EDITED BY 
 
 CANON DODSON, M,A. 
 CANON BULLOCK -WEBSTER, M.A.
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 
 

 
 of 
 Expansion 
 
 EDITED BY 
 T. H. DODSON, M.A. 
 
 Principal of S. Paul's Missionary College, Burgh; and Canon of 
 Lincoln Cathedral 
 
 AND 
 
 G. R. BULLOCK-WEBSTER, M.A. 
 
 Hon. Canon of Ely Cathedral 
 WITH A GENERAL PREFACE BY 
 
 THE BISHOP OF S. ALBANS
 
 of 
 
 Edited by T. H. DODSON, M.A., Principal of 
 S. Paul's Missionary College, Burgh, and 
 Canon of Lincoln Cathedral ; and G. R. 
 BULLOCK-WEBSTER, M.A., Hon. Canon of 
 Ely Cathedral. 
 
 1. JAPAN. By Mrs. EDWARD BICKER- 
 
 STETH. 
 
 2. WESTERN CANADA. By the 
 
 Rev. L. NORMAN TUCKER, M.A., 
 D. C. L. ; General Secretary of the 
 Missionary Society of the Church of 
 Canada, and Hon. Canon of Toronto 
 Cathedral. 
 
 3. CHINA. By the Rev. F. L. NORRIS, 
 
 M. A. , of the Church of England Mis- 
 sion, Peking ; Examining Chaplain 
 to the Bishop of North China. 
 
 4. AUSTRALIA. By the Rev. A. E. 
 
 DAVID, M.A. , sometime Arch- 
 deacon of Brisbane. 
 
 5. SOUTH AFRICA. By the Right 
 
 Rev. Bishop HAMILTON BAYNES, 
 D.D., sometime Bishop of Natal. 
 
 6. NORTH INDIA. By the Rev. C. F. 
 
 ANDREWS, M.A. , Fellow of Pem- 
 broke College, Cambridge, and 
 Member of the Cambridge Mission 
 to Delhi.
 
 PADRE NEHEMIAH GOREH.
 
 of fSngltsi) tftijurri) IBrpanssum 
 
 Intita 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. C. F. ANDREWS, M.A. 
 
 Of the Cambridge Brotherhood, Delhi 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 A. R. MOWBRAY & CO. LTD. 
 
 LONDON : 34 Great Castle Street, Oxford Circus, W. 
 
 OXFORD : 9 High Street
 
 First printed, 1908
 
 BJ 
 
 2500 
 
 GENERAL PREFACE 
 
 'T'T was said, I believe by the late Bishop 
 r"i Lightfoot, that the study of history was the 
 best cordial for a drooping courage. I can 
 imagine no study more bracing and exhilarating 
 than that of the modern expansion of the Church 
 of England beyond the seas during the past half 
 century, and especially since the institution of 
 the Day of Intercession for Foreign Missions. 
 It is only when these matters are studied 
 historically that this expansion comes out in its 
 true proportions, and invites comparison with the 
 progress of the Church in any similar period of 
 the world's history since our LORD'S Ascension 
 into heaven. 
 
 But for this purpose there must be the accurate 
 marshalling of facts, the consideration of the 
 special circumstances of each country, race and 
 Mission, the facing of problems, the biographies 
 of great careers, even the bold forecast of 
 conquests yet to come. It is to answer some 
 of these questions, and to enable the general 
 reader to gauge the progress of Church of 
 England Missions, that Messrs. A. R. Mowbray 
 and Co. have designed a series of handbooks,
 
 vi GENERAL PREFACE 
 
 of which each volume will be a monograph on 
 the work of the Church in some particular 
 country or region by a competent writer of 
 special local experience and knowledge. The 
 whole series will be edited by two men who 
 have given themselves in England to the work 
 and study of Foreign Missions Canon Dodson, 
 Principal of S. Paul's Missionary College, Burgh, 
 and Canon Bullock-Webster, of Ely. 
 
 I commend the project with all my heart. 
 The first volume, which I have been able to 
 study in proof, appears to me an excellent in- 
 troduction to the whole series. It is a welcome 
 feature of missionary work at home that we have 
 now passed into the stage of literature and study, 
 and that the comity of Missions allows us to 
 learn from each other, however widely methods 
 may vary. The series of handbooks appears 
 to me likely to interest a general public which 
 has not been accustomed to read missionary 
 magazines, and I desire to bespeak for it a 
 sympathetic interest, and to predict for it no 
 mean success in forming and quickening the 
 public mind. 
 
 EDGAR ALBAN. 
 
 HlGHAMS, 
 
 WOODFORD GREEN, ESSEX, 
 November 10, 1907.
 
 EDITORS' PREFACE 
 
 ' tRW facts in modern history are more arrest- 
 r ^~l ing or instructive than the rapid extension 
 of the Church's responsibilities and labours in the 
 colonial and missionary fields ; yet, until recently, 
 few facts perhaps have been less familiar to those 
 who have not deliberately given themselves to a 
 study of the subject. 
 
 It has therefore been felt that the time has 
 come when a series of monographs, dealing with 
 the expansion of the Church of England beyond 
 the seas, may be of service towards fixing the 
 popular attention upon that great cause, the 
 growing interest in which constitutes so thank- 
 worthy a feature in the Church's outlook to-day. 
 
 The range of this series is confined to the work 
 in which the Church of England is engaged. That 
 story is too full to allow of any attempt to include 
 the splendid devotion, and the successful labours, 
 of other Missions of Christendom. But, for a fair 
 understanding either of the Christian advance 
 generally or of the relative position of our own
 
 viii EDITORS' PREFACE 
 
 work, a knowledge of those Missions is essential ; 
 and it is in the hope of leading some of its 
 readers to such further comparative study that 
 this series has been taken in hand. 
 
 The Editors have tried to keep in view the 
 fact that, while the wonderful achievements here 
 recorded have been accomplished in large part 
 through the agency of our Missionary Societies, 
 yet these Societies are, after all, only the hands 
 and arms of the Holy Church in the execution 
 of her divine mission to the world. 
 
 They have directed their work, as Editors, 
 simply to securing general uniformity of plan 
 for the series, and have left each writer a free 
 hand in the selection of material and the ex- 
 pression of opinion. 
 
 T. H. D. 
 G. R. B.-W.
 
 TO MY FRIEND 
 
 SUSIL KUMAR RUDRA 
 
 ix
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 QUCH of what I have written will appear 
 to many as a collection of twice-told tales. 
 My only apology would be : Are they worth 
 telling? do they give a vivid picture? If so, 
 then those who know them will forgive me, and 
 those who do not know them will be glad to read 
 them. I was obliged by the nature of my subject 
 to make selections, and I have followed the prin- 
 ciple of taking what appeared to be of living 
 interest, choosing as far as possible the lives of 
 typical men, both Indian and English, in order to 
 tell my story. 
 
 The two long concluding chapters call for an 
 explanation. They attempt to state clearly and 
 openly the present problems, and deal with the 
 present situation. The times are critical in India, 
 and only by a frank and open exchange of thought 
 can true lines of action be reached. I have given 
 my opinions, such as they are, without any reser- 
 vation. If the chapters bring to notice dangers 
 in the North of India which threaten the Church
 
 xii AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 and set others thinking about them, they will have 
 served their purpose. They will also help, I trust, 
 to make intercession for the Indian Church more 
 definite. 
 
 I am under great obligation to Father Long- 
 ridge, Father Gardner, and the Bishop of Nagpur, 
 the writers of the three most fascinating books on 
 Church Missions in North India. Dr. Eugene 
 Stock's History of the Church Missionary Society 
 has been my constant companion in almost every 
 chapter, and my indebtedness to him will be 
 evident. I have also found the Two Hundred 
 Years of S.P.G. most useful and accurate. I would 
 specially thank Mr. P. C. Bonerjea for the loan of 
 his unpublished book on Indian Christian worthies, 
 which I trust will one day see the light. It was 
 a great pleasure to me to read afresh and quote 
 from Mr. Birks' Life and Letters of Bishop French : 
 it would be a boon to the Church if it could be 
 brought out in a " People's Edition." Mr. George 
 Smith, the veteran among Indian mission writers, 
 will see that I have used his parting gift to me 
 when I was setting out for India his Life of 
 Bishop Heber. 
 
 Last, but not least, I would express my grati- 
 tude to many Indian Christian friends, who have
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE xiii 
 
 guided me in my choice of subjects, and criticized 
 what I have written with kindly frankness. If I 
 have gained at all the Indian point of view it has 
 been through their sympathy. I cannot help 
 but wish that it had been possible to go beyond 
 the limits of the Anglican Missions and speak of 
 the noble work of the Presbyterians, Baptists, 
 Methodists and other bodies, and tell the life- 
 story of Lai Behari De, Kali Charan Banerji, and 
 many other Indian heroes of the Faith ; but the 
 form of the present series forbids such an exten- 
 sion of the subject. 
 
 C. F. ANDREWS. 
 
 DELHI, 
 
 Festival of the Transfiguration, 1908.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. EARLY DAYS IN BENGAL 
 
 II. CALCUTTA AND ITS BISHOPS 
 
 III. CHHOTA NAGPUR AND MASS MOVEMENTS 
 
 IV. FATHER GOREH 
 
 V. THE OXFORD MISSION 
 
 VI. ALLAHABAD, CAWNPORE, AND DELHI 
 
 VII. THE PANJAB AND ISLAM 
 
 VIII. AMRITSAR AND THE SIKHS - 
 
 IX. THE FRONTIER MISSIONS 
 
 X. THE INDIAN POINT OF VIEW 
 
 XI. THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT - 
 
 APPENDIX A. MODERN KRISHNA WORSHIP - 230 
 
 APPENDIX B. LITERATURE DEALING WITH MISSION 
 
 WORK IN NORTH INDIA - 234
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PADRE NEHEMIAH GOREH Frontispiece 
 
 DR. KRISHNA MOHAN BANERJI - facing page 28 
 
 PADRE PIARI MOHAN RUDRA ,, 30 
 
 BISHOP WHITLEY - 45 
 
 OXFORD MISSION CHURCH, BARISAL ,, 91 
 
 DR. IMAD UD DIN ,, 123 
 
 BISHOP FRENCH - ,, ,, 126 
 
 MISSION CHURCH, PESHAWAR - ,, 149 
 
 PADRE THOMAS EDWARDS 153
 
 Handbooks of English Church Expansion 
 
 NORTH INDIA 
 
 j* JT JT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 EARLY DAYS IN BENGAL 
 
 mHE history of Anglican Church Missions in 
 North India begins with the efforts made by 
 the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 
 The first field of missionary endeavour is interest- 
 ing and typical of the age. The Portuguese had 
 for many years carried on a slave trade along the 
 coast of India. Those who were kidnapped were 
 frequently baptized and called by Portuguese 
 names. Their descendants gained their freedom, 
 but remained utterly ignorant of Christianity, 
 living the most degraded lives. At one time the 
 evil of this practice of baptizing those who had 
 been kidnapped, grew so great that the Madras 
 Government was obliged to pass a law upon the 
 
 B
 
 NORTH INDIA 
 
 subject preventing the baptism of slaves. A con- 
 siderable number of Indians of this type, who 
 went by the name of " Portuguese," were settled 
 among the tiny body of English settlers on the 
 banks of the Hugli, in Bengal. The chaplain 
 asked for help from the Society for Promoting 
 Christian Knowledge, and in 1731 a charity school 
 was opened for them, and we read that " the pupils 
 were clothed in the same manner as the boys of 
 the Blue Coat School in London." They were 
 taught by Padre Aguiere, formerly a Franciscan 
 Friar at Goa. The chaplain took a great interest 
 in the movement, but in the troublous days that 
 followed he lost his life as one of the victims 
 of the Black Hole of Calcutta, and the work 
 came to an end. 
 
 The Rev. J. Kiernander was the first missionary 
 of the English Church in Calcutta. He was a 
 Swede by nationality, of high rank and family. His 
 two uncles had been colonels in the army of the 
 great Charles XII of Sweden, and had both died 
 fighting bravely at the battle of Pultowa. Mr. 
 Kiernander inherited their chivalrous qualities. 
 Before coming to Calcutta he worked for many 
 years at Cuddalore, near Madras, where his life 
 was constantly in jeopardy while the French and
 
 EARLY DAYS IN BENGAL 
 
 English strove for the mastery. The French, on 
 the whole, treated him well, and Count Lally 
 saved his life when Cuddalore was sacked in 1758. 
 After this he was transferred to Calcutta. It is 
 somewhat startling to read that, although working 
 in Calcutta for over forty years, he never acquired 
 a knowledge of the Bengali language. His work 
 was carried on in a corrupt form of Portuguese, 
 which was the lingua franca all along the coast. 
 Calcutta, as a growing port, was even at this early 
 date a meeting-place of many races. In Kier- 
 nander's congregation were Jews, Chinese, Arme- 
 nians, Portuguese, and Dutch, as well as a small 
 group of Hindu converts, one of whom was a 
 Brahman. Kiernander's name is still remembered 
 in Calcutta as the founder and builder of the "Old 
 Church," which remains to this day in charge 
 of a missionary priest. He devoted his own 
 private fortune to the work. In 1775 Ganesh 
 Das, who had come down from Delhi as Persian 
 translator and had visited England, was baptized 
 by Kiernander. Sir Robert Chambers stood spon- 
 sor at his baptism a fact worth noticing at that 
 period of antagonism to missions. 
 
 During the closing decades of the eighteenth 
 century the rule of the East India Company
 
 NORTH INDIA 
 
 reached its lowest ebb. Moral interests and the 
 welfare of the people were sacrificed to trade 
 profits. Bengal was almost left to itself so far 
 as the Church was concerned. Scarcely a clergy- 
 man could be found to go out, and the missionary 
 work of the Society for Promoting Christian 
 Knowledge failed for lack of support. Church 
 life can hardly be said to have existed. We 
 read constantly of Hindu idolatry being openly 
 countenanced and even practised by officials, who 
 married Hindu wives and lived as petty rajahs. 
 Large fortunes were acquired by encouraging the 
 gross superstitions of the masses. Every effort 
 was made to conciliate the Brahmans and to 
 avoid disturbing their ascendancy over the com- 
 mon people. Professor Seeley has named this 
 time the " brahmanizing " period of English rule. 
 Divorced from Christian influence, and sharing in 
 the evils of the idolatry around, English life 
 became unspeakably corrupt. At one time the 
 Directors of the Company, who had every reason 
 for concealing the facts, were obliged to confess in 
 their report : " The vast fortunes acquired in the 
 inland trade have been obtained by scenes of 
 the most tyrannical and oppressive conduct ever 
 known in any age or country." Vansittart tells
 
 EARLY DAYS IN BENGAL 
 
 us how the Company's servants used to flog and 
 imprison Hindus who would not buy or sell at 
 whatever rate was pleasing to their oppressors. 
 
 It is, indeed, unpleasing and in a measure re- 
 volting to English readers, to bring from oblivion 
 this dark chapter of the past, but it is necessary 
 to do so if we are to understand the early struggles 
 of the Church and the violent opposition to re- 
 ligion as a missionary force. 
 
 Kiernander died just as the eighteenth century 
 closed. For the last twenty years of his life he 
 was blind and almost past work, and his life was 
 embittered by lawsuits and pecuniary troubles. 
 In January, 1800, the first month of the new cen- 
 tury, Carey and Marshman began their missionary 
 career at Serampur. The Company's officials had 
 done their best to seize them on landing and 
 deport them. For a time they were indentured 
 by a sympathetic Englishman as indigo planters. 
 But the order went out for their arrest, and they 
 were smuggled away from Calcutta by night in 
 a boat and escaped to Danish territory. The 
 Danish Governor, though threatened, refused to 
 give them up. During the next twelve years, 
 various attempts were made by other missionaries 
 to enter the country, but in every case they were
 
 NORTH INDIA 
 
 expelled. One Governor -General wrote with 
 regard to missionary work : " A man might fire 
 a pistol into a magazine and it might not explode, 
 but no wise man would hazard the experiment." 
 While England was awakening to a new earnest- 
 ness and evangelical fervour at home, the Anglo- 
 Indian community in Bengal remained cold and 
 resentful of any evangelizing effort. 
 
 The change of tone which came about in Bengal 
 by slow degrees was due in the first instance to 
 Charles Simeon. He had the wisdom and fore- 
 thought to seize the one avenue still open for 
 influence, and when home clergy were unwilling 
 to undertake the work of Indian chaplaincies he 
 sent out in quick succession the best and noblest 
 men he had. The need of good men may be 
 judged from the official report of the Governor- 
 General, Sir John Shore, in 1795, in which he 
 stated that " the chaplains, with some exceptions, 
 are not respectable characters : a black coat is no 
 security from the general relaxation of morals." 
 The first of Simeon's friends to set sail was David 
 Brown, whose devoted ministry was for some years 
 the one shining light in Calcutta. He found in 
 Charles Grant, who was Senior Merchant of the 
 Company, a warm supporter and friend. Through
 
 EARLY DAYS IN BENGAL 
 
 his influence Simeon was able to send later 
 Claudius Buchanan, Henry Martyn, Daniel Corrie, 
 and Thomas Thomason, thus making up, along 
 with David Brown, the famous " Five Chaplains." 
 In this way a new religious atmosphere slowly 
 formed in Calcutta itself, and a silent revolution 
 in morals and religion began. 
 
 Meanwhile in England the conscience of the 
 nation was awakening. The day was past when a 
 learned Bishop could state, with general approval, 
 in the House of Lords that " the obligation to 
 promote the Christian Faith throughout the world 
 ceased with the supernatural gifts of the Apostles." 
 Wilberforce, fresh from the struggle which had 
 ended in the abolition of the slave trade, took 
 up the cause of Indian Missions. In the House 
 of Commons, and by pamphlets and speeches, 
 he urged the repeal of the stringent regula- 
 tions of the Company, and claimed freedom for 
 the entrance of the Gospel. The conflict was 
 carried on with bitterness by his opponents. 
 Sidney Smith attacked Carey and Marshman, as 
 " consecrated cobblers," in the Edinburgh Review ; 
 and every effort was made to pour ridicule and 
 contempt on the new spirit of missionary zeal. 
 
 A hush came over the controversy when the
 
 8 NORTH INDIA 
 
 news arrived of the death of Henry Martyn at 
 Tokat in Armenia in 1812. The purity and sacri- 
 fice of his life, and the pathos of his death, moved 
 the hearts of the English people, in a way they 
 had never been moved before, towards missionary 
 work. The words, "Let me burn out for CHRIST," 
 could not be forgotten. Such a life was an un- 
 answerable witness, and sneers at missionaries 
 became no longer popular and plausible. 
 
