ; some well mounted and 
 brave, pressing onward with eager haste in the very 
 van; others, discursive and inquisitive, spreading 
 to the right or the left ; many, chafing at the re- 
 straints imposed on their progress by flocks, and 
 herds, and household, yet unwilling to leave a shred 
 behind; and the indolent and conservative, now 
 marching slowly forward for a day, and then look- 
 
70 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 ing lingeringly back on tlie heritage they are leav- 
 ing, with half a disposition to return to it again. 
 
 A necessary consequence of new ideas and 
 new sympatliies, new customs have been established 
 and old ones discarded. 
 
 Christianity is now treated with a degree of 
 respect and attention it did not formerly receive. 
 Its doctrines at first were unknown, and so were 
 its teachers ; it was an easy thing, therefore, for 
 the crafty and the interested to raise prejudices 
 against the former, and suspicions respecting the 
 latter. Calm, persevering effort, however, on the 
 part of missionaries has wrought a change. Chris- 
 tianity now is generally considered, by those >vho 
 know anything of it, to be a very pure, bene- 
 ficent and rational religion. Those who live by 
 superstition of course oppose it ; a few, imbued 
 with the spirit of European infidelity, cherish 
 toward it the bitter hostility of the French ration- 
 alistic school ; and many, utterly ignorant of its 
 tenets, regard it with suspicious dread;* but the 
 informed and the unprejudiced freely admit its 
 
 * The Sepoys, for instance. Their notion was, that their caste 
 Would be destroyed by the Government, that they might be 
 forced to embrace Christianity as the safest and most expedient 
 step, when shut out of Hinduism against their will. Probably 
 the Sepoys were the most ignorant class of men in the whole 
 empire, excepting the Hill Tribes. The Government took all 
 
THE RESULTS, 71 
 
 superiority to their own religion, Missionaries, 
 too, have the respect and confidence of the people 
 to a greater extent than any other class of Euro- 
 peans. It is a cause for devout gratitude to 
 God that they have been so uniformly "blameless 
 and harmless " in the sight of the heathen, and 
 have ever proved themselves to be the friends of 
 the oppressed, the ignorant, and the poor ; and the 
 enemies of bad customs, arbitrary laws, and wicked 
 men only. 
 
 This state of feeling predisposes the people to 
 receive instruction from us. Formerly very few 
 would accept a Christian book, however freely 
 offered. The impression was very prevalent that 
 some fascinating power belonged to them, so that 
 if read calamity would ensue, or the mind would 
 be drawn toward folly and mischief. It was no 
 uncommon thing for a portion of the Scriptures to 
 be torn into fragments, and thrown contemptu- 
 ously at the missionary's feet, and often after 
 giving away his sacred treasures, was he grieved 
 to see them scattered in a thousand pieces along 
 the road. Now this is greatly changed. Such is 
 the desire of the people to possess our Scriptures, 
 
 possible pains to exclude light from the minds of these men, and 
 out of their ignorance arose the greatest danger and the heaviest 
 loss the Government has ever had to bear. 
 
! 
 
 72 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 that they often crowd inconveniently upon any one 
 distributing them ; and it is a very unusual thing 
 to see them torn or mutilated. A similar change 
 has taken place in the disposition of the people 
 to send their children to our schools. A variety of 
 causes formerly made the Hindu parent suspicious. 
 He dreaded our religion, and he had no faith in 
 our honourable intentions. He thought it best 
 and safest to keep his son away from our supposed 
 sinister influence. Now he has little hesitation in 
 sending him. It has been affirmed, indeed, that the 
 missionary schools and institutions are preferred to 
 those of the Government ; this, however, is a mis- 
 take, although the preference does not lie very 
 strongly the other way. 
 
 A very decided change is taking place respect- 
 ing female education. Sixty years ago it was not 
 dreamt of; there was not a single female having 
 Hindu parents under Christian instruction; and 
 the proposal to send girls to be educated in schools 
 presided over by missionaries would have been 
 received with more surprise and horror than a 
 Tory of the days of George III. would have heard 
 of the abolition of the corn-laws or of church- 
 rates. Now we have at least 15,000 Hindu girls 
 in our schools. A still larger number are receiv- 
 ing instruction elsewhere. Many schools have 
 
THE EESULTS. 73 
 
 been established by Hindus themselves. There is 
 a disposition on the part of many educated men 
 to admit teachers into their families, and not a 
 few young men give instruction to their wives and 
 sisters. Following this, of course, must come 
 the elevation of woman and the amelioration of 
 her position, both as a daughter, a wife, and 
 a widow. 
 
 A diminution in the attendance and abomina- 
 tions of religious festivals has taken place. All 
 who visited them thirty years ago, and observe 
 them now, are struck with the change. Not only 
 are the numbers less, but the want of religious 
 fervour and enthusiasm is very observable. Many 
 stand aloof from them, and others are half 
 ashamed of themselves for having anything to do 
 with rites so foolish and worthless. Nor is it 
 that old shrines are forsaken for new ones. The 
 officiating Brahmins generally confess that a great 
 change has taken place. They say that fewer 
 people come to worship at the temples, and that 
 the offerings of the worshippers have greatly di- 
 minished in value. The surest signs of decay in a 
 religion, is when the people exhibit no zeal for 
 its services, and hasten not to its defence when 
 attacked. These signs are palpably seen, in some 
 parts of India at least. 
 
INDIA AXD CHR1 TSSIONS. 
 
 ge number of Hindus and Mohame- 
 dans liave embraced the faitli of Chr: 
 
 In Ir. Lushington, a director 
 
 of the East India Company, stated publicly " that 
 were 100,000 natives converted, he should hold it 
 
 he greatest calamity that could befall Inr; 
 
 have now 125,000 converts attached to our 
 Protestant missions, and the number is yearly on 
 the increase. Sharon Turner, in his " Sacred His- 
 tory of the World," attempts to show, that the 
 close of every century of our era but one, has wit- 
 nessed a large increase in the number of professing 
 Christians. Similar progress has been made in 
 India. We have not the power of ascertaining 
 the growth of the native church throughout the 
 whole empire ; but the following table, carefully 
 prepared by the Eev. G. Pearce, of Calcutta, shows 
 the gradual progress of missions in Bengal : 
 
 Prom 1793 to 1802 . . converts. 
 
 1803 1812 . . 161 
 1813 1823 . . 403 
 18.23 1832 . . C; 
 1833 1842 . . 1045 
 
 In 1843 and 1844 (two years) 485 
 
 Since then a large increase has taken place. 
 
THE RESULTS. 75 
 
 A proportionate change has occurred in the 
 status of our converts. The mass of those first 
 brought within the pale of Christianity were out- 
 castes, Shanars, and low caste Slmdras ; more 
 recently,, a large number of high caste Shudras 
 and Brahmins have united with us. 
 
 The inquiry has often been made, " To what 
 extent are your converts sincere and religious 
 men ?" It should be assumed far more than it is, 
 that we are likely to have many real converts, 
 because God has promised to bless the preaching 
 of His word everywhere, and in India a large 
 amount of faithful labour has been expended. A 
 belief in Christianity itself, seems to render belief, 
 not scepticism, becoming on a question of this kind. 
 If we examine into particular cases, the evidence is 
 conclusive that many of our converts are sincere 
 and regenerated men. They have lost all they 
 had for Christ's sake; every possible inducement 
 has been held out to dissuade them from em- 
 bracing the gospel, but they have pressed into 
 the kingdom of heaven through " a great fight 
 of afflictions;" they have given up their sins, 
 and " denied themselves ungodliness and worldly 
 lusts ;" they have gained nothing by becoming 
 Christians in comparison with what they have 
 lost ; they have for years striven to obey the laws 
 
76 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 of the Gospel, and to follow in the footsteps of 
 Jesus, and not a few of them have died, exnltiug 
 in the faith of Jesus, and joyfully anticipating the 
 rest and the holiness of heaven.* Brindabun of 
 Monghyr was a convert of this type. Until more 
 than sixty years of age he was a wandering, fana- 
 tical Slmniyassi; at that age' he heard the mis- 
 sionary Chamberlain preach, and at night went to 
 him, saying, " I have a flower that I wish to give 
 to some one who is worthy of it. I have for 
 many years wandered about the country to find 
 such a person, but in vain. I have been to Jagan- 
 nath, but there I saw only a piece of wood ; that 
 was not worthy of it; but to-day I have found 
 one that is, and he shall have it. Jesus Christ is 
 worthy of my flower." He put away his opium- 
 like gunja smoking, and all his filthy habits ; he 
 was done, as he said, " with the deviFs food and 
 service." He learned to read Bengali, Persian, 
 and Hindi; he received but twelve shillings 
 a month for preaching the gospel ; his zeal was 
 such that he was " always at work," and could 
 not be induced to rest. When dying he said, 
 with a pleasing smile, " Do not pray for my life, 
 
 * The \vriter hopes some day, to present the public with a 
 series of brief memoir?, of the most eminent of our native 
 convert s. 
 