 When the East India Company's charter came 
 up for renewal, public opinion was on the side of 
 Wilberforce. The clause providing a Church 
 Establishment in India, with a Bishop and three 
 archdeacons, went through the House of Commons 
 almost unopposed. But the clause giving facilities 
 by law to persons engaged in missionary work to 
 enter and remain in India, was fought over to the 
 bitter end. At 3 a.m., after a whole night sitting, 
 the clause was passed, and Wilberforce could write, 
 " I am persuaded that we have raised the founda- 
 tion-stone of the grandest edifice that was ever 
 raised in Asia." 
 
 Henry Martyn's death, more than any other 
 single cause, had won the victory. The dull, 
 respectable, comfortable Christianity of the age 
 could never have been stirred to that self-sacrifice
 
 EARLY DAYS IN BENGAL 
 
 and enthusiasm and burning charity which alone 
 could fulfil the Master's great command, had there 
 not been given, at the threshold of the new move- 
 ment, the example of a life-long martyrdom and 
 an heroic death. The closing words of Henry 
 Martyn's journal link his spirit with that of 
 S. Bernard or S. Francis, as a true pilgrim of 
 eternity and lover of the Crucified : "They brought 
 me at last to a stable-room " these are among 
 the last sentences he wrote " my fever increased ; 
 the heat in my eyes and forehead was so great 
 that the fire almost made me frantic. I entreated 
 to be carried out of doors, but was not attended 
 to. At last I lodged my head on the damp 
 ground and slept. Preserving Mercy made me 
 see the light of another morning. I thought with 
 sweet comfort and peace of my GOD in solitude 
 my Company, my Friend, and Comforter. Ah ! 
 when shall time give place to eternity ? When 
 shall appear the new heaven and new earth 
 wherein dwelleth righteousness ? There, there, 
 shall enter in nought that defileth." 
 
 Words such as these stirred the chivalry and 
 romance of those awakening days. Poetry had 
 broken the bonds of eighteenth-century dullness, 
 and now Christianity was shown to have a
 
 io NORTH INDIA 
 
 romance and chivalry of its own. No selfish 
 interests of a trading company could withstand 
 such a feeling in the nation, when it had once 
 been aroused ; and the young missionary's lonely 
 death was the means of arousing it. 
 
 Henry Martyn's life-work was chiefly that of 
 translation, but more than one remarkable Indian 
 opponent of Christianity was brought to the Faith 
 by his saintly example and teaching. Of these 
 Sheikh Salih needs special mention. He was 
 born in Delhi, in 1765, of good Mussulman 
 parentage. His family was one of those, not 
 uncommon among the Mohammedans of North 
 India, which combined martial spirit and literary 
 tastes. We find the Sheikh at one time teach- 
 ing Persian and Arabic, at another acting as 
 Keeper of the Jewels to the King of Oude, at 
 another serving in the Mahratta Bodyguard of the 
 Rajah of Jodhpur. In every place he was an 
 ardent proselytizer for the faith of Islam. At 
 Cawnpore he went, as he tells us, to see the show 
 of a Christian padre being baited in controversy 
 by Mohammedan divines. But the padre was 
 Henry Martyn, and his spiritual earnestness left 
 an impression on the Sheikh's mind which could 
 not be effaced. He was baptized by David Brown
 
 EARLY DAYS IN BENGAL 1 1 
 
 in the Old Church, Calcutta, just after Henry 
 Martyn had started on his last fatal journey. He 
 took the name of Abdul Masih, " Servant of 
 CHRIST." 
 
 A beautiful story is told by Corrie concerning 
 the meekness of this fiery Mohammedan soldier 
 of former days. They were going up the Ganges 
 in two boats to Dinapur, when Abdul's boatmen 
 mutinied. He turned to the other Christians 
 on board and said, " Come, let us teach them 
 a Christian lesson." He then got out and began 
 to tow the boat himself. When the boat had 
 gone some distance a Mohammedan merchant 
 appeared on the bank, who was amazed to 
 see a gentleman dragging along his own boat. 
 The merchant asked : " Sir, is it not degrading 
 for a gentleman of your standing to do such 
 menial work ? " Abdul replied, " When I was a 
 Mussulman I should indeed have felt shame, but 
 I have embraced a religion whose Author was 
 meek and lowly of heart, and I am trying to win 
 the boatmen to a sense of shame by acting thus." 
 Then he read to him the conclusion of the fifth 
 chapter of S. Matthew, and the merchant went 
 on his way wondering at such new teaching. 
 
 As Corrie's companion and helper the Sheikh
 
 12 NORTH INDIA 
 
 worked with the utmost courage and meekness in 
 Agra. Later on in life he was ordained by Bishop 
 Heber in Calcutta. He died as the sun was setting 
 on March 4, 1827. While he lay in great pain 
 he asked for the story of JESUS at the well of 
 Samaria to be read to him, and said repeatedly, 
 " Thanks be to GOD." One who was by his side 
 sang to him a hymn which the dying man had 
 himself composed : 
 
 " Beloved Saviour, let not me 
 In Thy dear heart forgotten be ! 
 Of all that decks earth's fairest bower 
 Thou art the fairest, sweetest flower. 
 Beloved Saviour, let not me 
 In Thy dear heart forgotten be ! 
 
 Old age has come, youth's morn has fled, 
 Life's dawning hopes are cold and dead, 
 The night draws near, the shadows fall ; 
 Out of the deep to Thee I call. 
 Beloved Saviour, let not me 
 In Thy dear heart forgotten be !" 
 
 With these words sounding in his ears the first 
 Mussulman in India ordained to the Christian 
 priesthood, fell asleep in JESUS.
 
 CALCUTTA AND ITS BISHOPS 13 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 CALCUTTA AND ITS BISHOPS 
 
 *T*N the early part of the nineteenth century 
 *"^ Calcutta continued for a long time to be the 
 centre of Church development and missionary 
 enterprise. Its great Bishops are prominent 
 figures in the land, second only to Governor- 
 Generals in rank and station, engaged in stately 
 tours of visitation, laying down schemes for the 
 future on a magnificent scale. A brief account 
 of them will connect together a series of impor- 
 tant events. 
 
 The first Bishop chosen by the Home Govern- 
 ment was Dr. Middleton, the author of a classical 
 work on " The Greek Article." He reminds us 
 in many ways of the eighteenth-century Bishops, 
 learned to the point of pedantry, singularly unfitted 
 to be the pioneer Apostle of a Missionary Church. 
 He was appointed by Letters Patent "Bishop of 
 India, Ceylon and Australia," a somewhat 
 unmanageable diocese in those days of leisurely
 
 14 NORTH INDIA 
 
 travelling. So timid was the East India Com- 
 pany of taking such an unprecedented step as 
 receiving a Bishop into its administration, that 
 the first Bishop of Calcutta was consecrated 
 privately in Lambeth Palace (May 8, 1814), and 
 no sermon was allowed to be published. Secrecy 
 was kept with regard to his voyage and landing ; 
 but, to the evident surprise of the Company's 
 officials, the Hindus seemed rather pleased than 
 otherwise, and in no way resented Christians 
 practising their own religion. 
 
 Middleton had the faults of a scholastic career : 
 his tastes were academic and unpractical, and 
 confined to a narrow circle of interests. When 
 the Church in Calcutta needed a spiritual revival, 
 and the Church in the South was developing 
 caste congregations, he was spending months of 
 valuable time in wranglings as to privileges and 
 official status. He regarded himself first and 
 foremost as a Government servant ; and as he 
 had received no instructions as to his relations 
 with missionaries, he looked upon them almost 
 as interlopers and refused either to license them 
 or allow them to preach to English congrega- 
 tions. This position became intolerable even to 
 himself in late years, and he abandoned it ; but
 
 CALCUTTA AND ITS BISHOPS 15 
 
 he remained obdurate to the last in his refusal 
 to ordain any Indian Christian to the sacred 
 ministry. Abdul Masih, who had waited years for 
 the Bishop's coming in order to receive the gift of 
 Holy Orders, was firmly and finally refused, and 
 nothing could shake the Bishop's determination. 
 Dr. Middleton was the only Anglican Bishop at 
 that time east of Suez, and a High Churchman 
 to boot, yet his views as to his relations with 
 the Government were such that he would on no 
 account ordain an Indian, who was fully pre- 
 pared, to the priesthood. In this refusal is seen 
 one of the first of those hindrances to indigenous 
 Church life and development, which form so 
 painful a chapter in Indian Church history. The 
 State connection was purchased from the first at 
 the cost of spiritual freedom, and we are suffering 
 still to-day in consequence. 
 
 In Bishop Middleton's Biography the follow- 
 ing passage occurs, which is strange reading to 
 modern ears : " There is one erroneous view," 
 the writer says, " of the episcopal office in India, 
 which needs correction, and the prevalence of 
 which in the East was a source of constant em- 
 barrassment to Bishop Middleton. It is not 
 unusual to imagine that the President of our
 
 1 6 NORTH INDIA 
 
 Asiatic Church is chiefly to be regarded as a 
 sort of ' head missionary,' and that his principal 
 duty is to encourage and keep alive the work 
 of conversion among the natives. To this view 
 of his office Bishop Middleton most firmly and 
 justly opposed himself in the very outset of his 
 administration. The primary object for which 
 he came out was to govern an Established 
 Christian Church, and he conceived that his 
 situation and authority would have undergone no 
 essential change, even if the design of spreading 
 the Gospel among the Hindoos had been aban- 
 doned without exception. . . . He was uniformly 
 anxious to keep the duties of the clergy and 
 those of the missionaries separate from each 
 other." We can scarcely imagine the Apostle 
 Paul taking such a view of his apostolic office, 
 yet the Bishop would have maintained most 
 vehemently his own apostolic succession. 
 
 On one side however the academic side the 
 Bishop's mind was open and liberal. With the 
 grand ideas of an ecclesiastic of the old school, 
 he launched out into a scheme for what he fondly 
 called a " University of the East." Bishop's Col- 
 lege, named after its founder, was to rise on the 
 banks of the Hugli, and become a centre of light
 
 CALCUTTA AND ITS BISHOPS 17 
 
 and learning for the whole of India. The idea 
 was great, even though the design was wrongly 
 executed. Instead of starting from humble begin- 
 nings, and adapting Eastern modes of instruction 
 to the new institution, he built on a European 
 scale large lecture halls and quarters, and made 
 classics and theology the chief subjects of study. 
 Great enthusiasm over the Bishop's proposal 
 prevailed in England. The Church Missionary 
 Society voted one-sixth of its yearly income, and 
 other Societies did the same. Dr. Mill, a Fellow 
 of Trinity College, Cambridge, came out to preside 
 in February, 1821. But the whole scheme was 
 premature. An immense amount of money was 
 spent year by year. Noble missionary teachers 
 came out from England. But the perverse foreign 
 methods continued, and the College was never 
 the success that was expected. In later years 
 a new effort was made inside the city to carry 
 on the pious founder's purpose. For a time, under 
 the superintendence of the Oxford Mission, the 
 college flourished ; but its progress has been a 
 continual source of anxiety, 
 
 In Bishop Middleton's later years his attitude 
 towards missionaries became much more friendly ; 
 he kept, however, to the end his determination 
 
 C
 
 1 8 NORTH INDIA 
 
 never under any circumstances to ordain an 
 Indian Christian. 
 
 The story of Bishop Heber forms one of the 
 most pathetic pages in Indian Church history. 
 He came out to succeed Dr. Middleton, in the 
 fullness of all his brilliant powers, with a winning 
 personality which kindled enthusiasm in all with 
 whom he came in contact. He was a poet of 
 no mean order. How his famous hymn, " From 
 Greenland's icy mountains," came to be written, 
 is well known. What is not so well known is 
 that Tennyson, whose taste in such matters was 
 severely critical, used often to quote Heber's lines, 
 " Holy, Holy, Holy, LORD GOD Almighty," as the 
 grandest hymn in the English language, and wish 
 that he himself had the power to compose such 
 a poem. 
 
 Heber reached India in October, 1823, and set 
 to work with an amazing energy, travelling over 
 his vast diocese, confirming the Churches, heal- 
 ing disorders, establishing new mission-stations, 
 doing the work of an evangelist. In April, 1826, 
 he arrived at Trichinopoly in the South, and in 
 the Fort Church " spoke with great affection upon 
 the glorious Dispensation of GOD in CHRIST 
 JESUS, and the necessity which rested upon us
 
 CALCUTTA AND ITS BISHOPS 19 
 
 to propagate the Faith throughout the vast country 
 of India." Shortly after he went to bathe. A 
 sudden chill seized him while he was in the water, 
 and death ensued. The whole of India and Great 
 Britain mourned his loss, and awoke to the sense 
 of his greatness. 
 
 The two and a half years of Heber's episcopate 
 left a mark upon Indian Missions, and upon the 
 English Church, second only to that of Henry 
 Martyn himself. The Christian enthusiasm of 
 Missions was realized afresh in his ardent labours, 
 his poems, his letters, his speeches, and in his sad 
 fate. The English people, in those dull days of 
 Church life before the Oxford Movement, were 
 stirred to a higher ideal of the sacred office of a 
 Bishop and the sacred functions of a Church. 
 They realized that such a life was far more in 
 accordance with the Acts of the Apostles than the 
 old eighteenth century traditions. 
 
 During Heber's short episcopate many new 
 ventures in the Indian mission-field itself were 
 undertaken. Corrie was pressing forward in the 
 North, and founding new centres at Agra and 
 Meerut. Burdwan was becoming a strong outpost 
 in Bengal. Benares was occupied and reinforced. 
 Miss Cooke was beginning her educational work in
 
 2O NORTH INDIA 
 
 Calcutta. Abdul Masih was at last ordained on 
 S. Andrew's Day, 1825 the first Indian Christian 
 to receive ordination at the hands of an Anglican 
 Bishop. 
 
 More than eighty years have passed since then, 
 and yet the higher office of the Indian episcopate 
 has not been filled by an Indian. How little could 
 Heber have imagined.when he laid hands on Abdul 
 Masih, that so long an interval would elapse ! Are 
 we even to-day within sight of the end ? 
 
 Two deaths followed rapidly in the ill-fated 
 See of Calcutta, due in a great measure to the 
 culpable delay in subdividing the enormous area 
 of the diocese. Dr. James died after eight 
 months' residence (1827), and Dr. Turner after 
 a year and a half (1829). 
 
 In 1832 Daniel Wilson was appointed Bishop, 
 on the recommendation of Charles Grant the 
 younger. In the six years that had elapsed 
 since Heber's death the caste difficulties in the 
 South had become acute. There had been no 
 episcopal supervision, and matters had been 
 allowed to drift. Bishop Wilson, on his arrival, 
 took up the question at once, and fixed the 
 Church usage in the famous sentence, " Caste 
 must be abandoned within the Church decidedly,
 
 CALCUTTA AND ITS BISHOPS 21 
 
 immediately, finally." With the revolt which fol- 
 lowed and the secessions which took place this 
 history does not deal. Whatever may have been 
 the losses at the outset in the South, there can be 
 little question that the Indian Christian Church 
 as a whole gained in purity and spirituality by 
 the Bishop's action, and the Northern Missions 
 were saved from the very first from a false 
 position. The future danger in the North, where 
 far the larger number of English are resident, 
 was from another kind of caste distinction the 
 cleavage between English and Indian congrega- 
 tions, and the refusal to recognize equality of race 
 within the Christian fold. Though Bishops and 
 clergy in this matter have protested, and noble 
 Christian laymen have joined in fullest fellowship 
 with their Indian brethren, yet among the bulk 
 of the English laity the state of affairs, owing to 
 the prevailing Anglo-Indian spirit of domination, 
 has been lamentable, and a continual cause of 
 stumbling to Indian inquirers. 
 
 The year 1833 came, in which the Company's 
 charter was to be renewed. Charles Grant the 
 younger threw all his great influence into a pro- 
 gramme of reform. He assisted in framing the 
 famous charter (which was afterwards the basis
 
 22 NORTH INDIA 
 
 of the Queen's Proclamation) promising impar- 
 tiality between the English and Indian. He also 
 obtained sanction for the two new Bishoprics of 
 Madras and Bombay. Corrie was appointed to 
 Madras in 1836. For thirty years he had laboured 
 in North India, opening up, where opportunity 
 was granted, new mission-stations. He had been 
 passed over time after time when the Calcutta 
 Bishopric had been vacant, but he had worked 
 steadily on, mapping out the advance posts of 
 the Church. His name ranks almost equal with 
 Henry Martyn's, as greatest among the " Five " 
 who wrought such wonders in the Church life of 
 Bengal. 
 
 At this period the career of Alexander Duff, 
 the Presbyterian missionary, began in Calcutta. 
 The time was ripe for a great change, and the 
 man was ready also. Rarely have the man and 
 the occasion fitted more closely. The issue at 
 stake was whether English should form the main 
 subject of University education, or whether San- 
 skrit and Arabic should still hold their pre- 
 eminence ; whether Western science should be 
 taught, or the ancient sciences of the East. 
 " Never on this earth," writes Seeley, " was a 
 more momentous question discussed. ... It was
 
 CALCUTTA AND ITS BISHOPS 23 
 
 Macaulay's minute that decided the question in 
 favour of English. . . . The decision remains the 
 greatest landmark in the history of our Empire, 
 considered as an institute of civilization." 
 
 Much that has happened since then has led 
 us to modify considerably the enthusiasm over 
 Macaulay's triumph, and in the national move- 
 ment which is going on to-day the defects of 
 Macaulay's policy are being understood his 
 lack of appreciation for the greatness of India's 
 past, and his blindness as to the claims of the 
 vernaculars. But when all this is recognized, there 
 can be no question that the compensating advan- 
 tages of the study of English have been enor- 
 mous. It has given to educated India a common 
 language, and made the unification of India and 
 the growth of national sentiment possible. At 
 the time, however, young educated Bengal was 
 wholly with Macaulay. 
 
 The struggle between the old school and the 
 new was at its height when Duff landed in Cal- 
 cutta. He was only twenty-four years old, but 
 his career had been already brilliant. He realized 
 with the eye of a born leader the missionary 
 possibilities of the new situation, and the oppor- 
 tunities it offered for presenting the claims of
 
 24 NORTH INDIA 
 
 CHRIST as the great Emancipator of mankind. 
 He scarcely hesitated for a moment. Picking up 
 a smattering of Bengali sufficient to carry on an 
 organization by himself, he " launched out into 
 the deep, and let down his nets for a draught." 
 He established in 1830 an English college for 
 Indian students, in which the highest culture 
 and science of the West should be taught in a 
 Christian setting. All the older missionaries were 
 against the young innovator, and condemned his 
 methods and haste. While, however, the English 
 missionaries were opposed to him, the leading 
 Indians were on his side. Raja Ram Mohan 
 Roy, perhaps the greatest Indian reformer of 
 last century, warmly championed Duff in his 
 venture of faith, and found him high-caste pupils 
 of the best type. After a year's patient, quiet 
 work in college, Duff sprang into fame by a 
 course of lectures on " National and Revealed 
 Religion." Educated Calcutta was in a ferment. 
 The English were alarmed, and some clamoured 
 for Duff's deportation. But the younger Indian 
 thinkers were almost wholly with him. They 
 were tired of the formal round of Hindu cere- 
 monial and the fetters of superstition, which 
 showed no signs of relaxation.
 
 CALCUTTA AND ITS BISHOPS 25 
 
 Duff saw what young India was needing, and 
 grasped the Indian point of view in the change 
 of thought that was taking place. While others 
 were doubting and hesitating he pressed for- 
 ward, throwing the whole force of his sympathy 
 and earnestness into the new movement. The 
 intense spiritual faith of the young prophet of 
 the new era held fast those who came under 
 his influence. He was of their own age, and 
 could lead them onward into freedom. One 
 by one they came out and were baptized 
 men of high social rank, spiritual culture, and 
 intellectual vigour. 
 
 Never before or after has there been in India 
 such a distinguished band of converts. Duff set 
 them immediately to work in different spheres, 
 and built up the Christian educational movement 
 by their means. With high generosity he gave 
 his own disciples to other Missions, wherever 
 leaders were needed, and the English Church 
 owes to him in consequence a deep debt of grati- 
 tude. Dr. K. M. Banerji, the ablest of all his 
 converts, became a Professor in Bishop's College ; 
 and Mr. P. M. Rudra, who came from one of 
 the old aristocratic families, was ordained to the 
 priesthood, and for many years was placed in
 
 26 NORTH INDIA 
 
 charge of the Nadiya Mission district of Bengal, 
 with many congregations under his care. Babus 
 I. C. Singha and Bhola Nath Ghose were sent to 
 help in the Panjab. Even to-day, after more than 
 half a century has elapsed, the Indian Christian 
 families descended from Dr. DufFs converts are 
 remarkable in Bengal and in the North. I have 
 again and again been a welcome guest in some 
 Indian Christian family, where culture and refine- 
 ment ruled, and have been told how this or that 
 member in earlier days was a disciple of Dr. Duff 
 in Calcutta. 
 
 The life of Dr. Krishna Mohan Banerji gives 
 a singularly vivid picture of the spiritual unrest of 
 the times. He was a Kulin Brahman, belong- 
 ing to one of the high families in Calcutta, 
 and received his education at the Hindu College. 
 While at college he came under the influence of 
 a very gifted young Eurasian professor named 
 Derozio, who exercised an extraordinary fascina- 
 tion over his pupils, inspiring them with high 
 moral courage and a passionate love of liberty. 
 Krishna Mohan Banerji carried his teacher's ideas 
 to extreme lengths, and formed a sect called 
 " The Reformers," whose object was to destroy 
 the old belief in Hinduism and build up society
 
 CALCUTTA AND ITS BISHOPS 27 
 
 on a modern basis. The student leaders broke 
 entirely with Hindu custom and usage, and were 
 all of them outcasted by their families. The 
 excitement produced in Calcutta was intense, and 
 their conduct was both admired and hated. But 
 the excesses of the young enthusiasts, and their 
 wild and reckless conduct, prevented any great 
 moral effect issuing from the revolt : they re- 
 mained isolated and unsupported by any large 
 following. 
 
 It was at this critical moment that Duff appeared 
 in Calcutta. Krishna Mohan Banerji, the leader 
 and the most earnest of the new sect, came under 
 his influence, and a change began to appear in The 
 Enquirer, of which he was editor-in-chief. At last 
 the news appeared in its columns that he had 
 become a Christian and had been baptized by 
 Duff himself, along with some of his companions. 
 He was ordained by Bishop Wilson later (1839), 
 and was placed in charge of Christ Church, Corn- 
 wallis Street, Calcutta, where his sermons and 
 lectures, delivered in Bengali, attracted great 
 attention for a time. For some years (1851 
 1866) he was Professor at Bishop's College, and 
 left his mark upon the development of Calcutta 
 University. He received his Doctor's degree in
 
 28 NORTH INDIA 
 
 recognition of his great services and scholarly 
 attainments. The Asiatic Society elected him a 
 member of their body, and he also took an active 
 part in the Calcutta Municipality. There was 
 scarcely any society of eminence in the city of 
 his birth with which he was not associated, and 
 his name was as great in non-Christian circles as 
 in his own Christian community. His life and all 
 his talents were first and foremost, from the day 
 of his baptism onwards, laid at the feet of his 
 Redeemer, and he was instrumental in winning 
 many of the most influential among the educated 
 classes in Calcutta to embrace Christianity. 
 
 If there had not been the fatal barriers of 
 English prejudice and State connection, there 
 can be little doubt that Dr. Banerji would have 
 been raised to the episcopate, and have thus 
 become a greater power even than he was in 
 moulding and fashioning the Church life of Ben- 
 gal. But principles of indigenous development 
 and self-government had not then advanced so 
 far as to make such a step possible, and the 
 opportunity was lost. The failure to recognize 
 his great gifts and those of others of his time 
 has had a markedly deterrent effect on the 
 advance of the Church in Bengal in indigenous
 
 DR. KRISHNA MOHAN BANERJI. 
 
 To face page 28.
 
 CALCUTTA AND ITS BISHOPS 29 
 
 life. When it is said to-day that there are no 
 Indian Christians of sufficiently high calibre to be 
 made Bishops, it must be remembered what the 
 treatment of the noblest and highest Indian 
 Christians has been in the past. Continual sub- 
 ordination is not a good soil for the growth of 
 originating and governing powers. 
 
 Soon after the arrival of Bishop Wilson in Cal- 
 cutta in 1833, the Nadiya and Krishnagar district 
 in Lower Bengal was the scene of a remarkable 
 religious movement, which for a time seemed 
 destined to spread far and wide, and attracted 
 great attention. A reaction against the tyranny 
 of the Brahmans had already begun in the country 
 before the Christian missionaries arrived. A 
 strange new sect appeared, half-Moslem, half- 
 Hindu, called the Karta Bhoja (" Creator Wor- 
 shippers "), following the same lines as many of 
 the Hindu reforming movements. The district 
 was already famous as the first centre of Chai- 
 tanya's preaching in the sixteenth century. In 
 1833 a number of the new sect were baptized and 
 began to preach Christianity as the one true 
 religion. In 1838 a mass movement took place, 
 in great measure due to social unrest and revolt 
 from Brahman dominance, and Bishop Wilson was
 
 30 NORTH INDIA 
 
 called in to help, as fifty-five villages were ready 
 to embrace the faith. Mr. Krishna Mohan Banerji 
 was sent with Archdeacon Dealtry, and both were 
 deeply impressed with the possibilities before the 
 Church. The gurus, or religious teachers of the 
 new sect, were themselves seeking for baptism. 
 In less than two years three thousand were added 
 to the Church. 
 
 The movement for a while flourished, but after- 
 wards the early indigenous and self-propagating 
 spirit signally failed. The German missionaries 
 who were in charge did not realize the vital value 
 of independence and self-support, and conducted 
 the Mission on the old paternal system, which 
 destroyed initiative. The caste difficulty also 
 sprang up among the half-instructed converts, and 
 was tolerated by the missionaries for a time. The 
 Church members of higher origin called themselves 
 " Hindu Christians," " Mussulman Christians," and 
 these two sections looked down upon the shoe- 
 makers and refused to eat with them, calling them 
 " Mochi Christians." Padre P. M. Rudra was sent 
 down to them from Calcutta with two other 
 leading Indian Christians, and by their efforts 
 a reconciliation was effected within the Church ; 
 but the Mission has never recovered from its lack
 
 PADRE PIAKI MOHAN RUDRA. 
 
 To face page 30.
 
 CALCUTTA AND ITS BISHOPS 31 
 
 of wise guidance and discipline at the first, and 
 its early promise has never been fulfilled. It 
 should be added that there has been slow but 
 steady progress in recent years. 
 
 It was in the later years of Bishop Wilson's 
 long ministry that the development of Zenana 
 mission-work began. He himself had strongly 
 objected to unmarried lady missionaries. " I 
 imagine," he wrote, " that the beloved Persis 
 and Tryphena and Tryphosa remained in their 
 own neighbourhoods and families." But, fortu- 
 nately for India, the Bishop's illustration from 
 Scripture was not regarded as final, and Miss 
 Cooke's great work, begun in 1822, was carried 
 on by a noble succession of workers. In the 
 'fifties Duff threw all his own enthusiasm and 
 experience into the work of women's education, 
 just as, twenty years before, he had struggled for 
 his English-teaching college. The highest families 
 in Calcutta opened their houses one by one, and 
 the Zenana missionary movement, which has done 
 so much to transform India, began its course. 
 
 Bishop Wilson's great longing, which he was 
 never able to see accomplished, was for the founda- 
 tion of a Bishopric of Agra, with a Missionary 
 Bishop who might superintend the rising vigorous
 
 32 NORTH INDIA 
 
 Missions in the North. French had begun in that 
 city, in 1851, his great educational work, and 
 along with Pfander had met the Mussulmans in 
 a controversy which became famous all over the 
 North of India. Delhi, in 1854, was made a 
 centre of S.P.G. work under Mr. Jennings, and 
 two remarkable converts, Professor Ramchandra 
 and Dr. Chimman Lai, had been won to the Faith. 
 Meerut was rapidly developing into an important 
 mission-station. The work on every side was 
 being pushed forward, and the Metropolitan's 
 visits were few and far between. But more than 
 twenty years had to elapse before a new bishopric 
 was founded in the North-West. The centre had 
 then changed from Agra to Lahore. 
 
 Daniel Wilson's episcopate closed as the last 
 echoes of the terrible Mutiny were dying away. 
 He was in his eightieth year, and had been for 
 some time utterly unable to cope with the vast 
 work of Metropolitan and Bishop. Bishop Cotton 
 (1858-67), who succeeded him, was formerly one 
 of Arnold's younger masters, whose character is 
 sketched in the famous Tom Brown's School Days. 
 He was also at one time Head Master of Marl- 
 borough College a Broad Churchman of the 
 schoolmaster type. During his short episcopate
 
 CALCUTTA AND ITS BISHOPS 33 
 
 he developed his sympathy with Missions, and 
 became a wise and trusted adviser and helper of 
 each new missionary on his way up to the front 
 in the North. He is known in India to-day by 
 name, first, on account of the Bishop Cotton 
 Schools for English children, whose religious 
 training is of such vital importance in a non- 
 Christian country ; and, secondly, on account of 
 the famous Collect for Missions, which is recited 
 daily in India as a part of the Eucharist, Mattins 
 and Evensong, and runs as follows : 
 
 "O GOD, Who hast made of one blood all nations 
 of men for to dwell on the face of the earth, and 
 didst send Thy Blessed SON JESUS CHRIST to 
 preach peace to them that are afar off and to 
 them that are nigh, grant that all the peoples of 
 this land may feel after Thee and find Thee ; and 
 hasten, O heavenly FATHER, the fulfilment of 
 Thy promise to pour out Thy Spirit upon all 
 flesh ; through JESUS CHRIST our LORD. Amen? 
 
 This is the only material addition or alteration 
 allowed in the Book of Common Prayer which 
 has been imposed upon the Indian Church, and 
 a debt of gratitude is owed to Bishop Cotton for 
 this precedent. After an all too brief tenure of 
 office he, like Bishop Heber before him, met his 
 
 D
 
 34 NORTH INDIA 
 
 death by drowning while on a Visitation tour in 
 East Bengal. 
 
 Robert Milman (1867-76), the nephew of Dean 
 Milman, who succeeded Bishop Cotton, was an 
 earnest High Churchman of a very different school 
 from Dr. Middleton. Between the two periods 
 the Oxford Movement had taken place with all 
 its wonderful spiritual results, and the new High 
 Church Metropolitan was heart and soul with the 
 missionaries and the missionary cause, realizing to 
 the full his own apostolic office. His episcopate 
 brings us to a new scene and a remarkable move- 
 ment, the story of which will be told in the next 
 chapter.
 
 CHHOTA NAGPUR, AND MASS MOVEMENTS 35 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 CHHOTA NAGPUR, AND MASS 
 MOVEMENTS 
 
 *T*N the eighteenth and early nineteenth cen- 
 r ^ turies, when England had scarcely awakened 
 to the missionary call, different centres on the 
 Continent of Europe were filled with evangelical 
 zeal. The most famous centre was that of the 
 Moravians at Herrnhut, where the whole com- 
 munity was fired with one missionary spirit, and 
 every family had its representatives in distant 
 lands. Halle, Basle, and Copenhagen were other 
 centres. It is noticeable that the English Mis- 
 sionary Societies in early days received their first 
 workers from the Continent, so great was the 
 dearth of men at home. 
 
 Few influences have left so great a mark on 
 the mission-field as that of Johannes Gossner, 
 whose ministry, beginning in the Roman priest- 
 hood in the beautiful Tyrol, was continued, after
 
 36 NORTH INDIA 
 
 his excommunication by Rome for " liberalism," 
 in the Evangelical Church at Berlin. He lived 
 a celibate life of the utmost frugality and self- 
 denial, and his heart was filled with a burning 
 enthusiasm for the conversion of the non-Christian 
 world. His whole congregation became inspired 
 by a like passion, and from one single church 
 there were started Missions on the Gold Coast, 
 in Java, in New Guinea, Macassar, and India. 
 Gossner was a mystic, living a life of prayer and 
 faith, absorbed with an overmastering thought, 
 "The world for CHRIST." In 1844 his longings 
 turned towards India, and he sent out a band 
 of four young Lutherans to Calcutta to found 
 an Indian Mission. They looked to Thibet as 
 a mission-field, in the first instance, but as they 
 could come to no clear decision, they waited 
 continually upon GOD in prayer for guidance. 
 While walking one day down the narrow lanes 
 of the great city, they noted a strange type of 
 face among the passers-by, differing markedly 
 from the Bengalis round. They asked who these 
 people were, and were told that they were Kols, 
 who came from a country of hill and jungle, called 
 Chhota Nagpur. They asked next from the mis- 
 sionaries in Calcutta if any evangelization had yet
 
 CHHOTA NAGPUR, AND MASS MOVEMENTS 37 
 
 been carried on in that district. On finding that 
 they were an aboriginal people, entirely untouched 
 by the Gospel message, they thanked GOD and 
 took courage, and went forward, knowing that 
 their prayer had been answered and their work 
 appointed. 
 
 The four went out in faith, and settled down 
 at Ranchi (1845), now the cathedral city of the 
 Chhota Nagpur diocese. They had no fixed sup- 
 port or income, and lived in the utmost poverty 
 in a small bungalow together, spending just what 
 their saintly pastor and his congregation could 
 afford to send them. They built with their own 
 hands their Mission school and church, helped by 
 some famine orphans whom they fathered and 
 educated. One of the four brethren died in the 
 first year of their work, but another came out to 
 join them. For five years there was not a single 
 convert, and they gave themselves more and more 
 to prayer. 
 
 Then a strange incident occurred which was the 
 beginning of the great development that followed 
 in future years. Four of the Kols came to the 
 Lutheran brethren, saying that they had heard 
 of a great Teacher, and desired to see JESUS. 
 They were invited to stay to the daily service,
 
 38 NORTH INDIA 
 
 \ 
 
 and were deeply impressed but still unsatisfied. 
 They wished, they said, to see JESUS Himself, 
 repeating constantly that they could not rest 
 until they had seen Him With their own eyes. 
 One of the Lutheran brothers went with them 
 into an inner room and shut the door, and prayed 
 fervently that they might be guided to the Light. 
 They went away quietly, and no more was heard 
 of them. Some time afterwards the same men 
 reappeared, and asked again to be allowed to be 
 present at Divine Service. At its close they came 
 forward with great joy in their faces, saying, " Now 
 we have found JESUS ; now we are satisfied ; now 
 we desire to become Christians." They remained 
 faithful to these first instincts, and were well 
 instructed during their catechumenate, and then 
 baptized. 
 
 The forward movement had begun. Year by 
 year the numbers who came in to be taught grew 
 greater, and a harvest seemed almost immediately 
 prepared for the reaping. There were other beside 
 purely spiritual causes at work, and a desire to 
 better their degraded position entered in very 
 largely as a motive force among the Kols who 
 flocked to the German missionaries. Yet this 
 desire itself had a good and noble side, and was
 
 CHHOTA NAGPUR, AND MASS MOVEMENTS 39 
 
 not without spiritual value. It marked a distinct 
 rise above the level of their former life. 
 
 But suffering was to come first. The year of 
 the Mutiny arrived, and the Sepoy regiment 
 stationed close to Ranchi joined the mutineers. 
 The European officers and civilians made good 
 their escape, and then looting went on far and 
 wide. The Lutheran brothers had determined 
 to stay quietly at their posts protecting and guard- 
 ing their converts. But to do this was to bring 
 into terrible danger the Indian Christians them- 
 selves. The only escape for them all lay in 
 scattering themselves and becoming lost among 
 the aboriginal population. The order was given ; 
 the pastors and their flock alike scattered, and 
 thus preserved their lives. During the long 
 months that followed many of the new converts 
 died of starvation, and nearly all lost their pro- 
 perty, such as it was. One Indian Christian 
 leader maintained in the jungle, for many weeks, 
 one hundred Christian children during the rainy 
 season of the year. Every convert had to under- 
 go terrible hardships, but none denied CHRIST. 
 
 After a period of the greatest anxiety, Ranchi 
 was recaptured from the mutineers ; but the whole 
 mission was wrecked. The Christians came
 
 4O NORTH INDIA 
 
 straggling in out of their hiding-places, miserable, 
 half-starved, and utterly destitute. The disaster 
 that had fallen was more than the home resources 
 of Gossner and his congregation could remedy. 
 He wrote on December 4, 1857, to the Church 
 Missionary Society as follows : 
 
 "BRETHREN, 
 
 "It is not unknown to you that I have, 
 by the grace of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, been 
 endeavouring to do something towards the pro- 
 motion of the Redeemer's kingdom in India. 
 But entering now on my eighty-fifth year, and 
 feeling my strength failing me ... I propose, in 
 the LORD, to transfer the said Missions to the 
 care of the Missionary Society of the Church 
 of England." 
 
 This request of the aged German pastor was 
 again and again repeated, but the Church .Mis- 
 sionary Society hesitated to take the step. At 
 the same time they most generously sent out 
 .1,000 to help the strained financial position. 
 The death of Pastor Gossner came in the 
 midst of all the home difficulties of the Mis- 
 sion, and then troubles soon began. A new 
 committee ruled, who sent out younger men of
 
 CHHOTA NAGPUR, AND MASS MOVEMENTS 41 
 
 a different type and school of thought to the 
 earlier missionaries whom Pastor Gossner had 
 chosen. The latter still clung to the desire of 
 ultimate union with the English Church, and such 
 ideas were strengthened both by the precarious- 
 ness of supplies from Germany and also by the 
 uncompromising attitude of the younger mis- 
 sionaries. 
 