THE RESULTS. 77 
 
 I long to go ;" and when asked if lie would take 
 anything he said, ' ' No ;" and putting his hand on 
 a part of the Scriptures that lay on his bed, added,, 
 "this is my meat, and drink, and medicine/'' 
 Samuel Flavel was a Christian, of a type which in 
 every country is called eminent. An eloquent 
 preacher and a dignified man, he everywhere was 
 listened to with delight; and the more he was 
 known, the clearer was it seen that holy feelings 
 and elevated principles controlled his being. Na- 
 raput Singh, a catechist belonging to the London 
 Missionary Society, first in Calcutta and then at 
 Benares, gave up an income equal to 3000 a year 
 in England, that he might become a Christian. 
 These are mentioned but as types of a large class, 
 and if it were becoming, no task would be so 
 delightful as to record their faith, self-denial, 
 and zeal. But a missionary is expected in such 
 matters to speak from his personal observation, 
 nor am I unwilling to do so. I know many na- 
 tive Christians who have relinquished the highest 
 Brahminical rank for the Gospel's sake; others, 
 whose parents were rich, and who knew dis- 
 tinctly that a renunciation of Hinduism would 
 incur their deepest displeasure. They have re- 
 sisted temptations, and borne trials such as Eng- 
 lish youths hardly ever have to endure. They 
 
 H2 
 
78 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 have lived for years consistent Christian lives, 
 such as would do honour to any Church in 
 Christendom, and many of them have never once 
 given cause to suspect their sincerity. What con- 
 clusion can we arrive at, when reflecting on such 
 cases, but that the grace of God has changed such 
 hearts, and made such lives V 
 
 The general character of native Christians, it 
 need hardly be said, is not of a high order. 
 Though morally superior to the heathen, they are 
 characterised by the same weaknesses, though in a 
 less degree, such as quarrelsomeness, deceit, and 
 impurity. They are indisposed to take 011 them- 
 selves the responsibility of supporting the Gospel. 
 They seldom have deep and pungent views of the 
 evil of sin. Physical self-denial they endure with 
 the patience and fortitude of martyrs and con- 
 fessors, but moral self-denial they are by no 
 means equally well-disposed to endure. Yet there 
 are admirable qualities they possess. It is remark- 
 able to what an extent they have washed themselves 
 clean of the taint of idolatry ; their abandonment 
 of it is as clear, complete, and decisive as could 
 be desired. Fidelity to one another greatly dis- 
 tinguishes them. This is shown especially in 
 times of persecution and deep distress. The na- 
 tional features of character, impress themselves on 
 
THE RESULTS. 79 
 
 the type and style of a people's Christianity more 
 than is usually supposed. It would be very in- 
 teresting to describe the probable features of 
 Hindu Christianity centuries after this, when the 
 faith has wrought out its legitimate results. This 
 alone can now be said It will be contemplative 
 rather than active, subjective not objective ; it 
 will resemble the religiousness of John rather than 
 of Paul, and will approach nearer to the simple 
 Oriental asceticism of the fourth and fifth cen- 
 turies, than to the pretentiousness and pomp of 
 Popery, or the busy energy of, English Protes- 
 tantism. 
 
 This, then, is the progress we have made to- 
 ward the destruction of Hinduism and the diffu- 
 sion of Christianity. We have 20,000 converts 
 gathered into Christian Churches, mostly after long 
 and watchful probation ; we have 105,000 more 
 native Christians who have separated themselves 
 entirely from idolatrous superstition; at least 1000 
 of these preach and teach Christianity to their 
 heathen countrymen ; outside the Church, but not 
 far from the kingdom of heaven, there are many 
 whose sympathies and convictions are largely 
 with us, and who say, "we are Christians in 
 our hearts;" there are tens of thousands more 
 who have been drawn away from Hinduism, and 
 
80 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 \\lio have lost all faith in its teaching and all 
 respect for its character; the number of these is 
 yearly augmenting on the one hand by secessions 
 from orthodox Hinduism, and diminished on the 
 other by conversions to Christianity. Certain cus- 
 toms and rites, prevalent and popular for genera- 
 tions, and even for hundreds of years, because 
 having the sanction of religion, are falling into 
 decay and disrepute; other customs, equally au- 
 thorized by Hinduism, and strengthened by imme- 
 morial usage, have literally ceased to exist.* 
 
 . the "Results of Missionary Labour in India," by the 
 J. Mullens, a large amount of rery reliable information will 
 be found. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE PROSPECTS. 
 
 IT would be our duty to put forth efforts for the 
 conversion of India, if, up to this hour, we had 
 laboured in vain, and were the obstacles in our 
 way tenfold as formidable as now they are; for 
 duty is too sublime and immutable a thing to be 
 moved and affected by human weakness, caprice, 
 or guilt. Nevertheless, it is pleasant when the 
 pathway of duty is irradiated with hope, and the 
 prospect, instead of ending in gloom and obscu- 
 rity, offers a distinct and joyful scene to the gaze. 
 In India the obstacles to the progress of Chris- 
 tianity are certainly stupendous. No heathen 
 country presents such an array of antagonistic 
 forces. It is as though to the natural defences 
 opposed by a country to an invading foe seas, 
 rivers, mountains, forests there were added all 
 the appliances of art and of skill fortresses, en- 
 trenchments, stockades, and artillery. It is no 
 metaphor to say, that Satan has fixed his seat 
 
b.- INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSION'S. 
 
 in India, and surrounded his throne by protect- 
 ing defences of subtlety, cunning, deceit, malice, 
 impurity and crime, more repulsive and formi- 
 dable than heaven or hell ever gazed on. But, 
 with the Bible before us, we can have no doubt 
 respecting the issue of the conflict. God hath said 
 it. The little stone cut out of the mountain 
 without hands, shall fill the whole earth. " It shall 
 come to pass in the last days, that the mountain 
 of the Lord's house shall be established in the 
 top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above 
 the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it." 
 " The earth shall be fuU of the knowledge of the 
 Lord, as the waters cover the sea." " For from 
 the rising of the sun even unto the going down 
 of the same, my name shall be great among 
 the Gentiles ; and in every place incense shall be 
 offered unto my name, and a pure offering : for 
 my name shall be great among the heathen, saith 
 the Lord of hosts." On these and kindred pro- 
 phecies we build our hopes, though darkness cover 
 the earth and the blessed consummation seems 
 long delayed ; for never did mighty conqueror, in 
 the magnificence of his power, scatter every ad- 
 versary, and crush into the very dust whatever 
 opposed his will, as our Lord will vanquish His 
 when it pleases Him to make bare his holy arm, 
 
THE PROSPECTS. 83 
 
 and to ride forth prosperously, conquering and to 
 conquer. 
 
 But the complete triumph of Christianity in 
 India will not be speedily won. The progress of 
 all that is good and true among men is, alas, 
 always slow. Pure religion has been in the earth 
 6000 years, and it has ever had its apostles 
 and witnesses ; but yet, how circumscribed is its 
 dominion, and how wide the empire of supersti- 
 tion ! It is 1800 years since Christianity com- 
 menced her divine mission, yet, in spite of her 
 light, her love, and her power, there are more 
 Roman Catholics than Protestants; as many Mus- 
 sulmans, more Hindus, and twice as many Bud- 
 dhists ! It took 250 years to convert the Roman 
 empire to Christianity, though the work was 
 begun by the apostles of our Lord and Saviour, 
 and it contained fewer people than India. How 
 many centuries it has taken to lift England up to 
 her present elevation ! and yet, through them all, 
 there has not a single generation passed, but 
 noble, kingly, and holy men have been struggling 
 to get quit of some great evil, and to nourish and 
 mature some great principle or some useful law. 
 And yet there has been progress. Yea, from the 
 very beginning, the good work has grown, and 
 never was the position of Christianity so trium- 
 
84 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 phant and powerful as it is now. The oak is not 
 seen to grow, but it spreads wide its branches, 
 and strikes deep its roots nevertheless. All this 
 is in harmony with principles underlying the Di- 
 vine government, which it would be well for men 
 more deeply to ponder, and more firmly to believe. 
 God is never in haste. He waits in unbroken 
 tranquillity and calmness for the consummation of 
 His designs. What though to us the end seems 
 to tarry? He has an eternity to work in, and 
 He knows that no failure can befall His plans. 
 It is a law of our world's existence, confirmed 
 and illustrated by history, by nature, and by 
 science a law, too, which holds in other worlds, 
 if we interpret rightly the incidental allusions 
 scattered by revelation in her stately march, like 
 the kingly gifts and decorations of a great 
 monarch, distributed in some far distant province 
 of his empire, prized but half understood that 
 whatever is good and great is very slow of growth. 
 And is it not also a law gloriously vindicatory 
 of the Divine government and prerogative, that 
 these shall live long, as though endowed with 
 the favoured gift of immortality. In obedience 
 to these laws, may it not be that the past 6000 
 years, during which superstition has seemed to 
 reign unchecked, and the truth has seemed like 
 
THE PROSPECTS. 85 
 
 a wanderer without a home,, are an insignificant pe- 
 riod, when compared -with the cycles of ages during 
 which Christianity shall be triumphant, and the 
 world exult in its purity,, its love, and its light ? 
 Analogy would suggest, that we should not be 
 surprised if all India be not speedily converted. 
 Certain localities, even districts and large towns, 
 may probably be won to Christ very soon. It 
 would not be surprising if thousands of intelli- 
 gent men in Calcutta, or tens of thousands in the 
 rural districts of Bengal, Chota Nagpore, Tinne- 
 velly, or Travancore, where the gospel has been 
 widely preached, were at once to offer themselves 
 for baptism. A greater preparatory work has 
 been done in these places than is usually sup- 
 posed. But what has the Church done for India 
 as a whole, that she should expect the speedy 
 coming of her Lord to take possession of this 
 province of His empire? What are the signs of 
 her travailing in birth for souls? What costly 
 sacrifices has she made in this war ? Where are 
 the hosts that she has sent forth to the battle ? 
 Alas, she has sown sparingly, but expects to reap 
 plentifully, and looks for the triumph when she 
 has just set the battle in array ! 
 