 At last, an irreconcilable breach occurred, and 
 the older Lutherans appealed to Bishop Milman 
 of Calcutta to come down. He came not a 
 moment too soon. The Christian harvest in 
 Chhota Nagpur, though ripe for the sickle, was 
 wasting away owing to unhappy divisions. The 
 older men were completely cast off. Even the 
 home committee sided against them. They had 
 nowhere to turn except to where Pastor Gossner 
 had himself pointed them. Bishop Milman, at 
 first, made every effort to bring about a recon- 
 ciliation, but the breach was too wide to be 
 healed. He at length acted with that firmness 
 and decision which alone could bring order out 
 of chaos. The younger Lutherans went their 
 own way, the older missionaries united with the 
 Church of England (1869), and from that time 
 forward progress again became possible. It is a
 
 42 NORTH INDIA 
 
 x 
 
 happiness to record that entirely friendly relations 
 were restored in later years, and both branches 
 of the Mission have developed in a remarkable 
 degree, having each its own sphere of action and 
 its own method of work. There was much heart- 
 burning at the time on account of the step Bishop 
 Milman felt compelled to take. But there can be 
 little question, in the light of after events, that it 
 was a wise one. 
 
 The number of converts who came to the 
 Bishop with the older Lutheran brethren was, 
 roughly, about 7,000. There was an immediate 
 need of fresh workers if such a large number were 
 to be shepherded adequately. Jabez C. Whitley, 
 an S.P.G. missionary, who had worked with 
 Winter at Delhi, was the first to be sent. He 
 was deeply touched at the welcome given him by 
 the old German brethren. In union with them 
 the work of reorganization began. Great care 
 was taken to continue the system of village 
 eldership the leading Christian in each village 
 acting voluntarily as elder of the village. Out of 
 these, picked men were taken and trained for the 
 diaconate and priesthood, and in this way the 
 lines of an indigenous and self-supporting Church 
 were laid down from the first. When Bishop
 
 CHHOTA NAGPUR, AND MASS MOVEMENTS 43 
 
 Milman paid his second visit, after an absence of 
 four years, he found five candidates, both intellec- 
 tually and spiritually prepared, for the sacred gift 
 of ordination. In the new church which had been 
 built in the interval, he ordained the firstfruits of 
 the Kol Christians. 
 
 Peace and order were now reigning instead of 
 division and confusion, and the Bishop's heart was 
 deeply moved by the progress that had been 
 made. A system of primitive discipline received 
 his heartiest sanction. In every church a rail was 
 put up at the west-end to mark off those who 
 were under penance. Their names were read out 
 publicly after the Nicene Creed, and a solemn 
 warning was given to the faithful not to resort 
 to their company, until the time of penance had 
 expired. When that time came the penitents 
 were absolved by the priest, after public con- 
 fession, in the presence of the whole congregation. 
 They were then welcomed back into the fold with 
 great joy. The spirit of self-help and voluntary 
 work on the one hand, and the primitive system 
 of discipline on the other, strengthened the young 
 growing Church in those early days, and saved 
 the large ingathering from sinking back to the 
 old pagan level.
 
 44 NORTH INDIA 
 
 Ten years of steady persistent work, carried on 
 by an increasing number of workers, deepened 
 the characters of the Kol Christians, and now at 
 last an orderly development seemed certain, when 
 a new trouble began. A large staff of Jesuit 
 missionaries appeared, who entered into the 
 agrarian disputes of the people with their Hindu 
 landlords, and persuaded Christians and non- 
 Christian Kols alike to join their mission, prom- 
 ising their support. The Jesuits worked with 
 unremitting self-sacrifice and devotion, but em- 
 ployed the method of baptizing every one who 
 came to them, with little or no instruction or 
 moral change of life, in the hope of obtaining 
 their children, and influencing them in their 
 schools. In a few years they declared 50,000 
 converts, many of whom were drawn from the 
 other Missions. 
 
 In the face of this very strongly staffed and 
 organized Mission, the Anglican clergy were like 
 scattered units under no central direction and con- 
 trol. The time had clearly come for a Bishopric 
 of Chhota Nagpur. After many years of most 
 wearying delay, the Rev. J. C. Whitley was con- 
 secrated Bishop in the Ranchi Church (May 23, 
 1890), by the Bishops of Calcutta, Bombay, and
 
 Photo by] 
 
 [J. Russell & Sons. 
 
 BISHOP WHITLEY. 
 
 To face page 45.
 
 CHHOTA NAGPUR, AND MASS MOVEMENTS 45 
 
 Lahore. It was a great joy to all that the con- 
 secration was permitted in the central church of 
 the new diocese, and was not held 7,000 miles 
 away in England. 
 
 By the consecration of the Bishop, the or- 
 ganization of the growing Church in Chhota 
 Nagpur was complete. Now at last the Kol 
 Christians had their own Father in GOD, living 
 in their very midst, speaking as one of them- 
 selves their own language, himself, by his 
 twenty years' residence in and out among the 
 people, almost a native of the country. To a 
 primitive people, whose simple ideal of social 
 life is loyalty and obedience to a chief, the 
 spiritual gain was very great indeed. The Bishop 
 became at once their great Father, who could 
 sympathize with them in their village homes, 
 and whose visits were looked forward to with 
 eager enthusiasm. In no country in the world, 
 perhaps, does the supreme value of the episcopate 
 stand out more clearly than it does in India. 
 Loyalty to a central person is an instinct among 
 India's great unlettered rural population. Further- 
 more, India is a land of traditions, a land in which 
 the past counts for more than the present. To 
 be linked with the Church of all the ages, to
 
 46 NORTH INDIA 
 
 be in a direct historical succession from the 
 Apostles themselves, to share in the inheritance 
 of all the saints and martyrs of old time, these 
 are ideas singularly vivid to the Indian mind 
 when once clearly presented. One of the 
 saddest facts to look back upon in the history 
 of Church Missions in North India, has been the 
 continual delays and legal hindrances with regard 
 to the formation of new bishoprics, and the 
 lack of direct personal leadership in consequence, 
 which has so often involved grievous spiritual 
 loss. 
 
 The next great step forward was the arrival 
 of the Dublin Mission Brotherhood, and the lady 
 workers connected with them, in 1891. This 
 reinforcement gave an added impetus to the 
 work, and made the more careful shepherding 
 of the converts possible. The enormous num- 
 ber of tiny villages, out of which the Christians 
 were gathered, made frequent visiting most diffi- 
 cult, and yet imperative if discipline were to be 
 maintained. Only an organized staff of men at 
 headquarters could hope to carry out continuous 
 superintendence. But even more necessary for 
 the future was the training of the younger 
 generation. Just as the mission schools of
 
 CHHOTA NAGPUR, AND MASS MOVEMENTS 47 
 
 S. Aidan, the Venerable Bede, and S. Dunstan, 
 saved the Anglo-Saxon Church from going 
 backward, so it has been in Chhota Nagpur. 
 The schools, both for Christian boys and girls, 
 have marked the permanent occupation of the 
 land for CHRIST, and have strengthened the line 
 of advance. Such remarkable progress has been 
 made since the schools were opened, that now a 
 college, in which University degrees are obtained 
 by the children of primitive unlettered aboriginals, 
 has been established. 
 
 While the Dublin missionaries placed them- 
 selves entirely at the service of the Bishop, and 
 were ready to undertake any work that was 
 given them to do, they asked, if possible, for 
 a special and difficult field, which should be 
 peculiarly their own. They were entrusted with 
 the Hazaribagh district, which lay in the northern 
 part of the diocese, and had hardly yet been 
 touched by missionary effort. In addition, they 
 offered to undertake the higher educational work 
 among Indian Christians. 
 
 It is impossible to go further into the history 
 of this Missionary Diocese, though questions 
 of supreme interest arise as to the present and 
 the future. It will be best to sum up the
 
 48 NORTH INDIA 
 
 results by making two quotations, each repre- 
 senting one aspect of the work. Speaking 
 at the S. Andrew's Dinner in Calcutta, and 
 summing up his Indian experiences, Sir John 
 Woodburn, who was at the time Lieutenant- 
 Governor of Bengal, made the following utterance 
 with regard to the intellectual awakening of the 
 converts : " While speaking of Chhota Nagpur, 
 I was thinking of the surprise that awaited even 
 so old an Indian as myself. We are accustomed 
 to hear and speak of the savage tribes of the 
 hills, as almost irreclaimable from the naked 
 barbarism of their nomad life. What did I find ? 
 In the schools of the missionaries there are 
 scores of Kol boys, rapidly attaining University 
 standards in education. It was to me a revelation 
 that the savage intellect, which we are apt to 
 regard as dwarfed, and dull, and inept, is as 
 acute and quick to acquire knowledge as that 
 of the sons of generations of culture. It seems 
 incredible, but it is the fact, that these Kol 
 lads are walking straight into the lists of com- 
 petition with the high-bred youth of Bengal. 
 This is a circumstance so strange even to me, 
 so striking, so full of significance for the future, 
 that I could not refrain from telling you of
 
 CHHOTA NAGPUR, AND MASS MOVEMENTS 49 
 
 this last surprise of this wonderful land we 
 live in." 
 
 The second quotation is from the conclusion 
 of Dr. Eyre Chatterton's inspiring book on the 
 Dublin University Mission. He refers to the 
 spiritual awakening which has taken place, and 
 its possible results : " When we pass from the 
 North, which is still non-Christian, into the 
 central and southern parts of Chhota Nagpur, 
 we find ourselves in an entirely different atmo- 
 sphere. Here, in the midst of a great aboriginal 
 population, are thousands of Kol Christians, and 
 many heathen Kols still pressing into the Church. 
 No one who has ever been among them can 
 doubt that, however unworthy may have been 
 the early motives of many in embracing Chris- 
 tianity, in embracing it they have found LIFE: 
 moral, intellectual, spiritual. What effect is their 
 remarkable conversion likely to have on mission 
 work outside their own race on the other races 
 of India ? At once we reply, without hesitation, 
 far more than any one could have possibly 
 imagined twenty years ago. Even now some of 
 the Kol converts are being used for work as 
 catechists among the Gonds of the Central 
 Provinces, as well as in Calcutta and Assam. As 
 
 E
 
 50 NORTH INDIA 
 
 education spreads among them, it seems likely 
 that what S. Paul said of his converts of Corinth 
 will prove true of them, and the weak things of 
 the world will be used by GOD to confound the 
 things that are mighty." 
 
 As the mass movements towards Christianity 
 will not come before us again in a detailed form, 
 it will be well at this point to face clearly and 
 candidly the problems which they involve, and to 
 inquire carefully what may be and what may not 
 be legitimate with regard to them. Are we at 
 liberty, with our Christian standard given us in 
 the Gospels, to accept comparatively low forms of 
 motive in the first instance, in dealing with the 
 lower races ? Do motives which appear low to us 
 appear in the same light to them ? Are they not, 
 in the case of the lower races, the only primary 
 motives which do appeal ? Are we permitted to 
 make the lower races Christians first and raise 
 them afterwards ? Can we, at least, when a move- 
 ment has begun among them, through a definitely 
 religious conversion of the two or three quite 
 exceptional men, go on to accept the mass who 
 have no religious conviction, but who follow a lead 
 that is given them like a flock of sheep ? 
 
 In the Chhota Nagpur Mission this last illustra-
 
 CHHOTA NAGPUR, AND MASS MOVEMENTS 51 
 
 tion seems to give the picture of what happened. 
 The first advances towards Christianity seem to 
 have been made by a few exceptional men among 
 the Kols ; the motive as described in their case 
 seems to have been genuinely religious ; then 
 followed the rush of so-called converts and the 
 flooding in of mixed motives connected with land 
 and other secular matters. The Kols undoubtedly 
 expected by means of the Mission to obtain a 
 rise in social status and prosperity, and this expecta- 
 tion proved true. But a mere rise in social status 
 was not the only result. Their whole life, body, 
 soul, and spirit, seems to have been raised after 
 their inclusion within the Christian Body. They 
 are now intellectually and morally stronger than 
 they were before, and many of them are doing 
 devoted and unselfish missionary, work to-day. 
 
 In the Krishnagar mass movement the same 
 result does not seem to have taken place. A 
 large ingathering came first, but then a falling off 
 and relapse into heathen practices began. There 
 are " black spots " in mission-work to-day in India 
 where a mass movement, due to mixed motives, 
 has first made great advance and then failed. 
 Such failures must be taken into consideration 
 as well as the very marked successes.
 
 52 NORTH INDIA 
 
 What is needed in the Church is a scientific 
 working out of the actual experimental results 
 of mass movements what motives have been 
 strong in this or that case, what have been the 
 results following, what methods have been em- 
 ployed, what amount of shepherding was possible, 
 what indigenous growth has taken place, etc. Such 
 literature needs to be written from the critical 
 rather than the emotional standpoint. Then it 
 may be possible to get to some general principles 
 and settled modes of action. 
 
 At present different Missions take different 
 courses. Some Missions accept any and every 
 motive, so that numbers may be first added to the 
 Church and then, after baptism, be trained and 
 schooled in Christian surroundings and in Chris- 
 tian ways. Others adopt what is practically the 
 same line of development, but deceive themselves 
 as to what is really going on, and in their eager- 
 ness for converts overlook what is the strongest 
 motive behind the so-called conversion. The 
 result in both cases is the same very large 
 accessions ; but in the second case the danger of 
 such accessions is greater, because the situation 
 has not been frankly faced from the outset, and 
 more spiritual growth is presupposed than has
 
 CHHOTA NAGPUR, AND MASS MOVEMENTS 53 
 
 really taken place, and grievous miscalculations 
 are likely to be made. A kind of mutual self- 
 deceit takes place, which is a fruitful ground for 
 religious hypocrisy. 
 
 A third section of missionaries accept large 
 numbers when they come forward for baptism, 
 but demand a long catechumenate. This at 
 first sight seems the wiser course to take, but 
 there are considerable practical difficulties in 
 the way. The marriage question becomes an 
 extremely complicated one. Can catechumens 
 marry with the baptized ? Can they give their 
 daughters (who are not yet catechumens) in 
 marriage to heathen ? Can a Christian marriage 
 be made in the catechumen stage ? Idolatry 
 being intimately connected with non-Christian 
 marriage, such questions loom large. Further 
 still, the individual initiative being extremely 
 weak in these lower races, a prolonged catechu- 
 menate (in which the individual belongs neither 
 to one body nor the other, but stands in a pre- 
 carious isolated position between the two) is a 
 fruitful source of heart-breaking disappointment 
 and confusion. 
 
 A fourth section of missionaries apply with 
 more or less strictness the individual tests of
 
 54 NORTH INDIA 
 
 real conversion, and take in converts one by 
 one, refusing to allow, as far as possible, any 
 motives of material advantage to intervene. At 
 first sight this course, while disregarding quan- 
 tity, would seem to ensure quality. But this 
 expected result does not always happen. The 
 smallness of the numbers brings with it restric- 
 tions and limitations as to marriage, occupation, 
 etc. There is no large community of Christians 
 with a varied life within its own borders and abun- 
 dant opportunity of intermarriage, but a small and 
 feeble body with great pressure from the outside 
 world and narrow resources within. Such a body 
 becomes necessarily very dependent on the foreign 
 missionary, and is often pauperized by his kind- 
 ness. It also tends in India to become a kind of 
 close community outside the life of the nation, 
 and to develop anew something of the caste- 
 spirit. 
 
 The above is by no means an exact analysis of 
 the different methods and their results, but it may 
 serve for a broad outline. To turn back to Chhota 
 Nagpur : the Jesuits took frankly the first position 
 here sketched : with them it was everything to get 
 large numbers baptized, and they openly assisted 
 in the land disputes in order to gain their object,
 
 CHHOTA NAGPUR, AND MASS MOVEMENTS 55 
 
 their justification being that, once within the 
 Church, the multitude could be properly shep- 
 herded. The Lutherans probably disguised from 
 themselves, in the early days, the secular motives 
 which were making whole villages of the Kols 
 flock into the Church. They gave less temporal 
 aid and protection than the Jesuits, but, at the 
 same time, were not altogether discriminating in 
 their methods. The English missionaries have 
 been much more careful and discriminating, and 
 have admitted far fewer numbers to baptism. 
 They had the advantage, however, of receiving 
 at the start a very considerable Christian popu- 
 lation on which to work. If their results are at 
 present the most satisfactory in quality, it must 
 not be assumed that this would have happened 
 had strict " Anglican " methods been employed 
 from the first : in that case it is just possible that 
 the Church might have remained too narrow and 
 confined, and that the difficulties of a small, close 
 community would have appeared in all their 
 force. 
 
 We need, as has been said above, to have before 
 us an examination of the effects of different 
 methods of work among the masses in different 
 fields, with an equally careful inquiry into the
 
 56 NORTH INDIA 
 
 innate vigour and initial capacity for improvement 
 in the different peoples affected. To take some 
 mission-fields for example : What is the com- 
 parative progress in the English Missions and 
 the Roman Missions in Uganda in the Univer- 
 sities' Mission and the Scotch Missions round 
 Lake Nyasa in the S.P.G. and C.M.S. and Baptist 
 Missions in Tinnevelly in the Roman Missions 
 and the China Inland Mission in China ? What 
 accounts for the extraordinary difference in the 
 history of the Anglican Missions in Korea, which 
 almost up to the present time have been a com- 
 parative failure, and the Presbyterian Missions in 
 the same country, which have been an extra- 
 ordinary success, and which now equal, if not 
 excel, Uganda in the power of self-propagation ? 
 Further still, in order to make the investigation 
 complete, the question will have to be asked Is 
 Japan, where no mass movement towards Chris- 
 tianity on a large scale has occurred as yet, more 
 favourably situated to-day on account of the high 
 respect for the Faith among non-Christians, than 
 other countries where rapid accessions have lowered 
 for the time being the estimate of the Christian 
 Church in the eyes of the educated classes ? 
 A study of our LORD'S own injunctions and
 
 CHHOTA NAGPUR, AND MASS MOVEMENTS 57 
 
 methods will go hand in hand with such investiga- 
 tions and enquiries, as a guide and corrective. It 
 may be that we shall be left in doubt as to the 
 exact course to be pursued. The spirit rather than 
 the letter of CHRIST'S teaching will have to be 
 followed. Two points call for consideration. On 
 the one hand there can be no question that, as 
 the Ministry proceeded, our LORD concentrated 
 His attention more and more on choice souls, 
 from whom He demanded complete self-sacrifice. 
 When the conscience of man was developed and 
 individualized, then everything was done by 
 CHRIST to strengthen individual responsibility. 
 But there is also recorded, in every Gospel, 
 CHRIST'S dealing with the multitudes, who were 
 " as sheep having no shepherd " ; and His com- 
 passion in this case appears to be not merely for 
 the individual souls but for the multitudes them- 
 selves, and He treats them and deals with them 
 in the mass. The parables of the Drag-net and 
 the Marriage Supper may be read in a similar 
 manner, though here we are on more doubtful 
 ground. Last of all, it is interesting to note that, 
 while in the second Gospel the missionary com- 
 mand is in a measure " individualized," indi- 
 vidual belief or disbelief being the criterion, in the
 
 58 NORTH INDIA 
 
 first Gospel the command seems to refer primarily 
 to the nations : " Go, disciple all nations, baptizing 
 them [i.e., the 'nations] . . . teaching them " [i.e., 
 the nations]. 
 