 It is not necessary to give the reasons which 
 lead every intelligent Christian to believe in the 
 

 86 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 future triumph of his faith; it is more to our 
 purpose to describe the aspect borne by Hinduism 
 to Christianity as an aggressive power. Let us 
 glance, therefore, at some things in India itself 
 which will favourably affect the progress of our 
 holy faith. 
 
 India is open to us. If it did not belong to 
 England, it would be shut. Amongst the many 
 reasons why we rejoice in the establishment of 
 our supremacy there, this surely should be the 
 chief, that now the Christian missionary can travel 
 2000 miles from Point de Galle to Peshawur, and 
 1800 from Burmah to Beloochistan, and in every 
 district may freely preach the gospel, or establish 
 schools, " none daring to make him afraid/' 
 Surely, if it was well to rejoice when tidings 
 reached us that Chinese exclusiveness had suc- 
 cumbed, and opened wide the gates of that great 
 empire, that the preachers of the truth might 
 enter in, it is equally well for us to rejoice when 
 we reflect that the other great Asian empire is 
 prostrate at our feet, and, however reluctant, can- 
 not close her ears against the voice of truth. 
 
 The actual success which has attended mis- 
 sionary effort is a pledge of yet future triumphs. 
 This may seem obvious to us, but our faith has 
 sprung out of our success. Theirs were different 
 
THE PROSPECTS. 
 
 leelings who first beheld attempts to destroy Hin- 
 duism. The worldly and unbelieving European 
 laughed at the idea as Utopian, or sneered at it 
 as fanatical and impracticable. Believers, for the 
 most part, thought the attempt presumptuous, and 
 they were few indeed who had faith enough to 
 espouse it, and call it their own. The Hindu 
 looked on with proud indifference, as if his system 
 could defy all attacks, and as if his race could 
 not possibly renounce Hinduism for the faith of 
 the Mletcha. The first Brahmin convert baptized 
 at Serampore, was welcomed with a delirious joy 
 which plainly indicated how that first-fruit was re- 
 ceived by the heroic band there, as a confirmation 
 of their faith, and a rebuke of their doubts. What 
 an inference all these classes of persons would have 
 drawn, regarding the coming downfall of Hinduism 
 and the approaching triumph of Christianity, if 
 they could have seen what we see. Hinduism, it 
 has been proved, is not impregnable. Every phase 
 of it has been studied and refuted. Some of its 
 most venerable customs have ceased. Every caste 
 has yielded converts to v the faith of Christ ; the 
 Brahmin, the Khetriya, the Vaysiya, the Shudra, 
 have alike entered the kingdom of heaven j and 
 every tribe and nation has now its representatives 
 in the one family of God, the Bengali, the As- 
 
88 INDIA AXD CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 
 samese, the Behari, the Hindustani, the Rohilla, 
 the Rajpnt, the Cashrnirian, the Sikh, the Pun- 
 jabi, the Scindi, the Mahratti, the Tamul, the 
 Telugu, the Canarese, the Oriya, the Shanar, 
 the Santal, the Cole, and the Khond, have all 
 been wrought upon by the Divine Spirit, and 
 made partakers of everlasting life. If this has 
 been done, then it may be done again, it may be 
 done a thousand-fold. 
 
 The incongruous nature of Hinduism is a fact 
 very adverse to it. At first, this may seem to tell 
 in its favour, because it presents whatever phase 
 of opinion, and sanctions whatever form of wor- 
 ship, the human heart can desire ; but then these 
 multiform developments of it are in no sense 
 different manifestations of truth, but the mingled 
 products of a wild imaginativeness, a speculative 
 caprice, and a blind misguided religious instinct ; 
 they resemble not the beautiful outgrowth and 
 symmetry of a tree, but the misshapen and gnarled 
 excrescence which grows on the trunk of the elm. 
 The popular forms of Hinduism lie open to this 
 fatal objection; when challenged, they can offer 
 no evidence and no proof, even of historical credi- 
 bility to the intelligent religious inquirer. Like 
 the mirage of the desert, they strike the eye, and 
 deceive the imagination ; but when approached and 
 
THE PROSPECTS. 89 
 
 examined they pass away like a dream. Like the 
 mole, the owl, and the bat, they arc confounded and 
 destroyed by the light. It is a fact that if ever a 
 Hindu can be led fairly to examine his religion, he 
 never conies to the conclusion that it is true. Once 
 get him to investigate and to prove, and all faith 
 and conviction from that hour cease. He does not 
 necessarily become a Christian, when he discovers 
 that the faith of his ancestors cannot bear examin- 
 ation ; the probability is, that he feels no gratitude 
 toward the system or the man who has awoke him 
 from his dreamy and sensual repose ; at all events 
 his heart, unless touched by the Divine Spirit, re- 
 jects a faith which is too pure to be loved by the 
 sinful, and too offensive to be professed without 
 loss ; and therefore it is, that, like some obstinate 
 and gloomy foe, who, defeated but not vanquished, 
 retires from the outward line of his defences, behind 
 some shielding circle of frowning fortresses or 
 towering cliffs, where he prepares to renew the 
 conflict, if not with better success, yet with a more 
 stubborn will, the Hindu falls back upon a sup- 
 posed original form of his religion, which he in- 
 terprets by means of the light he has received 
 from European instructors, perhaps from the Bible 
 itself. Now this result, though it is not the one 
 most desired, we yet gladly accept, notwithstand- 
 
 2i 
 
90 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 ing the taunt that is often uttered, "you are 
 ranking infidels by your educational zeal." Many 
 persons seem under the impression that Atheism, 
 is very frequently, if not usually, the belief of 
 those educated in the Government colleges. The 
 statements uttered and sometimes printed to this 
 effect, are greatly exaggerated. The writer will 
 not be suspected of any partiality for a purely 
 secular system of education, but it is only an act 
 of justice for him to say, that though very ex- 
 tensively familiar with the class of young men 
 alluded to, he has never met with but one who 
 professed himself an Atheist. We accept of the 
 above mentioned result, because to get quit of the 
 hideous and abominable gods of the Purans is an 
 absolute gain, whatever follows after. Nothing 
 half so bad can succeed them. If men were to rack 
 their ingenuity, it is questionable if they could 
 originate anything so vile, contemptible, and de- 
 moralizing and happily now Christianity in India 
 speaks with a voice sufficiently authoritative, 
 loud and clear, to compel any system which 
 shapes itself into life, to be at least tolerably rea- 
 sonable and decent. Infidelity, whether it bear 
 the name of Yedantism, Brahmism, Natural Be- 
 ligion, or Deism, is only worthy of our pity and 
 abhorrence ; but its influence on society can never 
 
be h; 
 
 THE PROSPECTS. 91 
 
 alf so bad as that of Hinduism, And this 
 again should be considered. It is a mournful 
 truth, that the road leading back from the reli- 
 gions of men to the religion of God is a devious 
 and painful one. Not liking to retain God in 
 their knowledge, mankind start aside from the 
 right path like perverse animals. Conscience and 
 religious truth may point out the proper path, 
 but a prejudiced and sinful nature exerts a coun- 
 teracting power, and hence it is that men oscillate 
 between the extremes of credulity and scepticism. 
 The Hindu who has believed in the ten incarna- 
 tions of Krishna, becomes " enlightened/' and 
 refuses to believe in the incarnation of Christ ! 
 He believed devoutly in the triad of Brahma, 
 Vishnu, and Sceva; now he believes the Chris- 
 tian Trinity to be an impossibility ! He believed 
 in 330,000,000 of gods gods with six heads, and 
 eight hands, and no legs ; with bodies green, or 
 blue, or black; with every element of bigness 
 and monstrosity and now he complains that the 
 Bible teaches anthropomorphic conceptions of the 
 Deity ! He has been deceived in the belief that 
 every Brahmin is a sacred personage, and every 
 priest a saviour \ now he believes that all religions 
 are based on priestcraft, and Christian ministers 
 no whit better than pundits and gurus ! "We 
 
9.2 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 look, then, upon the scepticism and infidelity 
 which largely succeed idolatry, as the result of 
 that la\v of revulsion which governs our nature 
 when left to itself. But infidelity cannot become 
 the permanent belief of any people. It is but 
 a transition state. " Nature abhors a vacuum." 
 The mind and the heart as necessarily desire the 
 positive in religion, and the revelation of the 
 invisible, as the stomach craves a certain kind of 
 food because of some chemical element it con- 
 tains. Not only is the Hindu deist disposed to 
 be sceptical about his own scepticism, because, at 
 least once, he has changed his creed, but his reli- 
 gious instincts cry out against him, and impel 
 him to seek after a religion more satisfactory than 
 his own. And, finally, it should be added, in the 
 first place, that every Hindu who leaves his ances- 
 tral religion does not become an infidel. The 
 number is not a small one, of those who have 
 passed through no long transition state of dis- 
 belief. Judicious Christian instruction has, at the 
 same time, convinced them of the worthlessness of 
 Hinduism and the preciousness of the Gospel. 
 No sooner have they rejected one, than they have 
 embraced the other. But, in the second place, 
 there are many others who advance through dif- 
 ferent forms of opinion, to Christianity, without 
 
THE PROSPECTS. 93 
 
 remaining, for any lengthened period, without its 
 pale. Idolatry gives place to Vedantism, Vedan- 
 tism to Rationalism, Rationalism to a species of 
 Unitarianism, and Unitarianism to Trinitarian 
 Christianity. Thus, by different roads and with 
 varying speed, do multitudes leave the old faith ; 
 but the current which bears most of them 
 on its bosom sets in toward the haven of Christi- 
 anity. 
 
 The excessive gregariousness fostered by caste, 
 is likely, after a time, to favour the rapid decline 
 of Hinduism. 
 
 There is less independence of thought in India 
 than in any other country. The people know 
 nothing of that self-assertion which so greatly dis- 
 tinguishes us, and which disposes us occasionally 
 to be singular, that we may prove our right to do 
 as we please. " I shall if I choose" "I will do 
 as I please " are phrases an Englishman delights 
 to use, "just to show his independence/' Most 
 men in India, on the contrary, would question 
 either the sanity or the sense of any one who used 
 them freely. They shrink from whatever is per- 
 sonal, new, and peculiar. Every one seems dis- 
 posed to sink his individuality into the general life 
 of the community to which caste attaches him. 
 Custom has the force and the power of law, and 
 
( JI INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 110 one ventures to disobey her. We ever ask, in 
 reference to a practice or a usage, " Is it right ? " 
 "Is it convenient?" "Is it reasonable?" 
 They, on the contrary, simply inquire, " Is it the 
 custom ? " It follows, of course, that the people 
 move in bodies, like particles of water massed 
 into a river and running within its deep channel. 
 The mutiny of 1857 gave many illustrations of 
 this characteristic of the race. Several com- 
 panies of regiments, and even whole regiments, 
 were known to have joined in the revolt, for no 
 other reason than that their " brethren " had 
 done so. They had no ground of complaint; 
 they regretted the step as a great personal loss. 
 In more than one instance, hundreds of men 
 broke away from their allegiance, when rebellion 
 was hopeless and destruction sure ; but the rest 
 of the army had mutinied, and ( ' what else could 
 they do?" 
 
 This voluntary repudiation of individual re- 
 sponsibility this abnegation of self has hitherto 
 operated against us with enormous force; but 
 when masses of the people become more leavened 
 with Christian ideas and principles, it is likely to 
 turn as greatly to our advantage. They will come 
 over to us because others, allied to them by pro- 
 fession, or locality, or caste, do so. In the south 
 
THE PROSPECTS. 95 
 
 of Calcutta, in the Krishiiaglmr district, and in 
 one or two other places where there are many 
 native Christians, this has been one of the cha- 
 racteristics of the religious movement among 
 them; and it is not improbable that, ere long, 
 this kind of spasmodic, capricious impulse, will 
 lead large bodies of men we could define, if it 
 were prudent to do so, to revolt from Hinduism, 
 and to give in their adhesion to Christianity. Such 
 movements, of course, are full of danger and diffi- 
 culty; they bring along with them a multitude 
 of human beings, impelled by every variety of 
 motive, and of feeling, just as the rushing waters 
 of a wide-spread inundation sweep along every 
 variety of material that will float or roll. These 
 are times when missionaries must need the wis- 
 dom of the serpent, and the faith and patience of 
 the saints; for they may issue in much that is 
 good, or they may result in a most perplexing 
 mixture of what is precious and what is vile. 
 
 The deeply religious nature of the Hindus is 
 a circumstance pregnant with hope. 
 
 Perhaps no people have naturally a stronger, 
 or more diffused consciousness of the spiritual, 
 the worshipful, and the divine. Their social life 
 proves this, and so does their entire history. For 
 three thousand years they have been like a blind 
 
96 IN'DIA AND CHRISTIAN' MISSION'S. 
 
 man striving to get out of a dense and dangerous 
 forest. Their religion has been undergoing nu- 
 merous modifications and developments, in obedi- 
 ence to the popular instinct and desire, for the 
 purpose of being more fitted to harmonize with 
 the facts of nature, the demands of conscience, 
 and the wants of the heart. It need not be told 
 how all this struggling and effort has ended in 
 failure. Hinduism would not have so many 
 phases, and have passed through so many develop- 
 ments, if the people had not had an unusual 
 amount of the religious element amongst them, 
 and if they had not been largely disposed, to " seek 
 after God if haply they might find Him." In 
 addressing such a people, though intensely per- 
 verted by the ideas and influences of their own 
 superstitions, we have this advantage : their reli- 
 giousness using that term of course in its broad- 
 est sense disposes them to listen inquisitively 
 and attentively to what we have to say, and to 
 read thoughtfully the books which authoritatively 
 teach our faith. Can it be that over such a 
 people a false religion will continue to hold sway 
 when the true one is fairly presented to them? 
 Must not their very nature feel, as it works itself 
 clear of prejudice toward an impartial choice, that 
 ours is the faith which alone can satisfy its 
 
THE PROSPECTS. 97 
 
 cravings and answer its demands ? Thus we be- 
 lieve it will be : the minds disposed to irreligious- 
 ness and the negation of all belief, can do without 
 a faith, or change their religion easily; but minds 
 deeply religious and spiritual cannot but be at- 
 tracted from the false to the true, and cling to it, 
 when found, with saintly fervour. 
 
 The question has often been asked, " What 
 effect will the mutiny have upon the progress of 
 Christianity ? " This is the proper place to give a 
 reply. Its effects will not be very marked or de- 
 cisive; yet it will, in a variety of ways, affect 
 favourably the spread of our faith. Some of these 
 may briefly be sketched : 
 
 1. It has exhibited Christian character in a 
 li;ht most calculated to excite admiration and 
 
 O 
 
 inquiry. 
 
 Courage, fidelity, honour, and conjugal and 
 parental affection were never more exhibited 
 than by the English in India during the gloomy 
 months of 1857 and 1858. The incidents, grand 
 and noble as the circumstances of a Greek tra- 
 gedy, need not be repeated; of the defence of 
 Lucknow a defence really not of the city, but of 
 delicate women and little children ; the advances 
 of Havelock ; the exploits of Hodson ; the weary 
 wanderings of the little parties that went forth, 
 
98 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 hand clasped in hand, bravely to succour one 
 another, and to die, if others by such an act 
 could live. 
 
 A magnanimous use of power, and a far 
 stronger wish to spare than to punish, has been 
 displayed. Never was a revolt more causeless or 
 unjustifiable, and never was the progress of one 
 distinguished by fouler acts of perfidy. It may 
 as truly be said, that never was one put down 
 more unselfishly, or with less of unnecessary 
 bloodshed, or with a stronger disposition to spare 
 even the guilty, and reward the worthless and 
 undeserving. This may be doubted by some, but 
 history will record that we erred in not punishing 
 sufficiently, rather than in punishing too much. 
 
 But even higher deeds were done, and heroic 
 feelings exhibited. Forgiveness of enemies, holy 
 love, devout resignation, joyful hope, and martyr- 
 like fidelity were seen again and yet again. With- 
 out alluding to such instances as Ensign Check, 
 in the prison at Allahabad, encouraging the na- 
 tive preacher, Gopenath Nundy, to be faithful to 
 the truth, and not renounce Christianity ; and the 
 fugitives at Futteghur kneeling down to pray, 
 then bidding one another a calm farewell, ere 
 they fell, ruthlessly massacred; allusion may loo 
 made to instances in which native Christians ex- 
 
THE PllOSPECTS. 99 
 
 liibited these qualities. Tims when Walayat All, 
 at Delhi, parted with his wife and children, his 
 last words were, " See that, whatever comes, you 
 do not deny Jesus Christ. If the children are 
 killed before your face, oh ! then take care that you 
 do not deny Him who died for us." "When asked 
 by the multitude to forsake Christianity and repeat 
 the Mohamedan confession of faith, he replied, 
 "No, I never will; rny Saviour took up his cross 
 and went to God I take up my life as a cross, and 
 will follow Him to heaven. Your swords have no 
 terror for me. Let them fall, and I fall a martyr 
 to Christ." The Christians in Chota Nagporc 
 suffered the loss of all things, but their fidelity 
 was expressed in the language of one of their 
 number, who said, "As long as I have breath left I 
 will never deny my blessed Jesus." These things 
 were witnessed by thousands of Hindus and 
 Mohamedaus. They are singularly observant of 
 character, and will not inquiry and thought be 
 elicited ? There is that in constancy, courage, and 
 honour which forces a tribute from the most craven 
 and ignoble, and there is that in unwavering faith 
 and unbending adherence to holy principles, which 
 men cannot always comprehend, but which awes 
 and impresses them ; and many a one who looked 
 on these noble and holy deeds, is likely to have 
 
100 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 
 the inquiry suggested by his own thoughts, 
 "Whence came this calm and sober courage 
 this wonderful fidelity this unblenching ad- 
 herence to principle this joy in death this 
 mysterious elevation of feeling and of conduct? " 
 And will not the idea sometimes cross the mind, 
 " Christianity has done it all ?" Facts might easily 
 be adduced to prove that such thoughts have 
 actually been suggested, and that the reception of 
 Christianity has been the result. 
 