 There seems, therefore, some justification, from 
 our LORD'S own words, for " putting to school " 
 the backward races, admitting them in the mass 
 within the Church, if they are ready to come, 
 in order that, once within the Christian Body, 
 they may be leavened through and through with 
 the Christian life. At the same time, when 
 dealing with self-conscious and responsible indi- 
 viduals, who have reached the stage of being 
 able to make a full self-conscious choice, we 
 must, if we follow our LORD closely, emphasize to 
 the full the individual responsibility and sacrifice 
 required to enter the kingdom. To whom much 
 is already given, of him much must be required. 
 
 A possible analogy, familiar to every parish 
 priest among the poor in England, may help to 
 make the thought clearer though the analogy 
 must not be pressed. When I was working in 
 a College Mission in South London, a continual 
 anxiety and trouble to me was the receiving into 
 the Church by Holy Baptism of the little children 
 of parents who were leading a life of absolute
 
 CHHOTA NAGPUR, AND MASS MOVEMENTS 59 
 
 indifference to the Faith. The motives which 
 brought the mother with her baby to the font 
 were often of the lowest description. The phrase, 
 " having it done," was common in the district. 
 Yet in order to welcome the little helpless 
 children within the arms of the Church, who 
 would be a true Mother to them, teach them 
 virtue, school them and train them in a higher life, 
 we were always ready (except in extreme cases) to 
 receive and to baptize those who came even from 
 the very worst families, thus gaining, as it were, 
 a hold upon them which could not be obtained in 
 any other way. We acted on the principle that 
 within the fold of the Church there was at least 
 hope of advance and growth ; outside, in the atmo- 
 sphere of the world of sin around them, there was 
 no hope at all. May not the backward races, 
 which have not risen as yet to self-conscious- 
 ness and independence of thought and action, be 
 treated as the " infants " of the great race of man- 
 kind, and received by "infant" Baptism within the 
 arms of Mother Church, on the one only condition 
 that the Church herself stand sponsor, being pre- 
 pared to shepherd and instruct them according to 
 their need and to be responsible for their bringing 
 up ? May not this be done, while at the same
 
 60 NORTH INDIA 
 
 time a high standard of sacrifice and individual 
 choice remains for those whose position in society 
 is such that they are " children " no longer, but 
 "men," possessing a developed personality? From 
 those who have much already may not much be 
 required, in comparison with those who have had 
 no chance in life at all and who have never risen 
 in the social and intellectual scale ?
 
 FATHER GOREH 61 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 FATHER GOREH 
 
 EN ARES stands out among the cities of 
 India as the " holy city." Of immemorial 
 antiquity, built on a rising spur of land round 
 which the sacred Ganges flows, it has been the 
 goal of aspiration and the haven of devotion to 
 pious Hindu souls in all ages. The depth of 
 sentiment, reverence, and affection which has 
 gathered round this city of pilgrimage can hardly 
 be understood in the West. 
 
 Here had come in his old age Dinkarpurth 
 Goreh, the ex-President of Nawab AH Bahadur, 
 to spend his last days in meditation and retire- 
 ment from the world, accompanied by his son, 
 whose heart was also given to the spiritual life. 
 Nilakantha Goreh was the latter's firstborn child, 
 brought up in this home of piety and quiet 
 peace, the object of his father's spiritual care 
 from his earliest years. The family was one of 
 the highest Brahman families in the land, and
 
 62 NORTH INDIA 
 
 the priestly duties were most scrupulously per- 
 formed each day in the household. Nilakantha's 
 father gradually retired more and more com- 
 pletely from worldly affairs, as his own father 
 had done before him. When his wife died he 
 built himself a little hut, and lived there as a 
 recluse, never leaving it except to go on pil- 
 grimage. Nilakantha, his son, was his one link 
 with the outer world ; on him he poured the 
 most tender and devoted affection, and gave him 
 the most careful training in the Sanskrit Scrip- 
 tures, so that he became, when quite young, a 
 " Shastri," or Doctor of Sanskrit Divinity. The 
 young scholar, by his own ascetic life, and the 
 far-famed spirituality of his ancestors, became 
 well known in the higher intellectual circles of 
 Benares as a spiritual leader of the future. He 
 was shy and retiring, calm and gentle in manners, 
 with a singularly keen and subtle intellect trained 
 in the great philosophic systems of Hinduism. 
 
 The Rev. W. Smith at this time was preaching 
 with stammering lips the message of the Cross 
 within the sacred Hindu city. To the Shastri, the 
 feeble knowledge of Sanskrit, the ignorance of 
 the deep things of Hindu philosophy in the 
 Christian padre roused at first only contempt.
 
 FATHER GOREH 63 
 
 Why should he come with his crude material 
 ideas to the spiritual centre of the East ? Nila- 
 kantha's zeal overcame his shyness, and he visited 
 Mr. Smith at his house. " I heard," he wrote of 
 himself later, " that the Christian padre was a man 
 of great piety, and the foolish thought came to 
 me that I would show him the great beauty of the 
 Hindu religion and convert him. I say ' foolish 
 thought ' now, but then I believed it was an in- 
 spiration from the gods, and so did my father. I 
 came away greatly disappointed, for he would not 
 argue, but referred me to the New Testament." 
 He tells us later how the reading of the Sermon 
 on the Mount was the turning-point in his life. 
 After reading that, all contempt for Christianity 
 vanished, and he started to pray earnestly for light, 
 which came little by little. " The New Testa- 
 ment," he writes, " once despised, now became 
 the absorbing study of my life. I began to feel 
 my own sinfulness as I had never done before." 
 
 Now began the struggle to break with the caste 
 associations in which his whole life and being had 
 been hitherto entwined. Every family influence 
 was brought to bear against his new faith, with 
 all the heart-breaking and crushing force which 
 Hinduism is able to wield. " At this period," he
 
 64 NORTH INDIA 
 
 relates, " I felt as though I were a thief in my 
 father's house. ... I felt that the very trees and 
 walls and bricks were crying shame upon me, and 
 that I could look no one in the face. . . . Had 
 I been a murderer, or a great criminal, the feeling 
 against me would have been less strong. . . . You 
 English cannot imagine what it is for a Brahman 
 to become a Christian. It is very awful'' He 
 adds, " I finally told my father of my change 
 of faith. This was so sad a time so sad and 
 awful that I can sit here and recall all that 
 happened as if it happened yesterday my poor 
 old father's desolate grief at my confession, his 
 prayers, and his tears. My poor father! He 
 even fell at my feet, and begged me for the sake 
 of his grey hairs not to bring so grievous a trial 
 on him. I was very, very sad, and most of all 
 at my father's falling at my feet. He actually 
 did this. He said to me further, ' Your mother 
 is dead ; I have now no one left but you. If I 
 lose you, too, oh ! what will become of me ? ' ' 
 
 Nilakantha's dearest friend, who was to be 
 baptized with him, left him in the hour of trial, 
 and went back. For a short period, Nilakantha 
 himself wavered and returned. " The image of 
 my father," he wrote, " seems to be continually
 
 FATHER GOREH 65 
 
 before me. His last look so full of reproach, of 
 sorrow, and of agony, I cannot forget it. It 
 haunts me day and night, sleeping and waking. 
 I must I must return." But his faith itself 
 never changed, and his determination to be 
 baptized grew stronger again. His father now 
 threatened to destroy himself; but even the terror 
 of this could not drive Nilakantha from his 
 purpose. Once an attempt was made to drug 
 him, and every hindrance that human ingenuity 
 could devise was put in his way to keep him 
 at his father's house and prevent his visiting the 
 missionaries. But at last the struggle was over,' 
 the victory was won, and in the cleansing bap- 
 tismal waters his past was washed away and his 
 new life begun. 
 
 Like Saul of Tarsus, the young convert imme- 
 diately began to witness openly for CHRIST. Mud 
 and stones were thrown at him in the bazaar by 
 his former friends, but peace and joy reigned in 
 his heart, and later in the year a strange thing 
 happened. His father, whose agony had been 
 greatest, and whose opposition had been most 
 vehement, was the first to be reconciled. The 
 old man was himself deeply religious, and he 
 could feel the religious spirit of his son. Out- 
 
 F
 
 66 NORTH INDIA 
 
 cast though he was the old man recalled him, 
 and could not bear him to be long away from his 
 own presence. Nehemiah (such was Nilakantha's 
 Christian name) would come to see him in his 
 solitary hut and prostrate himself before him. 
 The father would neither touch him, nor eat from 
 his hand, but he loved to see him. He would talk 
 with him and with no one else. " Do not become 
 a free thinker," he would say, " man cannot exist 
 without religion. You are religious by nature. 
 You have left Hinduism, but Christianity is 
 a religion do not give it up." Beneath the 
 tremendous gulf which yawned between them 
 the aged Hindu devotee and the young ardent 
 Christian there was this common bond of sym- 
 pathy and unity they were seekers after GOD, 
 and counted the world as naught compared with 
 the things of the soul. 
 
 It is impossible to tell at length the story of 
 his wife, Lakshmibai : how, after struggles and 
 difficulties almost equal to those of her husband, 
 she came back to his side : how a child was 
 born to them, and mother and daughter were 
 both baptized together. Two days later, the 
 frail, delicate lady was taken to her rest. Ne- 
 hemiah gave his tiny daughter into the keeping
 
 FATHER GOREH 67 
 
 of a devoted Christian family, and from that 
 time forward cut himself off entirely from the 
 world. 
 
 It was in 1857, while at Calcutta, that the 
 great change came in Goreh's views with regard 
 to the Catholic Church. He had long felt the 
 need of a stronger basis of authority than his 
 own individual judgement. At times his spirit 
 was racked with tormenting doubts. The moral 
 change which had taken place at his conver- 
 sion had brought him from self-confidence to 
 supreme self- depreciation, a quality which re- 
 mained, perhaps, the strongest and most beauti- 
 ful feature in his later life. This very humility 
 brought back old questionings, and he longed 
 for a sure refuge. He tells us how the reading 
 of the Early Fathers under Dr. Kay, of Bishop's 
 College, Calcutta, was a revelation to him. 
 From that time he longed for the monastic 
 life. When he heard of the Cowley Fathers at 
 Oxford, and the possibility of their work in India, 
 he was filled with thankfulness. His corre- 
 spondence with Father Benson, which contributed 
 to the Cowley Mission being started in India and 
 his own working with them, forms, perhaps, the 
 most illuminating part of Father Gardner's Life
 
 68 NORTH INDIA 
 
 of Goreh. In this correspondence Nehemiah 
 Goreh reveals his own inner spiritual struggles, 
 and also his own conceptions of the spread of 
 the Christian Faith in India. He believed that 
 India could not be won for CHRIST by western- 
 izing the East, but rather by boldly claiming 
 for CHRIST the Eastern ideals of poverty and 
 self-renunciation ideals which find so high a 
 place in the words of CHRIST Himself. 
 
 When Father O'Neill came out to India, 
 Nehemiah joined him, and they lived together 
 at Bankipur, and elsewhere, up to the time of 
 Father O'Neill's sad death from cholera at Indore. 
 O'Neill was a spiritual friend and guide after 
 Padre Nehemiah's own heart. He gave up every 
 European comfort, and lived among the people, 
 eating their food, living, dining, sleeping as they 
 did, leading a life of poverty which made him one 
 with the poorest. Nehemiah was never happier 
 than when sharing his companionship. " How 
 can I speak," he writes, " of that saintly man ! 
 He taught me more than any one else about the 
 Catholic Faith. I have a strange peculiarity. 
 It is this. Without necessarily knowing the 
 person, I love him with an absorbing passion. I 
 got to love Dr. Pusey so, though I did not know
 
 FATHER GOREH 69 
 
 him." It was this same spiritual kinship which 
 he found in Father O'Neill, and from the very 
 first his whole heart went out to him in an 
 absorbing passion of love, which was one of the 
 most beautiful things ever witnessed in the Indian 
 mission-field European and Indian, of one heart 
 and one soul in CHRIST, living as brothers together 
 the life of self-renunciation. 
 
 Padre Nehemiah went to Cowley itself to pass his 
 novitiate in the Society of S. John the Evangelist. 
 The cold of England, and the unaccustomed food 
 and life tried him terribly, and he never could 
 reconcile himself to the Anglican methods of 
 prayer and meditation. This difficulty in follow- 
 ing the Western Offices of the Church was a sore 
 trial to him, and in consequence he was never 
 professed as a full member of the Society, but 
 remained a novice until 1885, when he sent in 
 his resignation. In his humility he would put 
 down his failings in the Society to his own sin- 
 fulness and sloth, but there can be little ques- 
 tion that the difficulty lay rather in an Eastern 
 mind endeavouring to adapt itself to a purely 
 Western system. " I used," he wrote to Father 
 Page, " to get fearfully tired, and then the little 
 time I could spend more profitably in some other
 
 yo NORTH INDIA 
 
 form of devotion, which suited my peculiar state, 
 I was obliged to waste in saying the Offices 
 in an entirely distracted frame of mind." He 
 relates how he would wish to pause over some 
 thought which came to him in the recitation of 
 a psalm or chapter, but instead, he was compelled 
 to hurry on, till his mind became a blank and 
 spiritual feeling impossible. He had intense 
 pleasure, though (as he frankly confesses) some 
 disappointment, in his visits to Dr. Pusey. He 
 could not understand him, and found conversa- 
 tion with him very difficult. 
 
 With regard to English Church life he was 
 most distressed by the haste in reciting the 
 Divine Service, and by the lack of the daily 
 witness of religion churches being closed and 
 no worship offered from week end to week end. 
 Religion in England seemed either forgotten, or 
 else rushed through in a formal way. He had 
 discarded long ago the vain repetition of Sans- 
 krit slokas and mantras, but much in Western 
 modes of worship seemed to be of the same 
 character the same carelessness, the same irrev- 
 erence, the same formalism. 
 
 One of his dearest memories in England was 
 a visit to Cuddesdon. He found there a haven of
 
 FATHER GOREH 71 
 
 rest and devotion, and spoke often about the 
 college in later days. Canon Furse gave him a 
 little picture of S. Francis of Assisi, and this he 
 always kept with him in India along with his 
 crucifix. Those who have themselves been 
 students at Cuddesdon will be glad to have this 
 incident brought to their notice. 
 
 On one occasion while in England, he gave 
 with great diffidence, his own impression of mis- 
 sionary work as it was then being carried on 
 in India. He pointed out how the luxury of 
 English life, with its continual round of gaiety 
 and sport, was a stumbling-block to a frugal, self- 
 denying Eastern people, whose ideal of religion 
 and spirituality was the contempt of riches, and 
 withdrawal from the world; the missionaries, living 
 much in the same way as Government officials, 
 were too identified with the conquering race and 
 its worldly pomp and prestige, and therefore 
 could not give that vision of humility and sacred 
 poverty which would win the spiritually-minded 
 among Indian religious leaders. For these and 
 other reasons he pleaded for a missionary celibate 
 life, lived for the people and among the people, 
 in absolute poverty and renunciation of the world. 
 He asked for more simplicity, and less organiza-
 
 72 NORTH INDIA 
 
 tion, more of the East and less of the West in 
 methods of work. 
 
 While Nehemiah Goreh lived himself the life 
 of poverty, and loved to work among the simple 
 ignorant villagers, he was engaged without inter- 
 mission on intellectual work in defence of the 
 Faith. Some of his apologetic writings have 
 become classics in Indian Christian Theology. 
 He was an original thinker. Two names stand 
 out among the higher educated Indians who 
 were brought to a decision for CHRIST by his 
 instrumentality. 
 
 Safdar Ali, was a Mohammedan mystic, who 
 had sought for many years, by a life of sanctity 
 and meditation, and withdrawal from the world, 
 to obtain mystical union with GOD. He could not 
 rest or find peace in Islam, and describes himself 
 as like one dying of thirst in the desert of life. 
 For days at a time he would sit wrapt in silence, 
 taking no food, waiting for a vision of the Truth 
 which never came. Around him were a body of 
 disciples, filled with the same longing as their 
 master. He had read the New Testament, but 
 had never met a Christian ascetic. At last he 
 heard of Padre Nehemiah, and sent word to 
 Benares. The Padre set off the same night, and
 
 FATHER GOREH 73 
 
 they embraced each other warmly when they met. 
 The two then sat down upon the ground the 
 Mohammedan Sufi inquirer, and the ex-Brahman 
 Christian priest and the discussion began. It 
 was continued for many days, and while the in- 
 tellectual points were discussed and answered, 
 the spiritual personality of the Christian ascetic 
 impressed the inquirer more than any argument, 
 and Safdar AH at the conclusion named Goreh 
 his own murshid or spiritual guide, and was 
 baptized. In later years Safdar Ali helped to 
 bring to a knowledge of the Faith the most 
 learned of all Indians who have come to CHRIST 
 from Islam the famous Dr. I mad ud Din of the 
 Panjab. 
 
 Pandita Ramabai, the Brahman widow, was the 
 second notable convert. She had been highly 
 educated from childhood in Sanskrit literature by 
 her father, and had wedded an Indian gentle- 
 man who died shortly after their marriage, 
 leaving one little daughter. The Pandita went 
 to England and returned and became a member 
 of one of the reforming Hindu communities. For 
 a long time her opposition to Christianity was 
 bitter, but she was won over at last by Padre 
 Nehemiah. " His humble, sweet voice," she writes,
 
 74 NORTH INDIA 
 
 "pierced my heart. Oh! what a mighty power 
 he has. I think no one could have turned my 
 heart from the Brahman religion but Father 
 Goreh." The Pandita is now known through- 
 out India for her Widows' Home at Poona. Its 
 history has been one of the triumphs of faith and 
 prayer, somewhat similar to the work of George 
 Miiller in Bristol. In 1905 and 1906 the Home 
 was the scene of a remarkable spiritual revival. 
 The Pandita is still living and guiding the insti- 
 tution. 
 
 The last year of Father Goreh's life forms one 
 of its most beautiful chapters. He was deeply, 
 ardently hoping for his brother's conversion, and 
 had gone to Allahabad. While walking to the 
 early Eucharist in the cathedral, he had been 
 drenched by rain and chilled through and through, 
 and became very ill. The Bishop and Mrs. 
 Clifford moved him to their own house, and 
 watched over the frail old man with every tender- 
 ness and care. His daughter, who was now a 
 deaconess, came to nurse him, and he had the 
 joy of her companionship during his long illness. 
 Their affection for one another was very deep, and 
 he had often longed in the midst of his arduous 
 labours to have her by his side. This boon was
 
 FATHER GOREH 75 
 
 now granted. In this last year a deep passion 
 came upon him for his brother's conversion, and 
 he strained his failing health to see him and 
 entreat him again and again to decide for CHRIST. 
 His gentleness and meekness were now even 
 more marked than at other periods of his life. 
 The Cowley Fathers came down one by one from 
 Poona, and he received them with the most 
 touching affection. At last the heat of Allahabad 
 became unbearable for him, and he was taken 
 to Mazagon, Bombay. His health somewhat 
 improved, and he was busily engaged in the 
 revision of the Marathi Prayer Book, and in a 
 reply to the Rev. Luke Rivington concerning 
 the Doctrine of the Real Presence. His brother 
 came to visit him at Mazagon, and for some days 
 all his time was given up to him, while he pleaded 
 with him for the last time. Father Gardner writes 
 with regard to a break in his illness: "I had been 
 ordered home to England. This was the day of 
 sailing. Father Kershaw and I were alone at the 
 Mission House, and he and the choirboys had 
 agreed to accompany me as far as the ship. . . . 
 During our meal together with the boys, Father 
 Goreh came in, and took part in all our fun. 
 I do not remember when I had seen him so
 
 76 NORTH I INDIA 
 
 cheerful before. It is a very happy last recollec- 
 tion of him. His sweet face was all smiling 
 at the children's prattle." 
 
 During the time he was in Bombay he was 
 tended with a motherly care by Mrs. Henry 
 Pope, who gave herself up to nursing him. She 
 writes : " He was in constant and severe pain, but 
 always silent, patient, prayerful. When some one 
 proposed at this time that he should answer some 
 public attacks on him made by Hindus, he replied, 
 ' All that is past : I am too ill for that now.' The 
 only person he never ceased arguing with both 
 by letter and by word of mouth was his brother, 
 but he died without the satisfaction of convincing 
 him. He said once, ' I have made one request to 
 GOD for forty-two years, and He has not granted 
 it to me yet.' This prayer was for joy in religion. 
 He longed for it with no common desire, but 
 GOD never granted it to him." His death came 
 very suddenly at last, almost in his sleep, and his 
 saintly life, purified and chastened by continual 
 suffering, was taken up to higher spheres of 
 service. 
 
 At Christmas-tide last year, I stayed at the 
 Sigra Mission House, Benares, where the steps 
 of young Nilakantha Goreh had so often turned
 
 FATHER GOREH 77 
 
 to inquire concerning the Christian Faith. I sat, 
 thinking of the past, in the very room where he 
 had knelt in prayer with Mr. Smith, seeking for 
 the light. Suddenly, outside in the compound, 
 there rose from Indian children's voices the 
 Christmas hymn of triumph Ai, sab imandaro. 
 
 " O COME, all ye faithful, 
 Joyful and triumphant, 
 O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem ; 
 Come and adore Him 
 Born, the King of Angels; 
 O come, let us adore Him, CHRIST the LORD. 
 
 GOD of GOD, 
 
 Light of Light, 
 
 Lo ! He abhors not the Virgin's womb ; 
 
 Very GOD, 
 
 Begotten, not created ; 
 
 O come, let us adore Him, CHRIST the LORD." 
 
 In the faith of the Incarnation Nehemiah Goreh 
 lived and worked and died. His may not have 
 been the triumphant joy that is vouchsafed to 
 some saintly souls, but deep penitence, and 
 humility, and lowliness of heart were his, the 
 gift of the Incarnate Saviour Who said, "Come 
 unto Me all ye that are weary and heavy laden, 
 and I will give you rest. Learn of Me, for I am 
 meek and lowly of heart ; and ye shall find rest 
 unto your souls."
 
 78 NORTH INDIA 
 
 I went on from the Christian Church at Sigra 
 into the city of Benares itself. For hours I 
 stayed watching the stream of Hindu devotees 
 passing through, from temple to temple, performing 
 their round of ceremonies, doing puja with Ganges 
 water, marigold-flowers and rice, at the different 
 idol shrines. Most of the worshippers seemed 
 intent on getting through as many visits to the 
 numberless idols as possible ; yet every now and 
 then among the crowd there might be seen a 
 pathetically earnest face, full of ardent, spiritual 
 longing. Many sadhu ascetics joined the throng, 
 and among them also might be seen faces stamped 
 with earnestness and desire for salvation. The 
 sight stirred one's own heart to the depths, 
 and one longed to be able to hold with them 
 spiritual communion and to help them forward 
 to the light. As the stream of worshippers 
 flowed on and on, one seemed to get a glimpse 
 into the soul of the Indian nation, and to 
 understand better its inextinguishable passion for 
 religion. 
 
 The crows and sparrows kept swooping down, 
 when a pause occurred, to steal away the rice. 
 At intervals the attendant came round with a 
 broom to sweep away the filth of the dirty water
 
 FATHER GOREH 79 
 
 and decaying flowers. Cows received the acts of 
 worship equally with the idols themselves. In 
 the " Cow Temple," they were the special object 
 of devotion. 
 
 How repulsive it was, and yet how full of 
 pathos ! No other country in the world has 
 stronger religious instincts. No* other country in 
 the world has allowed them to go so perversely 
 astray. 
 
 I went away, saddened at heart, back to the 
 quiet Christian church, to pray and meditate. 
 Christmas Day was near, and I read the words 
 of peace, " Behold, I bring you good tidings of 
 great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto 
 you is born this day ... a Saviour, which is 
 CHRIST the LORD. . . . And suddenly there was 
 with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host 
 praising GOD, and saying, Glory to GOD in the 
 highest, and on earth peace, good will towards 
 men." 
 
 And then there came back once more the 
 vision, the pathos of those Hindu faces old men 
 and old women most of them, who had come 
 to find salvation, their objects of worship so 
 hideous Shiva as the bull, Kali with her red 
 tongue and her necklace of skulls, cows and
 
 8o NORTH INDIA 
 
 monkeys the religious, the spiritual instinct so 
 strong, the material embodiment so gross. 
 
 There are hundreds of philosophers and men 
 of culture in Benares, the seat of Hindu learning, 
 men who look down upon the vanity of idol wor- 
 ship as only fit for the common people. There is 
 much in the higher ranges of Hindu philosophy 
 that is directly opposed to the idolatrous spirit, 
 and nobly monotheistic. But where are the 
 earnest reformers who are ready to teach the 
 common people ? The Arya Samaj in the North 
 may not possess the Sanskrit erudition of the 
 Benares Pandits, but it is making, and has made, 
 a noble protest against idol worship among the 
 masses, and deserves honour and respect for that 
 protest. 
 
 Benares is now the centre of Theosophy in 
 the North. I visited Mrs. Besant's school and 
 college, which is crowded with young students, 
 and for which she asks the alms of Christian 
 people in London. In the midst of the great 
 court, in the most conspicuous place of all, is an 
 idol temple, with an idol of the goddess Saraswati, 
 before which the young boys and undergraduates 
 do their puja. Not in this way can salvation be 
 found. Idolatry has ever been and ever will be
 
 FATHER GOREH 
 
 the curse of any country, and the fruitful source 
 of national degeneration. The spirit of India, so 
 noble, so lofty in its higher ranges of thought and 
 culture, will awake one day as from a nightmare 
 dream, and shake off the fetters of evil super- 
 stitions which so long have held it in captivity !
 
 82 NORTH INDIA 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE OXFORD MISSION TO CALCUTTA 
 
 , as an earlier chapter has related, 
 appeared on the scene in Calcutta at a 
 critical educational and religious epoch. His 
 name is linked with that of the greatest Indian 
 reformer of the century, Raja Ram Mohan Roy. 
 The beginnings of the Oxford Mission are linked 
 with the name of his famous successor, Babu 
 Keshab Chander Sen, who for a time dominated 
 the intellectual thought of Bengal by his com- 
 manding personality and oratorical powers. In 
 1870 he visited England, and his utterances both 
 there and in Calcutta were so inspired with a 
 reverence for the Person and Character of CHRIST 
 that he seemed to be leading his own followers to 
 the very verge of the Christian Faith itself. 1 In 
 
 1 The following was one of his most famous utterances, 
 which was received at the time with acceptance and wel- 
 come, and quoted far and wide by Indians themselves: 
 " If you wish to secure the attachment and allegiance of 
 India, it must be by spiritual influence and moral suasion.
 
 THE OXFORD MISSION TO CALCUTTA 83 
 
 later years, however, a reaction took place in his 
 modes of thought and life, and although he never 
 ceased to place the " Oriental CHRIST," concern- 
 ing Whom he wrote and taught, at the highest 
 pinnacle of his religious system, his movement 
 drifted further and further away from the Chris- 
 tian Church. 
 
 It was in the midst of this time of ferment 
 that the Oxford Mission began its work in Cal- 
 cutta in 188 1. Bishop Johnson, who had suc- 
 ceeded Bishop Milman as Metropolitan, was the 
 founder in India of this new effort of the Church, 
 and Dr. King, the present Bishop of Lincoln, was 
 the founder in Oxford itself. To these two 
 Fathers of the Church, along with two devoted 
 ladies, Miss Murray and Miss Argles, is chiefly 
 due, under GOD, the fostering care and supply 
 of resources for the great enterprise. 
 
 The Festival of the Epiphany, 1881, was the 
 
 And such indeed has been the case. You cannot deny 
 that your hearts have been touched, conquered and sub- 
 jugated by a superior power. That power, need I tell 
 you, is CHRIST. It is CHRIST Who rules British India, 
 not the British Government. England has sent out a 
 tremendous moral force in the life and character of that 
 mighty Prophet, to conquer and hold this vast Empire. 
 None but JESUS ever deserved this bright, this precious 
 diadem, India, and JESUS shall have it ! "
 
 84 NORTH INDIA 
 
 real birthday of the Oxford Mission. During 
 the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, the Rev. 
 E. F. Willis, who had been Vice-Principal of 
 Cuddesdon Theological College, was installed as 
 Superior by the Bishop of Calcutta, with the 
 Rev. Wilfrid Hornby and the Rev. E. F. Brown 
 as professed members of the Brotherhood. The 
 Rev. M. F. Argles joined the Community towards 
 the end of the year. The work developed very 
 quietly, and at first was almost entirely confined 
 to the care and training of Indian Christian 
 children, along with quiet talks with educated 
 Indians and occasional lectures. In 1883 the 
 name of the Brotherhood was changed from 
 that of S. Paul to "The Brotherhood of the 
 Epiphany," and the new effort seemed starting 
 with every promise and hope when a double blow 
 occurred. First, Mr. Argles was invalided home, 
 and died a fortnight after his return to England, 
 and then the Superior's health gave way, and he 
 was incapacitated from any further work. 
 
 The Rev. C. Gore, now Bishop of Birmingham, 
 came out for a short stay, to cheer the remaining 
 Brethren and relieve the strain, and the Rev. P. S. 
 Smith joined the Brotherhood as a professed 
 member. The Rev. H. Whitehead also, who came
 
 THE OXFORD MISSION TO CALCUTTA 85 
 
 to Calcutta independently as Principal of Bishop's 
 College, gave help in the time of need. After a 
 short interval the new Superior was chosen, the 
 Rev. C. W. Townsend, of Keble, who came out 
 direct from home to take up the duty and respon- 
 sibility. The Rev. C. H. Walker, of Oriel, was 
 admitted to the Brotherhood at the same time. 
 
 But again the Mission was to be visited with 
 loss. Philip Smith, whose saintly life, though so 
 short, had been a vision of purity and gentleness 
 in the midst of the city, suddenly fell ill and died. 
 Sir William Hunter has described Philip Smith's 
 wonderful depths of affection : how in the poorer 
 quarters of Calcutta the English priest was known 
 and loved, and how Bengalis and their little 
 children would press around him, and he would 
 take the children in his arms and bless them. 
 
 But another blow was yet to come. A little 
 more than two years later the Superior, Mr. 
 Townsend, who had performed devoted service 
 in those early, formative days, felt obliged to 
 resign and make his submission to the See of 
 Rome. He did everything he could in order 
 that the blow might fall as lightly as possible 
 upon the Mission, but the event brought wide- 
 spread consternation in England, and funds began
 
 86 NORTH INDIA 
 
 to fail. The Brotherhood met this last disaster 
 with undaunted courage. " I think," wrote one, 
 " our existence as a Mission seems a miracle, 
 after all the losses we have had ; but the analogy 
 of the past is hopeful. Please let all our friends 
 know that everything will go on just exactly as 
 before " ; and Mr. Brown had the late Superior's 
 own authority for saying that it was nothing in 
 the principles of the Oxford Mission which had 
 led him to Rome, but that these had rather 
 restrained him : that if he had been brought up 
 in some other system of thought, such as Cal- 
 vinism, he would have reached more easily his 
 new position. 
 
 Henry Whitehead at this crisis joined the 
 Mission, becoming a professed member. For 
 nine years, from 1890 to 1899, he served as 
 Superior in the place of Mr. Townsend. During 
 his headship the settled lines of work developed, 
 which may now be briefly described. 
 
 First and foremost was the life itself which 
 the Brethren lived in the heart of the city, in 
 closest touch and sympathy with the people 
 round them, well known in their white cassocks 
 in the Calcutta streets, their names on every 
 one's lips for they are almost the only English-
 
 THE OXFORD MISSION TO CALCUTTA 87 
 
 men who live in such quarters. A sketch of the 
 ordered life of the Mission will be given later. 
 Here I would only refer to an incident which goes 
 back to the early days, and shows that the life 
 itself of the Brethren has been of more influence 
 as a witness to the Faith than the " work " as we 
 count " work " in the West. One, who is now 
 doing noble service in the Church has often told 
 me that the vision of the life of the Brethren 
 of the Epiphany saved his own faith at the most 
 critical period of his career. He had come to 
 the state of doubting everything and disbelieving 
 everything, and was ready to throw up Christianity 
 altogether, but one thing held him fast the vision 
 of the devoted life of prayer led by the Oxford 
 priests. For a time he was taken into their house, 
 and lived with them and shared their life. He 
 tells how Mr. Willis used to continue his prayers 
 far into the night, and how sometimes, long after 
 midnight, he would see his light burning ; how, 
 nevertheless, he was always the first to rise in the 
 early hours of an early Indian day and go the 
 round, calling in a deep bass voice to awake the 
 sleeping Brethren. He has the most vivid recollec- 
 tion also of Charles Gore, as he then was, and how 
 tenderly he dealt with his difficulties, and pointed
 
 88 NORTH INDIA 
 
 him to the one true answer, " He that willeth to 
 do the will, he shall know the doctrine." Those 
 quiet lives of prayer thus lived in the heart of 
 Calcutta brought back his own personal convic- 
 tion of the Truth, and the inspiration of those 
 days never left him. " All that I have of faith 
 I owe to those men ! " these are the words I 
 have heard him say with his own lips. 
 
 The best analogy I have yet seen which may 
 bring home the fact of the power of the life of 
 the Brethren of the Epiphany in Calcutta is 
 that given by Chancellor Dibdin in 1902. "The 
 history of the Oxford Mission," he said, " has 
 for me a fascination, because somehow, many 
 years ago, I began and have continued to be 
 interested in the history and growth of monas- 
 ticism. And I cannot help seeing here an extra- 
 ordinary counterpart, the proper counterpart in 
 this generation, of the great Franciscan move- 
 ment. The likeness is extraordinary. You may 
 read the record of this Mission and fancy yourself 
 back in the days of S. Francis : a few men, full of 
 the love of GOD and of pity for their fellow-men, 
 going out to work among the great uncared-for 
 populations in great centres, in cities or country. 
 And you have here what was a great feature in
 
 THE OXFORD MISSION TO CALCUTTA 89 
 
 S. Francis' work, they work in the midst of a 
 people among whom practical infidelity exists. 
 Europe was, in S. Francis' age, overrun with prac- 
 tical infidelity, and this has its counterpart in the 
 working of the religious system in India to-day." 
 
 It would be impossible to go through the many 
 avenues of influence which one by one were tried, 
 and which gave place to other ventures. Slowly, 
 very slowly, experience was built up. The two 
 central points round which the prayer and thought 
 of the Brethren turned more and more, and which 
 guided them through the labyrinth of miscella- 
 neous duties, were these : 
 
 1. The spiritual deepening of the life of Indian 
 Christians ; 
 
 2. Intensive personal influence with the educated 
 classes. 
 
 Indian Christians were a primary care. The 
 Brethren found that while there had been wide- 
 spread movements and conversions in the past, 
 yet in certain ways an ebb tide had been reached. 
 Church life itself had become, in a measure, 
 tainted with the ideas of " pay " and " promotion " 
 ideas which inevitably spread when money 
 comes from abroad, and inferior " agents " (as 
 they are called) are used to do high spiritual
 
 90 NORTH INDIA 
 
 work. Very few missions in India have escaped 
 at one time or another in their history from this 
 danger, and nothing less than a spiritual revolu- 
 tion is needed when the evil becomes deep- 
 seated. There must be also taken into account 
 the never-ceasing, lowering pressure of a city 
 atmosphere filled with intellectual questionings 
 and feeble moral standards. The young Christian 
 students, often the sons of Indian clergy, who had 
 come into Calcutta for the first time ; the children 
 of catechists, sent up for the school examinations ; 
 the children of Christian villagers, sent in for in- 
 dustrial training these and many others, when 
 they came to reside in the great city, needed to 
 have a high spiritual ideal put before them ; other- 
 wise they would fall. This, then, was a primary 
 work ; and it explains the readiness of the Brethren 
 to come to the aid of the Indian Christian students 
 by means of boarding houses, industrial schools, 
 and at Bishop's College, equally with their readi- 
 ness to undertake the pastoral care of feeble, sink- 
 ing Christian communities at Dacca and Barisal. 
 
 That this work has not been in vain may 
 be gathered from the sight of numbers of Indian 
 Christians who are living lives of sacrifice to- 
 day. To take an example, one of the Brethren
 
 MISSION CHURCH, BARISAL.
 