 2. The overthrow of certain evils inimical to 
 the spread of the Gospel will be facilitated by the 
 mutiny. 
 
 Caste had one of its firmest buttresses in the 
 Sepoy army. The soldiers, excessively ignorant 
 and exclusive, did their utmost to systematize 
 and to extend it, They did this because it nattered 
 their pride, lessened their duties, and gratified the 
 intense veneration which every Hindu has for 
 "vested interests." Government, because its 
 officers were ignorant of the laws of caste, and too 
 indolent or indifferent to study them, and because 
 it was less "bother" to concede than to resist, 
 weakly gave in to the ceaseless pressure, until the 
 system grew into formidable strength and expan- 
 sion. The caste pride, thus fostered under the 
 sufferance of Government, grew and gained power 
 
THE 
 
 by the social position of the soldiery, for,, as the 
 Honourable Company's servants,, they had a status 
 far higher than the great mass of their countrymen, 
 and the good pay they received higher, relatively, 
 than the pay of any soldiery in the world gave 
 them additional influence. The army destroyed 
 itself. With it perished the only dangerous com- 
 bination existing, pledged to resist all improvement 
 and all change. 
 
 The alteration made in the organization of the 
 native army has been by no means satisfactory. 
 We have now a larger native army than ever ; it is 
 crushing down our finances ; politically, it is more 
 dangerous and ill-disposed than the old Sepoy army. 
 We are under no pledge to retain the services of 
 the greater part of it. India would be safer, and 
 the army far more efficient, if it were reduced one- 
 half, and yet military men are reluctant to lessen 
 it, and the Government has not nerve and vigour 
 sufficient to disband it ! The change has been 
 favourable in one important point only caste has 
 lost its most formidable support ; in other respects 
 its gain has been small indeed. 
 
 Moslem arrogance and assumption have been 
 rebuked and humbled. It has ever been one of 
 the defects of our Indian Government, to leave 
 enormous pensions in perpetuity, and the name 
 
 K 2 
 
I?;DIA A:;D cbnisriAX MISSIONS. 
 
 and semblance of authority to those whom we 
 vanquished. Xot to speak of the impolicy of the 
 act, it was palpable hypocrisy to recognize an 
 Emperor of Delhi, and to surround him with all 
 the pomp and pageantry of a court, long years after 
 we had deprived his ancestor of all real power. 
 In this, and similar cases, we fostered pretensions 
 which were sure to be asserted when the favour- 
 able opportunity arose. It certainly was not in 
 Mohamedan human nature to be either grateful or 
 faithful, under the circumstances, to a Government 
 professedly Christian. And the Moslem princes 
 were looked up to, by all of the same faith, as the 
 centres of disaffection and the stimulators of plot 
 and intrigue. The mutiny has swept away some 
 native courts, which for impurity and worthlessness 
 were unequalled. It has not only deprived the 
 great of ill-used influence it has dissipated the 
 sanguinary expectations of the people generally, 
 and the probable current of events will most likely 
 deprive the Moslem part of the population of the 
 influence they have left, and depress what may be 
 called the Moharnedan interest. 
 
 The action of the Government itself will be 
 beneficially stimulated by the mutiny. It has for 
 years, it is but just to say, been improving. The 
 main drift of many of its measures lias been to 
 
 
THE PROSPECTS. 103 
 
 recognize the rights of native Christians, and to 
 equalize in the eyes of the law all classes of subjects. 
 It has wished to clear itself of all connection with 
 idolatry and Mohamedanism, and its course has 
 certainly been in that direction. The mutiny has 
 torn some delusions from before its eyes, and 
 broken some fetters from its arms. It is not to be 
 expected but that it will pursue its new career with 
 fresh .energy and vigour, as a man does when he 
 leaves a tangled forest and a difficult pathway to 
 tread an open plain. 
 
 3. The conviction is likely to gain strength, 
 both amongst Hindus and Mohamedans, that it is 
 vain to resist the progress of Christianity. 
 
 This impression has long been deepening in the 
 minds of all thoughtful men, who live where they 
 can observe the working of European civilization 
 and missionary effort. " We shall all be Christians 
 after a time," is the involuntary admission of 
 many a man who sees, but who dislikes, the pro- 
 gress of our principles. And this conviction will 
 grow with the permanence and stability of British 
 power, by somewhat the following process: 
 They have seen the utter failure and defeat of a 
 most determined effort to annihilate our power, 
 and even our race in India. They know that the 
 continuance of our power must lead to the diffusion 
 
104 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 of our civilization, the depression of their own 
 customs,, and the spread of our faith. If the old 
 army could not destroy us, they fail to see -what 
 power can. If we resisted unwarningly such a 
 shock, they suspect that nothing can overthrow us. 
 Intense fatalists, they are disposed to conclude 
 that destiny lias fixed our power and therefore that 
 resistance is vain; they thus give up opposition in 
 despair, and think they might as -well bow down 
 and accept the lot marked out for them by inex- 
 orable necessity. A European reader may question 
 the collusiveness of such a speculation, but the 
 Oriental mind is strangely given to obey such im- 
 pulses with an earnestness which reason seldom 
 creates. 
 
 4. Undoubtedly, one of the happiest and most 
 hopeful results of the mutiny is ike deeper interest 
 taken by England in India. 
 
 That dark and dismal event awoke the English 
 nation as from a pleasant dream. It came like 
 the alarm of fire upon the ear amid the deep repose 
 of a summer's night. Doubtless, there were then 
 " deep searchings of heart." Statesmen felt that 
 they had neglected a mighty and a noble trust j 
 the public felt that they had criminally lived in 
 ignorance of abuses, which they should have 
 known and sought to remove ; and Christians felt 
 
THE PROSPECTS. 105 
 
 that they had let pass by, perhaps had lost for the 
 future, one of the finest opportunities for spreading 
 light and giving life ever put within their reach. 
 It is an augury for good that India has been 
 drawn nearer to England by this great and fright- 
 ful outbreak. Politicians are really interested iii 
 her welfare ; but what to us is of deeper moment 
 is the earnest zeal with which Christian men are 
 devising liberal things for her conversion. The 
 Society for the Spread of Christian Education, 
 through the medium of the native languages, is 
 one of the hopeful births of this newly- awakened 
 feeling ; another is the fresh vigour with which 
 existing societies are pressing on their work. The 
 determination of the London Missionary Society to 
 raise the number of its missionaries from fifty to 
 seventy, is an illustration of this earnest zeal; and the 
 munificence of its friends, in contributing 20,000 
 towards the scheme, proves how warmly the 
 churches sympathize with this large-hearted love 
 and pity. When the Church of Christ thus 
 begins to arise and shine, will her Lord long 
 withhold his blessing ? 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE DUTIES. 
 
 IT is not always an agreeable tiling to speak to 
 others of their duty; there is an assumption in 
 doing so the mind shrinks from. But a mission- 
 ary cannot, if he feel rightly, but plead earnestly 
 for the land of his labours, and exhibit jealousy 
 when its claims are overlooked. Any one who has 
 laboured in India, and paid even but slight attention 
 to its main political, social, and religious prac- 
 tices, cannot but feel acutely and speak strongly 
 in its behalf. His own voluntary exile from much 
 that is usually most dear, not for honour's sake, 
 nor for wealth, but through love to Christ and to 
 souls, is a sufficient proof of earnestness and sin- 
 cerity. AYhat he has seen and heard, can but have 
 deepened those emotions of love and pity which 
 first impelled him eastward. He has seen the 
 symbols of a licentious and hideous idolatry, 
 wherever he turned his eyes. He has seen the 
 cruelty, the excitement, and the degradation of 
 
THE DUTIES. 107 
 
 religious festivals. He lias seen tlie idiotic prac- 
 tices of the Shuniyassi, the deep sufferings of 
 the devotee, and the painful wanderings of the 
 pilgrim. He has seen caste corrupting the Bra- 
 min, degrading the Shudra, and enslaving all. 
 He has seen the degradation of women, and the 
 heartlessness of men. He has seen a whole empire 
 suffering from its sin and superstition, until it can 
 be likened only to a human body, corrupted to the 
 marrow with some foul disease. He has heard 
 things even still more indicative of the sinfulness 
 and sorrow of the people; things he would wish to 
 forget, which oppress his heart, and wound his 
 sensibilities, and haunt his imagination, and 
 which are too bad for record. Need it be said how 
 often the thought crosses his mind "What a 
 perversion of precious existence is here ! After such 
 a life, how unfitted must be those tens of millions 
 for aught that is good and holy in the world to 
 come!" Can such an one be silent? If he were 
 to hold his peace, would not the very stones cry 
 out ! Must it not be a sorrow and a humiliation 
 that he has not the eloquence of the most gifted, 
 and the persuasiveness of the most wise and loving, 
 to enable him to move all Christian hearts to feel, 
 to give, to labour, and to pray for India? 
 