 THE OXFORD MISSION TO CALCUTTA 91 
 
 writes from Barisal in 1904: "There are many 
 more signs that the true Christian life is grow- 
 ing, and with it the desire to do work for 
 CHRIST, and not merely for earthly gain. One 
 touching proof of this was given by a Christian 
 boy who was employed as cook for the school. 
 One day he came to the priest, and said he would 
 rather not receive any salary for his work in 
 future intending to do it for the love of GOD." 
 The same spirit is shown in those who come 
 forward for Holy Baptism, and are accepted. 
 " About eight years ago," so the Report runs, 
 " there came to our hostel in Calcutta a bright 
 young boy of about fourteen. With unusual 
 precocity he had passed the entrance examination 
 of Calcutta University, and though our hostel was 
 then full, he looked so promising, we managed 
 somehow to take him in. He went on, and 
 about four or five years ago he was baptized. 
 The difficulty which every student has to face, 
 the sacrifice of being entirely cut off from his 
 family, was all the keener because he was a 
 Brahman of a very high family. But he faced 
 that and became a Christian. With his ability 
 and education there would have been many posts 
 open to him in Calcutta in which he could have
 
 92 NORTH INDIA 
 
 secured a good settled income, but about a year 
 after his baptism he made the further sacrifice 
 of throwing in his lot with us at Barisal ; and 
 whereas the village boys who come to us have 
 their heads filled with thoughts of being made 
 gentlemen, this young man, who has come down 
 from a higher rank, infinitely their superior in 
 birth and position, adopts their dress and eats 
 their food, and does not take a penny of salary 
 for helping us in our work there." The Report 
 goes on to say that while there are large numbers 
 of .Christians leading good, easy-going, respectable 
 Christian lives, yet it is by the stamp of men such 
 as that described that India will eventually be 
 won for CHRIST. 
 
 It is interesting to note how the building up 
 of the spiritual life of individuals assumes larger 
 and larger proportions in the plans and develop- 
 ments of the Oxford Mission, and also how the 
 work, in every direction except one, becomes 
 more and more intensive and inward. Lectures, 
 bazaar preaching, clubs, reading-rooms, are given 
 up, and the work is concentrated on its Christian 
 side upon individual Christian lives and scattered 
 Christian congregations ; and on its student side 
 upon hostels, where non-Christian students live,
 
 t 
 THE OXFORD MISSION TO CALCUTTA 93 
 
 under the personal care of the Brethren, for the 
 whole of their student days. The picture of the 
 dangers and temptations of University life in 
 Calcutta has been drawn by Mr. Longridge in 
 his History, and will repay a careful reading. In 
 such an atmosphere concentration upon a few 
 students out of the many thousands has been 
 found the only means of effectual personal influ- 
 ence and the uplifting of a high moral standard. 
 
 By far the most important recent development, 
 which took place soon after Father Brown became 
 Superior in 1900, has been the founding of the 
 Sisterhood of the Epiphany. The imperative 
 necessity of this step was seen at once when 
 work among the Christian community in the dis- 
 trict developed. A new spiritual life was needed 
 in the home itself of the village Indian Christians, 
 and the homes could only effectively be reached 
 by Sisters devoted to the work. 
 
 The beginning of the Sisterhood has been 
 marked by losses. Sister Edith and Sister Hester 
 were both dangerously ill in their first year, and 
 the latter had to retire from all active work. But 
 Sister Edith, who had been at the head of the 
 Lady Margaret Settlement, Lambeth, rallied won- 
 derfully, and was able to take the lead in the new
 
 94 NORTH INDIA 
 
 Community life. During the last five years, in 
 every fresh station which has been opened, the 
 Sisters have gone and settled. Two and two 
 seems to have become now, as at the first, the 
 normal number for each new mission venture 
 the steps usually taken being the building of a 
 small house, first, for two priests ; then a church, 
 the interior of which is made as beautiful as pos- 
 sible ; and, near at hand, a second house for the 
 Sisters. 
 
 It is at first sight astonishing to find how the 
 reinforcements are being drafted out from Cal- 
 cutta. Yet one can see the underlying principle 
 in every letter and report, for it is in the district 
 round Calcutta that the unshepherded congrega- 
 tions are chiefly found. " Our great work, the 
 training of Christians," is the phrase that con- 
 tinually meets the reader of the Mission papers. 
 One can almost feel, as one follows the history 
 of the Mission, or has the privilege of meeting the 
 Brethren, that the " intensive " ideal has become 
 a fixed principle in their spiritual outlook, and the 
 Holy Church, " without spot or wrinkle or any 
 such thing," a fixed hope and aspiration always 
 before them. We hear nothing from them of 
 large numbers pouring in to lectures and addresses:
 
 THE OXFORD MISSION TO CALCUTTA 95 
 
 we hear much of this or that refusal to baptize, 
 until the conscience has been fully awakened ; of 
 the building up, stone by stone, of this or that 
 broken, crumbling congregation ; of the prepara- 
 tion of this or that lapsed Christian for the recep- 
 tion of the Blessed Sacrament, after penitence and 
 absolution ; of the personal touch at Dacca or Cal- 
 cutta with this or that earnest non-Christian 
 student, whose life is being transformed and 
 purified by the vision of the Christian life. 
 
 On one side alone " extensive " work is being 
 tried with remarkable success. The Epiphany, a 
 weekly religious paper, which was started and cir- 
 culated free of charge to students, in the earliest 
 days of the Mission, has now reached the remark- 
 ably high weekly output of twelve thousand copies. 
 The expense is very great, for postage has to be 
 covered as well as printing, but the reward has 
 been proportionate. An audience of twelve 
 thousand, who are ready to study quietly week 
 by week, and often year by year, the evidences 
 of the Christian Faith, is one that opens out 
 unimaginable avenues of influence. Correspon- 
 dence in connection with the leading articles is 
 continuous, and it is possible to put students, 
 who have never ventured to address a missionary,
 
 96 NORTH INDIA 
 
 in touch with those who can speak to them face 
 to face concerning the Faith. But perhaps an 
 almost equal value is obtained from the letters 
 of attack on Christianity, which are freely and 
 fairly published in the paper along with its 
 defence. There is scarcely an educational mis- 
 sionary in India who does not study this column, 
 and gain from it a knowledge of the real objec- 
 tions which are in students' minds, and the way 
 to meet them. Such a study prevents a great 
 deal of " beating the air," and sets educational 
 work on right lines, with clear issues to face 
 instead of shadowy phantoms. 
 
 The vitality of the Epiphany, and the hold it 
 has obtained on the educated mind of India, is 
 due in the main to Mr. Walker, its editor-in-chief. 
 His remarkable knowledge, sympathy, and good 
 humour gained an early vigorous life for the 
 paper, which has made it take root firmly. The 
 circle now reached is even wider than that of the 
 Epiphany readers themselves. For there is no 
 Press copyright in India, and articles dealing with 
 subjects which touch closely the educated mind 
 are reproduced in daily and weekly Indian papers 
 by Indian editors, and at times appreciative 
 articles are written upon them. It is interesting
 
 THE OXFORD MISSION TO CALCUTTA 97 
 
 to note the change of the centre of gravity of 
 thought in the rapidly-shifting educated world 
 of India. At one time the burning subject will 
 be one of speculative interest merely, at another 
 time one of socio-religious usage such as caste ; 
 at the present time the spiritual aspects of 
 nationalism, and its methods of propaganda, 
 loom large upon the horizon. Each turn of sub- 
 ject is followed by the Epiphany leading articles, 
 and the Christian interpretation is given. Thus 
 new struggles are fought out in the realm of 
 thought, and new victories are won for the Faith. 
 A brief sketch of a visit to the Oxford Mission 
 may conclude this chapter. I arrived early on a 
 December morning of 1906, and kept the rule of 
 silence with the Brethren till the midday meal, 
 after which I went visiting the Calcutta clergy 
 with Father Brown. The children came running 
 up in every street as we rode in and out on our 
 bicycles. There is no Englishman in the whole 
 of Calcutta who is so well known and loved as 
 Padre Brown. At 6 a.m. next morning Prime 
 was said, followed by the daily celebration of the 
 Holy Eucharist in the Mission chapel. The 
 chapel owes its beauty to the piety and loving 
 thought of Henry Offley Wakeman, the Church
 
 98 NORTH INDIA 
 
 historian, who visited the Mission with Charles 
 Gore at the time of the latter's second stay in 
 1890. Quiet was kept as usual in the house till 
 after Sext, and then, when lunch was finished, 
 the various outside activities began. Each day 
 the Canonical Hours are kept by the Brethren, 
 and the quiet restfulness of the dim chapel, with 
 the seven lamps burning, enters into the soul. 
 There can be no question wherein the strength 
 of the Mission lies. 
 
 The second day after my arrival Mr. Dadabhai 
 Naoroji, a late member of the British Parliament, 
 came to Calcutta to preside over the National 
 Congress. The request came round from the 
 leading citizens that Cornwallis Street might be 
 decorated in his honour, and very soon " Long 
 live Dadabhai Naoroji " streamed out in the breeze 
 in front of the Mission House, placed there by the 
 students. The Oxford Mission is clearly ready 
 to share the joys as well as the sorrows of the 
 people. The year 1906 was an eventful one in 
 the country : never had the spirit of nationality 
 reached so high a pitch of enthusiasm, and the 
 Oxford Mission was among the first to welcome 
 what was noble in the new spirit. 
 
 Christmas Day came, my first Christmas in
 
 THE OXFORD MISSION TO CALCUTTA 99 
 
 Bengal. I shall not soon forget that Christmas 
 Eucharist in the Bengali church, which is one 
 of the most indigenous developments I have seen 
 in India. A Bengali priest, a Canon of the 
 Church, celebrated, with a second Bengali priest 
 to assist. The church was crowded from end to 
 end with reverent worshippers, the little children 
 joining, side by side with their parents, in the 
 glorious Thanksgiving. The Bengali women were 
 on one side in their beautiful saris, or veils, the 
 men on the other with their bright -coloured 
 Bengali shawls thrown over their shoulders. The 
 service was choral and in unison, the whole con- 
 gregation joining with one voice ; the setting 
 was a mingling of Bengali music with Gregorian. 
 I could not follow a single word of the language, 
 but was at home in a moment in spirit with that 
 throng of worshippers, and my whole heart went 
 out as I spoke to them in English a few words of 
 Christmas love and greeting, after the Bengali 
 sermon was over. I was a stranger, a foreigner, 
 yet at the end of the service they thronged round 
 me as though I were one of their own people, and 
 I saw family group greeting family group in their 
 own national way with tender affection and simple 
 emotion priests and congregation of one heart
 
 TOO NORTH INDIA 
 
 and soul together. The whole work for twenty 
 years has been built up by Bengalis themselves, 
 and it bears rich promise for the future of the 
 Christian Faith in Bengal. 
 
 I went on to the largest parish church in Cal- 
 cutta, where English and Eurasian were uniting 
 in their choral Christmas Eucharist. Here the 
 ritual is far more elaborate than at the Bengali 
 service, and includes the full use of incense and 
 lights. This would seem to be a legitimate ex- 
 tension of the outer forms of worship, for the 
 Eurasians are singularly like the dwellers in 
 Southern Europe on certain sides of their char- 
 acter, and the Roman Church has made very 
 many converts from among them, chiefly owing 
 to her ornate ritual. I must not fail to mention 
 one of the noblest chaplains working among the 
 Eurasians, whose church I also visited, Canon 
 Jackson, a name to conjure with in Calcutta. 
 
 Morning by morning during my short stay with 
 the Oxford Brethren I was privileged to join in 
 the Holy Eucharist that was offered in that 
 quiet chapel, and to see the work of the day 
 begun, continued, and ended in prayer. At 
 one time Wilson would be having an afternoon 
 Christmas party with little Bengali children, the
 
 THE OXFORD MISSION TO CALCUTTA 101 
 
 students helping him to entertain them ; at 
 another, King would be holding an earnest con- 
 versation with an intellectual inquirer ; at another, 
 Holmes would come in tired out with a round 
 of visits to the English residents, visits which 
 bind the links of sympathy closer between West 
 and East ; at another, the Superior would accom- 
 pany me as a visitor to the National Congress, 
 which was being held in the city. My last 
 memory is of a gathering of clergy, chaplains 
 and missionaries, Indian and English, under the 
 auspices of the Central Society of Sacred Study, 
 whose work and influence has spread to India 
 and is helping us to face our Indian theological 
 problems. 
 
 The night came, all too soon, when I had to 
 depart, and the Superior would insist on seeing 
 me comfortably settled in the train. The express 
 was crowded, but every one knew Father Brown, 
 from the station master to the luggage coolie, and 
 soon I had my bedding laid out on an empty seat 
 and was started on the thousand miles journey 
 back to Delhi, with a very warm place in my 
 heart for Calcutta and its people, whom I had 
 seen through the kindly eyes of the Oxford 
 Mission.
 
 IO2 NORTH INDIA 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 ALLAHABAD, CAWNPORE, AND DELHI 
 
 *ZJ*LLAHABAD, the Prayag of ancient Indian 
 tv*"^ history, situated at the meeting-point of 
 the waters of the Jumna and the Ganges, is second 
 only to Benares itself as a sacred place of Hindu 
 pilgrimage. At the " Kumbh mela," a religious 
 bathing festival which took place early in 1906, 
 it is estimated that 3,000,000 pilgrims assembled 
 to bathe at the point of land where the two rivers 
 meet. The sadkus, or ascetics, alone numbered 
 100,000. The scene was one which could never 
 be forgotten, and revealed the latent strength of 
 popular Hinduism as yet almost unaffected either 
 by modern education or by the Christian message. 
 There were the fakirs, so well known in pictures, 
 sitting on their beds of spikes, raising their hands 
 to heaven till their arms stiffened, going through 
 various forms of self-inflicted torture. There was 
 the marvelling multitude, watching, gazing, ador-
 
 ALLAHABAD, CAWNPORE, AND DELHI 103 
 
 ing thousands upon thousands of devotees, so 
 patient, so orderly, so eager, with one sole desire 
 in coming, namely, to enter the sacred waters at 
 this most sacred spot at the propitious moment 
 predicted by the Brahmans, and in this way to 
 obtain salvation. 
 
 Side by side with this India which draws its 
 inspiration from the mediaeval past, an entirely 
 new civilization is springing up with modern 
 ideals. Allahabad is now the seat of Government 
 with magnificent law courts and departmental 
 offices and "civil lines." Here, too, is the Uni- 
 versity of Middle India, with imposing colleges 
 and spacious lecture-halls. The Church has also 
 made Allahabad the cathedral city of the Diocese 
 of Lucknow, and the cathedral is the most beauti- 
 ful in India. 
 
 It will only be possible to turn to one of the 
 many ventures of faith which the Church is 
 making in this city the building of the Oxford 
 and Cambridge Hostel. The Churchmen within 
 the Student Volunteer Missionary Movement in 
 England had been stirred to undertake new work 
 among the students of India, and were led to 
 choose Allahabad for their centre. At first the 
 new venture was " extensive " in character, and
 
 IO4 NORTH INDIA 
 
 took something of the form of a settlement in 
 London. Games, reading-rooms, lectures, etc., 
 were organized, at which any student of the 
 University who pleased might present himself, 
 and come into friendly intercourse with the young 
 missionaries. But the experience of the Oxford 
 Mission in Calcutta repeated itself, and the efforts 
 soon became concentrated on a hostel, where the 
 closest personal touch with a limited number of 
 undergraduates could be obtained. 
 
 In Allahabad the dearth of boarding accom- 
 modation in the University has been nothing 
 like so great as in Calcutta, and twice over in 
 its short career a boycott of the Oxford and 
 Cambridge missionaries has been carried on by 
 Hindus, which seemed likely to prove fatal to 
 the work. The more recent boycott must be 
 described in the Warden's own words. It gives 
 the most vivid picture of the new forces which 
 have to be met and conquered in missionary 
 work : 
 
 "In August last year (1905), political feeling 
 was running very high. Indian opinion had been 
 greatly excited about the partition of Bengal, and 
 was manifesting itself in the organized boycott of 
 everything English. About the same time we
 
 ALLAHABAD, CAWNPORE, AND DELHI 105 
 
 had a lecture from an educated Brahman convert, 
 a retired judge, on ' A Brahman convert's reasons 
 for becoming a Christian.' The lecture, while 
 gentle in tone, was a crushing exposure of the 
 case for Hinduism. At the time there were in 
 the hostel some six or seven men who were on the 
 verge of conversion. Hostellers have since told 
 me that they quite expected to see some become 
 Christians. The lecture showed the men who 
 were nearest to Christianity exactly where they 
 were going, and made them draw back. Others, 
 realizing the danger of the conversion for some of 
 their fellow-students, got up an agitation against 
 Bible-reading on the score that it was disloyal 
 to their own religion and unpatriotic. Boycott 
 was in the air, and they induced all the hostellers 
 but two to sign an undertaking not to read the 
 Bible with us. The two abstainers were not 
 themselves reading. At the time twenty-four 
 out of thirty-six men in the hostel were reading 
 with us. So in a couple of days the whole of 
 our direct work was brought to a full stop. This 
 was a sore trial to our faith. The ringleaders 
 were the very two men who had been nearest 
 decision, men of real gifts of leadership, who, if 
 won, would be a power for CEIRIST in India.
 
 io6 NORTH INDIA 
 
 The religious boycott was succeeded by a most 
 determined effort to break down discipline and 
 authority. The whole of this was aggravated 
 by intensely bitter racial feeling. Our relations 
 with the men, hitherto most warm, became sorely 
 strained. We realized that our strength was to 
 sit still : " In quietness and in confidence shall be 
 your strength." Meantime many were supporting 
 us by prayer. By degrees, faith and love, and 
 patience, wore down opposition . . . the ring- 
 leader came to me to ask my forgiveness for what 
 he had done. Poor fellow ! he broke down alto- 
 gether, and had to leave my room unable to say a 
 word. He was the first to begin reading again. 
 . . . Now it is over we are glad to have been 
 through the time. It has been a severe testing, 
 and now we have more men than ever reading 
 with us. Over thirty out of the fifty men in the 
 hostel have personal interviews with us week by 
 week for Bible-reading. ... I do not know if 
 any other missionary work gives the direct oppor- 
 tunities that we have, closeted for hours every 
 day over the Bible with educated men, upon 
 whom no pressure is brought of any kind from 
 our side, but who live with us, and want, of their 
 own free will, to understand the Christian Faith ,
 
 ALLAHABAD, CAWNPORE, AND DELHI 107 
 
 Whether such abundant opportunities shall end 
 in conversions or not, depends chiefly on your 
 prayers." 
 
 It is a great joy to be able to add that one 
 of the leading students mentioned above has now 
 been baptized with all his family. 
 
 My own most recent experience of Allahabad 
 was a visit to conduct a " Quiet Day " for the 
 C.M.S. clergy of the diocese at the time of a 
 conference of unique importance. For many 
 years, both in the Panjab and in the United 
 Provinces, the foreign missionaries have been feel- 
 ing more and more keenly the need of developing 
 indigenous Church life under indigenous leader- 
 ship. Little by little the lines are being laid 
 down, and though at present the efforts made 
 for self-government are weak and feeble, and the 
 spirit of Indian leadership has yet to be evoked, 
 still there is some progress. 
 