 There is need that such effort should be excitc'd, 
 
108 IXDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 for, alas, it has not yet found existence ! England 
 has only just begun to appreciate the value of India, 
 and to rise up toward an approximate conception 
 of her own high duties and solemn responsibili- 
 ties. In years long past she did her best, not to 
 enlighten India, but to keep her as she was, by 
 shutting out the light. She hardly gave a thought 
 to the elevation and improvement of the great 
 race mysteriously thrown at her feet. The houses 
 of legislature were criminally ignorant of Indian 
 affairs, and chafed at being "bored" with them. 
 Men were sent out habitually to preside over 
 satrapies larger than France or Italy, who had no 
 single recommendation, save that they were poor, 
 importunate, and had noble patrons, or relations. 
 Xay, the supreme authority itself has only once 
 for years been vested in the hands of a really 
 able statesman, Lord Dalhousie. The way for the 
 mutiny was prepared by long years of military 
 neglect and incapacity. Who can tell even the 
 names of the men who for the most part have had 
 supreme command over an army of 300,000 men ? 
 If such was the indifference exhibited in appointing 
 to the highest post, it may well be imagined how 
 the lower ones were usually filled. All this might 
 be overlooked if now the policy which led to it 
 were repudiated, and a wiser and nobler course 
 
THE DUTIES. 109 
 
 maintained. Bat where are the signs of reform? Are 
 they seen in a debt which has doubled itself in ten 
 years ? In the growth of one huge native army, just 
 after another has well nigh undone us ? In the pro- 
 digal rewards showered on men, who have only not 
 rebelled ? In the full payment of Sepoys, months 
 after they were disarmed, because they had conspired 
 to perpetrate mutiny and massacre? In financial 
 chaos only paralleled by the condition of France 
 before the Reign of Terror ? In the drifting back 
 into hated usage of almost all the abuses and evils 
 which the mutiny had happily swept away ? In the 
 incapacity which prevents the supreme Government 
 in India, from grappling with a single great diffi- 
 culty, or inaugurating one grand reform ? Or in 
 the statesmanship at home, which ever represents 
 things as better thanjthey are, and which exhibits 
 its incapacity by having an annually deficient 
 revenue, and its capacity only by skill in borrow- 
 ing ? History will set her seal upon this era of our 
 Indian government, and will say that the men most 
 fitted to govern and exalt India were set aside, 
 and coldly honoured, and their places given to men 
 who had no merits for her to record. 
 
 Have the children of light been wiser in this 
 generation than the children of this world ? We 
 cannot say that they have done what they could j 
 
110 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 
 witness the small number of missionaries who have 
 been sent to India; the little that has been done 
 to give her the Scriptures ; and the fewness and 
 feebleness of the thoughts and supplications that 
 have been devoted to her conversion. "We have no 
 justification to plead for this neglect, because God 
 has set before us an open door. Whatever hin- 
 derances existed to Christian effort during the ear- 
 lier history of our government, have for years passed 
 away. We may pass over the whole extent of our 
 empire, and find no place where the missionary 
 may not live and freely carry on his work, or 
 where the people will not cheerfully receive 
 Christian books, or gladly avail themselves of the 
 use of any school he may establish. There is no 
 country in Europe, save England, where thought 
 and speech are freer. 
 
 And India has the first claim on the mingled 
 pity and love of English Christians, because she 
 belongs to our empire. The remark has become a 
 trite one ; let it not on that account lose its force. 
 Without canvassing the separate steps by which 
 we have ascended the summit of empire, it may 
 be averred confidently, that we have been led 
 up ward to the giddy height by God Himself. We 
 went not to India that we might conquer it, as 
 Spain went to America, and France to Algiers. 
 
THE DUTIES. Ill 
 
 We went with no thoughts but for trade; an 
 insignificant company, purchasing of native princes 
 but ground enough on which to erect factories to 
 store their goods. We dreamt not of conquest. 
 We engaged in war, more because of the wicked- 
 ness of others than from any lust of dominion 
 tempting ns to the strife. It is little considered 
 how difficult it is to dwell in unity with a neigh- 
 bouring Hindu or Mohamedan state. It is a fact, 
 that almost every Governor-general has received 
 instructions, before entering on his high office, to 
 maintain if possible a peace policy, and to refrain 
 from increasing the territory of the Company. Yet 
 the empire has grown mysteriously and unwittingly, 
 as empire never did before. Such a connection 
 so strangely brought about between two races 
 dwelling eight thousand miles apart, separated by 
 great seas, and many nations, and the loftiest phy- 
 sical barriers ; the one most strongly character- 
 ized and typical of the West, the other as broadly 
 outlined and illustrative of the East ; the one en* 
 dowed with the largest capacity to impart whatever 
 humanity needs, the other as largely necessitous ; 
 the one richly dowered, like the daughter of a 
 king, with truth, and power, and prosperity ; the 
 other naked, blind, bleeding, and leprous ; cannot 
 have been permitted by Him who is the King of 
 
112 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 nations but with the most beneficent of designs. 
 How magnanimously should England wield her 
 power how beneficently exert her influence how 
 Avisely should she rule how justly should she 
 legislate ! But leaving mere general considera- 
 tions, let us reflect on the responsibilities and 
 duties Christians especially owe to India. 
 
 Is there not that in Hinduism and Mohamc- 
 danism which should excite our untiring hosti- 
 lity ? Our indignation was recently kindled 
 against some of the races of India, because of 
 the unprovoked and unmerited sufferings they 
 had inflicted on our race a race, it is but just to 
 say, who, with many defects, have yet governed 
 that conquered empire more beneficently than 
 ever conquered country was governed before. 
 There was much that was righteous in that in- 
 dignation ; but did we sufficiently ask ourselves, 
 " AVhy is the Moharnedan so intolerant and im- 
 placable? why is the Hindu so treacherous, 
 so ruthless, and so base ? " Was it not because 
 they were nurtured and trained in religious sys- 
 tems breathing the very essence of falsehood, 
 lust, and crime? Hinduism and Moharnedanism 
 made these men what they were ; and are thcy 
 not the primary causes of all the sorrow and 
 crime which desolate and degrade that fair and 
 
THE DUTIES. 113 
 
 fertile region? They are an insult to God, and a 
 curse to man. They are the more detestable, as 
 well as formidable, because of that serpentile 
 fascination and Circean craft by which they draw 
 their votaries to debasement and ruin. They bar 
 the road to heaven, and turn the land into 
 an Aceldeina, a brothel, and a spunging-house. 
 They have been to the people what the march 
 of Attila and his Huns was to the cities and 
 villages that fell beneath their power a deso- 
 lation and a woe. What must God think of 
 them the pure, the truth -loving God? With 
 what abhorrence must they fill the Saviour's 
 mind, and with what pity must He behold their 
 victims ! And is it not right in us to treat them 
 with a deep, unconquerable abhorrence ? We hate 
 deceit, falsehood, impurity, oppression, and wrong. 
 Hinduism and Moharaedanism are the most in- 
 tense and widely- diffused concentration of these 
 the world has ever been afflicted with. How in- 
 tense, then, and deep, should be our desire for their 
 destruction. The hatred which Hannibal bore to 
 Rome ; the hostility with which Luther regarded 
 the Papacy; the perseverance with which Wil- 
 berforce sought the extinction of slavery, are types 
 of the feelings we should cherish toward them, 
 and never should we rest until all heaven and 
 
Ill INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 earth ring with the cry, " Hinduism aud Moham- 
 edanism have fallen, and are dead ! " 
 
 Xeed it be said that holier and gentler influ- 
 ences should also move us to this great enterprise ? 
 Shall not the remembrance of God's wrath against 
 the heathen urge us to save them from its fury ? 
 Shall not the dismal prospect of the future lead 
 us to save them from "going down to the pit? " 
 Shall not the Saviour's love constrain us to do 
 our utmost, that to the cross on which He was 
 uplifted, that He might give life to the world, all 
 men may be drawn ? Shall not the " sure word of 
 prophecy" fire our imaginations, and inspire us 
 with intensest desire to realize the glorious vi- 
 sion? Pity for our fallen race; jealousy for God; 
 love to the Lord of life ; zeal for the truth, alike 
 urge us to labour. On every Christian, India has 
 a claim ; but there are some especially bound to 
 consider what they can do on her behalf. 
 
 All young men who wish to serve their Lord, 
 and live for some great and noble end might well 
 ask themselves, " Shall I not go to India?" It is 
 true that many are unfitted for missionary work 
 there, because of predispositions to disease, and 
 others may be so specially fitted for home service, 
 that their course is clearly defined. It is equally 
 true that others may lack the intellectual train- 
 
THE DUTIES. 115 
 
 ing, without which it is a waste of money and 
 of influence for men to be sent out; and others 
 may not have the zeal, the patience, or the self- 
 renunciation required; but is there not a yet 
 larger number remaining, who are not want- 
 ing in the requisite qualifications, and whose 
 reproach and sin it is that they remain in Eng- 
 land ! Our own country should be well supplied, 
 it is true, with the ministry of the Word ; but it 
 is thus supplied. There are comparatively few 
 villages without a Christian pastor. Most small 
 and moderately-sized towns have a minister of 
 the Gospel for every 1500 of the population. The 
 large towns are less well supplied, but few are 
 wanting in almost a sufficient number if they had 
 the requisite willingness to labour, and fitness for 
 their work. All these exist apart from that noble 
 army of Sabbath-school teachers, lay -preachers, 
 and town-missionaries which the generous zeal of 
 the Church has organized. Now, is it right that 
 England should have this abundance of spiritual 
 labourers, and India such a lack of them ? Is it 
 according to the great law, " Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour as thyself?" Is it noble and great, 
 not to say apostolic, and in the true spirit of 
 the ministry of reconciliation, to live here, where 
 ministers and churches crowd each other, preach- 
 
116 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 
 ing perhaps to a congregation of less than four 
 hundred souls, almost all of whom have heard the 
 Gospel so frequently that it is difficult to teach 
 them aught striking or new, whilst yonder there 
 are tens of millions easily accessible, who have 
 never heard a single sermon, and tens of millions 
 more who have not heard as many as they number 
 years. It is, indeed, a bitter thing to leave this 
 glorious England, with her congenial society, her 
 sources of purest gratification, and her matchless 
 civilization to leave her and all perhaps which 
 the heart, the intellect, and the senses hold dear, 
 to dwell in a laud like India, where the barriers 
 in the way of the progress of all that is good arc 
 lofty as her own Himalayas, and impenetrable as 
 her jungles ; where the moral atmosphere is as 
 heavy with guilt, as the air of her forests and 
 marshes is surcharged with malaria and death ! 
 But is there not on this account all the more 
 need to go ; for if men are so bad, and if sin com- 
 mits such desolations, then what is there save 
 Christianity that can make them good, and up- 
 root the moral Upas tree that sheds its poisonous 
 influence all around? Men count the place of 
 difficulty and of danger the place of honour also. 
 It is a noble impulse which urges a soldier to be 
 in the thickest of the fight; to take part in a 
 
THE DUTIES. 117 
 
 charge which will decide the fortunes of a well- 
 fought field ; to be the first to mount the battle- 
 ments of a stormed city ; to bear some important 
 tidings to a distant post through the midst of 
 watchful foes ; and who is there, however indo- 
 lent and craven, but envies the honour of those 
 who can proudly say, " I charged with Uxbridge 
 at Waterloo ! " <e I held out with Lawrence at 
 Lucknow ! " " I was with Nicholson at Delhi ! " 
 " I marched with Havelock into Oude ! " And 
 should not a similar feeling impel every man who 
 gives himself to the ministry of the AYord? Are 
 comforts, cultivated ease, literary gratification, 
 congenial society, a respectable sphere of useful- 
 ness, the things chiefly to be desired ; nay, rather 
 should we not wish to spend and be spent, and 
 press forward to wherever superstition has most 
 potently tried her spells, and sin degraded man 
 the lowest, and suffering embittered most lives. 
 
 But means are needed to carry on the work 
 of God, and can the affluent and prosperous 
 devote treasure to a better cause than the conver- 
 sion of India? There can be no doubt of the 
 enormous evil needing to be removed, and the 
 adaptation of the Gospel alone to effect the cure. 
 The legitimacy of the design, therefore, is clear. 
 But is it not sufficiently pressing and momentous 
 
118 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 to justify,, nay. to demand,, an unusual and muni- 
 ficent scale of giving ? God has given us a new 
 tenure of possession in India ; shall we not be 
 eager to use it well, lest He renew it not again, 
 leaving us only the sad reflection that we had a 
 splendid opportunity of doing good, and neglected 
 it ? Has He not read to us this lesson by the 
 mutiny and its cost of 22,000,000 sterling 
 that He can endanger the prosperity, and scatter 
 the wealth of those who give Him not the glory ? 
 Has He not made England the wealthiest and 
 most prosperous of nations, and have not His own 
 people their full share of this prosperity ? Shall 
 not, then, a generous proportion of our wealth 
 flow back into the service of Him who has thus 
 enriched us ? Who is there but should be ambi- 
 tious of laying his richest gifts not his poorest 
 ones on the altar; of bringing his brass instead 
 of his iron; his silver instead of his brass; his 
 gold instead of his silver ; to build and beautify 
 such a temple for God ! Such offerings bring no 
 regrets to the soul; they call forth happy and 
 noble remembrances in life, and in the future 
 they will be as a well-spring of gladness even 
 amidst the bliss of heaven. Then, how differently 
 we shall judge of our expenditure to what we 
 ofttimes do now. As we look backward, how 
 
THE DUTIES. 119 
 
 will the soul reproach itself for living so selfishly, 
 and erring so greatly in the use of wealth. Its 
 thoughtless expenditure, when pleasure, appear- 
 ance, and rank were concerned, will excite but re- 
 gret. The freedom with which we spent for self, 
 and the cautious reluctance with which we gave 
 to Christ, will deepen our humility ; and when we 
 think of what we might have given to the cause of 
 Him who gave us so freely His well-beloved Son, 
 but which we thoughtlessly expended, or graspingly 
 withheld, a cloud of sadness will come over the 
 spirit even in heaven. But how different will be the 
 emotions of those who have been"rich toward God. " 
 Gladness will be theirs, pure and ever-recurring, 
 because they learned in time the holiest and noblest 
 use of gold. The spendthrift's self-reproaches, and 
 the covetous man's fear and humiliation will not 
 be theirs; but evermore the voice of Him who 
 praised the widow's offering in the temple, and the 
 penitent's gift in Simon's house, will sound as 
 sweetest music in their ears. 
 
 And should not every Christian heart pray for 
 India. Her interests are momentous enough, and 
 our own identification with her is close and solemn 
 enough, to demand that we should never forget her 
 when we pray. In the solemn moment of secret 
 prayer among the prayers of the household at 
 
1.20 INDIA AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 the missionary prayer-meeting in the supplica-. 
 tions of the sanctuary, she should not be forgotten 
 or feebly remembered. We should pray that God 
 would not smite India in His wrath, but rather 
 soften and subdue her by His grace. We should 
 pray that England may be taught to think wisely, 
 justly, and lovingly of her. We should pray that 
 never to her again may be sent by us the weak, 
 the incapable, and the unworthy ; but that all 
 appointed to guard her destinies may be wise, good 
 and great. We should pray that none but men of 
 pre-eminent fitness may be sent out to spread the 
 Gospel there. We should pray that all mission- 
 aries, catechists, and teachers may richly be gifted 
 with fervour, wisdom, and prudence. We should 
 pray that barrier after barrier may fall at our 
 advance, and that successive years may see the 
 growing purity and strength of the Indian Church, 
 until the consummation speedily comes when idol- 
 atry is extinguished and God alone is worshipped 
 through Christ the King. 
 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 (Page 3.) 
 COMPAEATIYE TIEW OP EUEOPEAN NATIONS AND INDIA. 
 
 "WE hear much of the great European states; but a glance at 
 their statistics is enough to show the vastly greater magnitude, 
 and wealth, and population of our Indian possessions. Here, for 
 instance, is a table of some of them : 
 
 Square Miles. 
 
 Austria 217,760 
 
 Bavaria 29,000 
 
 Belgium 12,509 
 
 France 204,000 
 
 Holland 13,890 
 
 Great Britain and > , 09 Q o Q 
 
 Ireland ) 122 ' 823 
 
 Portugal 34,500 
 
 Prussia 106,302 
 
 Naples 41,521 
 
 Eussia 2,041,809 
 
 Spain 176,430 
 
 S weden and Norway 284, 530 
 
 Turkey 183,140 
 
 Compare with these 
 British India 1,309,290 
 
 "Here Russia alone exceeds our Indian possessions in mag- 
 nitude; and of her vast area, much, very much, it is well known, 
 is little better than a snowy wilderness, while her population 
 falls far short of that of India. The only countries that have a 
 
 Population 
 
 . Eevenue. 
 
 Debt. 
 
 Army. 
 
 35,083,755 
 
 8,700,000 1 6 1 ,000,000 
 
 400,000 
 
 4,720,000 
 
 2,900,000 
 
 11,116,000 
 
 70,400 
 
 4,559,090 
 
 4,902,000 
 
 24,750,000 
 
 90,000 
 
 35,801,628 
 
 59,600,000 
 
 259,253,000 
 
 410,000 
 
 3,467,638 
 
 6,650,000 
 
 102,460,000 
 
 50,000 
 
 28,619,866 
 
 65,500,000 
 
 765,500,000 
 
 150,000 
 
 3,612,500 
 
 2,800,000 
 
 21,000,000 
 
 28,000 
 
 16,612,800 
 
 14,200,000 
 
 28,000,000 
 
 275,000 
 
 8,881,289 
 
 5,100,000 
 
 18,000,000 
 
 60,000 
 
 61,161,315 
 
 24,500,000 
 
 64,000,000 
 
 680,000 
 
 15,656,200 
 
 11,700,000 
 
 120,000,000 
 
 160,000 
 
 4,960,000 
 
 3,280,000 
 
 300,000 
 
 48,000 
 
 12,600,000 
 
 6,800,000 
 
 
 110,000 
 
 the following statistics 
 
 of India : 
 
 
 380,000,000 
 
 35,850,000 
 
 95,836,000 
 
 341,771 
 
1:2:2 APPENDIX. 
 
 
 superior revenue are France and Great Britain ; but the revenue 
 of France is less than twice that of India, while her debt is nearly 
 three times as great. Spain has an area equal to the smallest of 
 the Indian Presidencies, but her revenue is only one-third the 
 revenue of India, her population less than one-eleventh, and her 
 debt slightly larger. Putting aside Russia, India has as ex- 
 tensive an area and a greater population than all the countries 
 mentioned when united." Bengal as a Field for Missions, by 
 }I. Wylie, Esq., with some alterations. 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 (Page 36.) 
 
 FEilAXE EDUCATION. 
 
 THE difficulties in the way of female education in India are 
 greater by far than those existing in any other Asiatic country. 
 They are of a four- fold kind : 
 
 1. The impression is general, that education is likely to be 
 prejudicial rather than otherwise to women. They are held to be 
 so weak, vain, and corrupt, th:it education will foster their pride, 
 make them imagine that they are equal to men, and put into 
 their hands a power they are sure to abuse ; for a woman who 
 ran read, it is believed, will always prefer reading bad books to 
 good ones. 
 
 -. The superstitious notion is very prevalent, especially 
 among women, that she who learns to read is very likely to be 
 deprived of her husband by death. The dread of widowhood is 
 intense, for it is held to be a disgrace as well as a calamity, and 
 subjects the sufferer to life-long humiliation and sorrow. 
 
 3. Eespectable women hold it highly improper and even dan- 
 gerous, as well as unbecoming, for females to go out of the house 
 unless carefully concealed and guarded. On this ground it is 
 exceedingly difficult to establish female-schools. 
 
 4. Girls are married at such an early period, that, even if 
 
M 
 
 APPENDIX. 123 
 
 uced to learn, they acquire but little knowledge before they 
 are obliged to leave school. 
 
 Untiring efforts, however, have been made in this unpromis- 
 ing field in. the following directions, and not without hopeful 
 results : 
 
 1. By establishing orphan boarding-schools. The expense of 
 these is great, and the good they accomplish does not tell on the 
 Hindu population, though it does on the Christian ; for the girls 
 taught in them are necessarily precluded by caste from associating 
 with the former, and of course grow up amongst the latter. 
 
 2. By day- schools. To these the poorest only resort, and 
 that for a short period. 
 
 3. By zenana- schools. Some wealthy natives have become 
 disposed, to permit their daughters and nieces to receive instruc- 
 tion in their own houses. The practice has commenced of 
 sending a teacher to a few such families, where instruction is 
 given for a few hours every week. Taking into account the 
 construction of native society, this plan seems most likely to 
 give satisfaction. 
 
 4. By inducing educated young men to give instruction 
 in private to their wives, and such other female relatives as they 
 have access to. Every opportunity is taken, of impressing on 
 the minds of young men the importance of education to females 
 as well as males, They are not slow to perceive this, but they 
 reluctantly exert themselves to overcome the difficulties that 
 have been described. Yet some instruction is given, and much 
 of what we teach in our mission-schools to boys and young men 
 does find its way into the minds of many a mother, many a wife, 
 and many a little niece. 
 
 The time has not come for anything like a general system of 
 female education. Society is not merely unfit for it, it absolutely 
 refuses it. General enlightenment amongst men must precede it, 
 In the full extent practicable female education will be pressed 
 forward. 
 
124 APPENDIX. 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 (Page 53.) 
 
 THE EFFECTS OF ANGLO-INDIAN EDUCATION. 
 
 THE Hindu sacred writings profess to teach, not only all that it 
 is needful to know about religion, but about science, philosophy, 
 and history, as well. Geography and astronomy are supposed as 
 really to be subjects of inspired authoritative teaching as theology. 
 Their instructions, especially in all branches of natural science, are 
 as fabulous and imaginary as they well can be. It necessarily hap- 
 pens, therefore, that a knowledge of European science explodes all 
 belief in popular Hinduism. This result is brought about by the 
 purely secular education given in Government colleges, and, to a 
 less extent, by the education given in common vernacular schools; 
 but since the missionary institutions, in which a superior educa- 
 tion is given in English, combine the advantages of these, with 
 others especially their own, a brief allusion to them is becoming. 
 
 They are not needed for the people generally. A plain edu- 
 cation in their own mother tongue is best fitted for them, and 
 missionary institutions are too expensive to be established every- 
 where ; but in the large towns, where an English education is a 
 necessity, a great gain, and a desirable accomplishment, to large 
 numbers of the wealthy and high caste, it is of the highes^ 
 importance that they should exist. More than a fourth of the 
 pupils in these institutions are Brahmins, and more than another 
 fourth are Eaisth?, one of the most influential caste divisions ; 
 indeed they contain very few but such as belong to families in- 
 fluential by caste, or respectable in our sense of the term. It is 
 obvious, that to bring such under a highly literary and Christian 
 course of instruction, is of the highest importance. 
 
 To diffuse Christianity is of course the special design of such 
 institutions. The literary and scientific instruction given, is 
 made subservient to this great end. To obtain the latter is the 
 only reason why Hindus send their sons to such places ; they 
 had much ratl^r have the purely secular without the religious 
 instruction, but this missionaries could not giye. They require, 
 
APPENDIX. 125 
 
 as a matter of course, that students shall read the Scriptures 
 and books on the evidences of Christianity, as well as attend 
 to general instruction. Nor do they find any reluctance to 
 comply with these conditions. The Hindu submits, as he 
 always does when firmly and sensibly dealt with. This, then, is 
 the tacit agreement existing bet\vcen the two parties : the Hindu 
 comes to us and submits to receive our Christian education, tliat 
 he may obtain a good and cheap secular training ; we give him 
 the latter, that we may get him to accept of the former. 
 
 The effects of this form of education have been briefly alluded 
 to; they may well, however, be more definitely stated: 
 
 1. In almost all cases, when the students remaiu even a 
 moderate time, there is the annihilation in their minds of some 
 of the greatest obstacles to the evangelization of the people. All 
 belief in the existence of gods and goddesses, all confidence in 
 the Shastras, all reverence for caste, are destroyed : the whole 
 system comes to be regarded with contempt, derision, and dis- 
 like. Various reasons may lead to outward conformity with 
 the requirements of Hinduism; but all faith in them is swept 
 away. Among those who reach the upper classes in these 
 institutions, there is not one in thirty who leaves with any con- 
 victions that the popular religion is either good or true. 
 
 2. The moral tone and character of all who receive the 
 education described is elevated and corrected ; they are more 
 honest, truthful, temperate, and manly than the heathen around 
 them, and they as certainly excel the students of the Government 
 colleges. It is often, indeed, very interesting to watch how far 
 they are under the unconscious power of Christianity. Their 
 modes of reasoning on moral questions are mainly Christian, 
 even when they deny the divinity of our faith. This, of course, 
 is the natural result of a system of training based avowedly on 
 the Scriptures, and it is one which, though not saving in its 
 effects, has a value we can hardly over-estimate. 
 
 3. Though this form of education is eminently prepara* 
 tory to the general diffusion of Christianity, it has also been 
 
126 APPENDIX. 
 
 
 \eans of a large number of conversions. The Free Church 
 mission in Calcutta had, from 1830 to 1855, seventy males ad- 
 mitted into the Church by baptism ; twenty-t-vo of these were 
 Brahmins. Nearly all these were the fruits of English educa- 
 tion. Of the twenty-nine baptized as the result of instruction 
 given in the London Missionary Society's Institution, Calcutta, 
 between 1850 and 1837, six were Kulin Brahmins, and most 
 of the others were of high caste. Besides those actually bap- 
 tized, a still larger number have avowed their belief in the 
 divine origin of Christianity, but have been prevented from 
 embracing it by the entreaties and machinations of friends, or 
 by reluctance to face the enormous difficulties attendant on a 
 profession of Christianity. 
 
 4. The higher Christian character of such converts, and 
 their greater usefulness, are not to be overlooked. Their con- 
 version is usually a kind of link between Christians and one or 
 more influential families, who frequently learn more of Chris- 
 tianity than others, by having baptized relatives. Such conver- 
 sions are usually beyond suspicion, and, whilst they deepen 
 respect for our faith, they suggest inquiry as to the source of its 
 power. It may truly be added that they constitute the most 
 consistent and intelligent portion of the native Church. !N"or 
 must their usefulness as preachers and teachers be forgotten. 
 At the last date alluded to, when referring to the Calcutta 
 Free Church Mission, there were belonging to it three ordained 
 native ministers ; four applicants to be licensed for preaching ; 
 two probationary catechists ; several applicants for being taken 
 on trial for that office ; and four efficient teachers. Out of the 
 converts just mentioned, belonging to the London Missionary 
 Society's Institution, two are catechists; one was obliged to 
 relinquish missionary work through ill health ; two are head- 
 teachers in missionary schools ; several are disposed to engage 
 in missionary labours, and some probably will do so. 
 
 Printed for Joan Sxow, Paternoster Row. 
 
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