 The conference on this occasion had met to 
 consider principles, and it will be of interest in 
 England to note those which were regarded as 
 of primary importance at that time. The first 
 was the principle of race equality, the abolition of 
 all race distinction between Indian and European 
 within the Church. The second was the principle
 
 io8 NORTH INDIA 
 
 that evangelistic work belonged to Indian and 
 English clergy alike, a fatal distinction having 
 arisen by which Indian clergy were regarded only 
 as pastors, not evangelists. The third principle 
 recognized that workers and funds should be 
 controlled by the body that supplied them. On 
 this there was a difference of opinion, as it placed 
 the English missionary outside the control of the 
 Indian Church Council, and appeared to contra- 
 dict equality of race within 'the Church. A fourth 
 principle insisted that the withdrawal of the 
 English missionary should be contemplated in all 
 Church organization, he being regarded as a 
 temporary loan to the Indian Church, not an 
 essential part. 
 
 The Warden of the Oxford and Cambridge 
 Hostel, with whom I stayed in Allahabad, came 
 on to Cawnpore later to conduct our united 
 Brotherhood Retreat. Such interchange of re- 
 treatants is one of the happiest results of the 
 cordial relations between the Church Missionary 
 Society and the Society for the Propagation of 
 the Gospel in the North of India. No two 
 Societies could possibly work more harmoniously 
 together. The only pity is that their organiza- 
 tions out in the field are not completely amal-
 
 ALLAHABAD, CAWNPORE, AND DELHI 109 
 
 gamated, so that the Church should be, outwardly 
 as well as inwardly, One Body. 
 
 The Retreat itself, which takes place in October 
 each year, is a time never to be forgotten for its 
 help and strengthening of missionary vocation. 
 It is also a time of a silent communion of spirit 
 with spirit in the one work, making the life of the 
 One Body a supreme reality. We have now a 
 further bond of union between the Brotherhoods 
 in North India and Burma in the common Office 
 Book of Intercessions which we use daily. 
 
 The city of Cawnpore, some four hours' journey 
 from Allahabad, is becoming one of the great 
 manufacturing and railway centres of Modern 
 India. Its population, in spite of terrible devasta- 
 tion by plague, is increasing, and new mills are 
 being opened. The work of the Church has 
 steadily progressed, and is now spreading to the 
 district round. 
 
 The S.P.G. Mission owes its present strong 
 position to the sons of Bishop Westcott. Foss 
 Westcott, during his time in the Brotherhood, 
 made the industrial side of the Mission justly 
 famous. He was chosen to serve on the Govern- 
 ment Industrial Commission, and rendered most 
 valuable service. It was deeply interesting to go
 
 no NORTH INDIA 
 
 over the workshops and see English working-men 
 doing a noble missionary work in training Indian 
 Christian boys to labour with their hands. If 
 this narrative meets the eyes of working-men in 
 England who are missionary-hearted, I would 
 assure them that there is work in the mission- 
 field for them, equal to many an ordained mis- 
 sionary's labours. 
 
 I went round the city with one of the Brother- 
 hood. He was enthusiastic about the influence of 
 the Westcotts in the city, and told me how in the 
 Plague Riots of 1900 it was they who had saved 
 the situation and prevented bloodshed. I saw 
 the admirable Zenana Hospital, where the doctors 
 and nurses laboured through the terrible times of 
 plague, and where Indian and English Christian 
 workers had sacrificed their lives in ministering to 
 plague and cholera patients. Then we went on 
 to the river, where crowds of beggars and evil- 
 looking sadhus clamoured for alms at the bath- 
 ing ghat, and the idols near were strewn with 
 dead and dying marigolds offered by the bathers. 
 When I came back, George Westcott, who is 
 the Principal of the Mission College and a 
 member of the Syndicate of the University, was 
 ready to talk over the prospects of Christian
 
 ALLAHABAD, CAWNPORE, AND DELHI 1 1 1 
 
 education, and to discuss the position recently 
 advocated by the Bishop of Madras. It was 
 cheering to witness his strong optimism as to 
 the future effects of the present educational 
 efforts. He also showed me the proofs of a 
 book on the Kabir Sect, the materials for which 
 he had collected with patient labour, and told 
 me some of the sayings of Kabir, who has 
 been called "the Indian Luther of the fifteenth 
 century." At table I met two Indian Christians, 
 who share the Brotherhood life, and are engaged 
 in important literary work. The whole impres- 
 sion of the Mission has been to me that of men 
 and women who are trying to grapple with the 
 varied problems of modern India, and to meet 
 them not on one side only but on many sides, 
 dealing not with one class only but with all 
 classes, from the Englishman of the " civil-lines" 
 and the higher Indian families of the city, to the 
 poor and outcast of the slums and alleys. 
 
 Space will not allow me to tell the story of 
 our own Brotherhood at Delhi, and a history will 
 appear before this brief sketch is published ; but 
 I would endeavour instead to make some slight 
 amends at this point for a serious deficiency in 
 the present narrative, by referring to the Zenana
 
 H2 NORTH INDIA 
 
 missionary work that is going on in Cawnpore 
 and Delhi and almost every city in India. I 
 cannot speak of it in detail, for the Zenana work 
 has a sphere of its own, and it is almost impos- 
 sible for men to know much about it ; but the 
 value of the work is incalculable, for without it 
 little influence can be brought to bear upon the 
 home, where the centre of the struggle towards 
 a higher faith must finally lie. The work is 
 much more difficult than our own. The women 
 of India are almost entirely illiterate, and have 
 been so for many centuries, with the result that 
 superstitions, bred of ignorance, have become a 
 second nature. There are few opportunities at 
 present in the North for large schools for non- 
 Christian girls. The work of education must 
 go on slowly from house to house, amid a thou- 
 sand interruptions and distractions. But there, 
 in the house, is the stronghold which must be 
 penetrated. It is the women who really believe 
 in the old superstitions ; it is the women who 
 really keep up the Hindu priesthood and the 
 idolatrous ceremonies : it is the women who 
 really keep back their husbands and sons when 
 they wish to come out into the light. 
 
 A very large proportion of our Christian
 
 ALLAHABAD, CAWNPORE, AND DELHI 113 
 
 families in North India come originally from 
 a low social grade, in which they received little 
 moral training during their pre-Christian days. 
 The home life in the past has been degraded by 
 centuries of neglect, and has to be built up 
 again from the very foundations. This is clearly 
 a primary office of the Indian Church, if she is to 
 grow spiritually strong in all her members and 
 become " a joyful mother of children." Here 
 perhaps, among our own poor Christians, lies the 
 highest sphere of usefulness of our lady missionary 
 workers. Without their help the mothers and 
 daughters in the homes cannot effectively be 
 reached. There is also the vital need of schools 
 for the Christian girls as well as for the boys, 
 and for institutions, where those who are orphans 
 and waifs and strays in the sea of Indian life 
 may find a refuge. S. Mary's Home at Delhi 
 is one of the most beautiful examples of this 
 principle carried out in practice. There are con- 
 valescents there, and lame little children, widows 
 and orphans and homeless, all living together 
 a happy family life, with their own chapel and 
 a school near at hand, under the care of a 
 devoted mission -worker. Two years ago I 
 brought down from Rawal Pindi to the Home 
 
 I
 
 114 NORTH INDIA 
 
 three children whose mother had just died, and 
 who had been left destitute in an atmosphere of 
 terrible temptation. The little baby sister only 
 lived a few months, but the two elder children 
 are as happy as the day is long in the Home, 
 and one of them is now confirmed. 
 
 But the side of women's work in India, which 
 carries with it the appeal of untold suffering and 
 misery, is the Zenana hospital work. In the 
 very heart of the city, in crowded streets, and an 
 atmosphere often like a furnace, the ministry of 
 healing is carried on, and the homes of rich and 
 poor alike in every quarter are visited. Here 
 is a single sketch written by one of our Delhi 
 doctors : 
 
 "Miss Sahiba Ji, please take a sweet! and 
 Dora, not at all subdued by the heat, holds up 
 an empty ' Brand's essence ' tin with a twinkle 
 of fun in her eye : Dora first then she always 
 does come first somehow among the little band 
 of children in the hospital, the leader in any 
 mischief, the pet and ' sweetheart ' as she calls 
 herself of all. Three years since her mother 
 brought her, then a year-old neglected baby, from 
 a distant village. She had heard that the Mission, 
 perhaps, might take care of the child. The mother
 
 ALLAHABAD, CAWNPORE, AND DELHI 115 
 
 was determined to get rid of the baby at all costs. 
 ( If you do not take her I will just put her down 
 in the dusk of the evening and walk off.' On 
 suggesting that the police would be put on her 
 track for child desertion, she declared, ' Well, in 
 any case, the bottom of a well will tell no tales ! ' 
 At last the wee girlie was taken over, and she 
 has become a hospital baby. She is now growing 
 up, and has quite made up her mind to ' be a 
 doctor ' when she is a woman, and she is already 
 an adept at rolling bandages. But her chief 
 delight is to ' conduct prayers.' Seated herself in 
 the Miss Sahiba's seat, the other children in the 
 hospital are arranged round to represent the 
 nurses, while Dora leads the singing and instructs 
 them in her own peculiar fashion. The little boy, 
 Chattu, her companion, is almost entirely blind. 
 His mother arrived with him in the famine year, 
 and almost expired on the hospital doorstep, and 
 only survived two days. He has just begun to 
 read the Braille type, and having a fair ear for 
 music makes a cheerful noise with hymns and 
 bhajans in the wards. They will go soon to 
 S. Mary's Home, but the hospital will be very 
 dull when they are gone." 
 
 Miss Tara Chand, the daughter of one of the
 
 n6 NORTH INDIA 
 
 most revered high-caste converts, who is still 
 working on in his old age as mission priest at 
 Ajmere, was admitted as an Indian member of 
 the S. Stephen's Community, Delhi, and was 
 deeply loved and respected by Indian and English 
 alike. Frail and delicate from the first, her health 
 soon gave way, and after some months of patient 
 suffering she passed to her rest. It is greatly 
 to be hoped that other Indian ladies will be found 
 to fill her place, and make the Community more 
 what it aspires to be, a living branch of the 
 Indian Church itself rather than a helper from 
 outside. 
 
 In addition to Zenana workers in the different 
 cities, there is now at every cathedral centre in 
 the North of India a growing body of deaconesses 
 ordained by the Bishop for work among the 
 European and Eurasian community. " We act," 
 writes the Deaconess Alice at Lahore, "as sac- 
 ristans, having in our charge the care of the 
 sanctuary, and are present at the daily services ; 
 we get into touch with all members of our 
 scattered congregations, and try to teach them 
 that they are not isolated units but members of 
 a divine society, with responsibilities and duties 
 to each other and to the Church. We find
 
 ALLAHABAD, CAWNPORE, AND DELHI 117 
 
 Eurasian Christians living in the bazaar in a 
 way that makes it difficult to distinguish Chris- 
 tian from heathen. There are poor and destitute 
 women to be cared for, and orphan children to be 
 nurtured. There are schools for European and 
 Eurasian children to be staffed with teachers. 
 We come across many terribly sad stories of 
 ruined Christian lives. We hope to have a Pre- 
 ventive Home, as in Bombay ; and the Girls' 
 Friendly Society and Mothers' Union render in- 
 valuable aid." 
 
 The Order of Deaconesses is being slowly but 
 steadily recruited from the ranks of Indian Chris- 
 tian ladies. One such Indian lady, Deaconess 
 Ellen Goreh, has already been mentioned. Her 
 beautiful hymn, " In the secret of His Presence " 
 is rapidly taking its place among the best known 
 in the English language. It shows what depths 
 of tenderness and devotion to our Blessed LORD 
 may be looked for in the future from the Indian 
 Church, when the sacred ministry of Indian 
 women goes to fill up the measure of the human 
 heart's affection to the Saviour of the world. 
 
 I would conclude with a picture taken from 
 one of the poor congregations of Indian Chris- 
 tians in Delhi, where our ladies labour so
 
 n8 NORTH INDIA 
 
 devotedly, and where lies in many ways the 
 happiest part of their work. The women are 
 seated on the ground on one side of the church, 
 with the Miss Sahiba among them, the men on 
 the other ; the babies are rolling about, and 
 the little children pass from one side to the 
 other at their own sweet will. The service 
 is over, but to-night the congregation is proud 
 in the possession of musical instruments, three 
 drums and a pair of cymbals ; and the women ask 
 the Miss Sahiba, and the men implore the Padre 
 Sahib, for just one more bhajan, and then children 
 and all join in singing together Jai Prabhu Yesu, 
 
 PRELUDE AND REFRAIN 
 
 "JESU CHRIST, be Thou my security, 
 Thou my security, JESU CHRIST. 
 
 All the sinners that come to JESUS, 
 
 He will cleanse them from guilt and impurity. 
 
 2 
 
 Deep the river, and frail the vessel, 
 Waft me safe to the shore of futurity. 
 
 3 
 
 GOD of orphans, and Friend of the friendless, 
 Shine in homes of gloom and obscurity.
 
 ALLAHABAD, CAWNPORE, AND DELHI 119 
 
 4 
 
 JESU, shelter me under Thy shadow, 
 Grant me pardon and peace, LORD, and purity. 
 
 JESU CHRIST, be Thou my security, 
 Thou my security, JESU CHRIST." 1 
 
 Those in England who know how deep is the 
 river and how frail is the vessel of life, can help 
 us more than they can understand by their inter- 
 cessions to bring the light of the One " Friend of 
 the friendless " into the many homes of gloom 
 and obscurity in India. 
 
 1 The translation is by the Rev. C. Foxley.
 
 12O NORTH INDIA 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE PANJAB AND ISLAM 
 
 mWO names stand out clearly in the Panjab, 
 one Indian and one English, each remark- 
 able for learning and Oriental scholarship, and 
 also for a life of ascetic devotion in the service 
 of GOD Dr. I mad ud Din and Dr. French. 
 The former was a descendant of the royal house 
 of Persia, and could count back his direct an- 
 cestors by name for more than thirty generations. 
 His life reveals that seeking after GOD and that 
 intense earnestness of longing for the true light 
 which is found among choice souls in Islam and 
 Hinduism in India. His name is linked more 
 than once with that of Nehemiah Goreh and with 
 Dr. French, and there are certain unmistakable 
 features of resemblance, amid differences of race 
 and early creed. 
 
 Imad ud Din (" Pillar of the Faith ") began in 
 his very boyhood to have an inextinguishable 
 passion to find GOD, which would not let him
 
 THE PAN JAB AND ISLAM ill 
 
 rest. He would wait upon ascetics in hope of 
 finding the secret of salvation and union with the 
 Divine. As he grew to manhood, his friend 
 Maulvi Safdar AH became his instructor, and 
 night and day he studied the Quran and Mus- 
 sulman traditions under his guidance. There 
 came to him from this study only utter vague- 
 ness and disgust, and he turned elsewhere to find 
 some new help in his religion. At this point he 
 began to read the Sufi mystical writings, and to 
 practise their silent meditations. At times he 
 would go for weeks together and sit near the 
 tombs of the saints, hoping in vain for some 
 mysterious revelation, enduring agonies of hunger 
 and watching night after night in his eagerness 
 to obtain a vision, but only finding vanity and 
 vexation of spirit. At this time a verse of the 
 Quran, which declared that every mortal must 
 once visit hell, became a torture to him, and at 
 last he renounced the world altogether and 
 became a wandering fakir. One mystical Sufi 
 rite required a twelve days' fast and twelve 
 sleepless nights of meditation on the Name of 
 GOD. He sat alone by a river side, and went 
 through the ritual step by step unsparingly. 
 " When the ceremony was over," he writes, " I
 
 122 NORTH INDIA 
 
 had no strength, I could not even hold myself 
 up against the breeze. The people in the city 
 near regarded me as one of the saints of Gou, 
 and came to touch my knees, but my soul found 
 no rest." He then began to leave off the Mus- 
 sulman routine of prayer, and looked upon all 
 religions as vanity, but whenever the thought of 
 death came upon him his restlessness of soul 
 was terrible, and he would cry to GOD for 
 deliverance. 
 
 Some years later he heard of the conversion, 
 through the instrumentality of Nehemiah Goreh, 
 of his old friend Maulvi Safdar AH, and he was con- 
 founded and perplexed. He determined to bring 
 him back from Christianity, and for this purpose 
 read for the first time the Gospel story. The 
 Sermon on the Mount held and fascinated him. 
 He could not break away from its influence : it 
 seemed speaking to his very soul. For days and 
 nights in great agitation he continued reading 
 until he became wholly convinced that salvation 
 from sin was through JESUS CHRIST alone, and 
 that He was the only perfect moral Teacher. He 
 went to Amritsar and was baptized, and began 
 at once a life of patient, earnest, scholarly work in 
 defence of the Christian Faith.
 
 DR. IMAD UD DIN. 
 
 To face page 123.
 
 THE PANJAB AND ISLAM 123 
 
 The fierceness of the opposition he encoun- 
 tered, and his own courageous spirit, may be 
 judged from his answer to a Chitral chieftain who 
 had threatened to kill him with his own hands. 
 " Tell the chieftain," he replied, " that if he were 
 to kill me, I would gladly perish, and from my 
 spilt blood twenty Imad ud Dins (Pillars of Faith) 
 would arise to carry forward the Christian re- 
 ligion." 
 
 Once in later life he met Nehemiah Goreh, to 
 whom he indirectly owed his conversion. The 
 marks of suffering and search for truth were on 
 both their faces, and they spoke far into the 
 night about the glorious Faith they had embraced. 
 They found (so Padre Nehemiah relates) their 
 Church views fundamentally the same, though the 
 Maulvi remained, in the outward expression of 
 religion, more puritan to the end than the ex- 
 Brahman Pandit. 
 
 As we read Dr. Imad ud Din's controversial 
 and apologetic writings to-day we feel we are 
 in the presence of one who has escaped " as 
 a brand from the burning," and who must cut 
 himself free once and for all from a bitter past. 
 They are the writings of a by-gone period when 
 men dealt and received blows unsparingly, and
 
 124 NORTH INDIA 
 
 saw everything in light and shade without the 
 medium of neutral tones and softening lines. 
 Yet, reviewed historically, they are a great work, 
 and his renown is well deserved. Perhaps the 
 most lasting of his achievements was a translation 
 of the Quran itself into Urdu. 
 
 The name of French is linked by many spiritual 
 ties with that of I mad ud Din. French's ascetic 
 life and apostolic fervour appealed to the Maulvi 
 ascetic, whose own life had been so filled with 
 suffering and trial. The most vivid portrait of 
 French comes from the Maulvi's own pen. Dr. 
 I mad ud Din relates how he could remember 
 him in Agra as a bright, ardent young missionary 
 whom he used to see passing up and down the 
 street, trying to converse with little children and 
 tell them the Gospel story as he walked to bazaar 
 preaching very impetuous and quick in his 
 manner, but with a spiritual look in his eyes that 
 seemed watching a distant scene. 
 
 Seldom in modern missionary history has there 
 been shown such untiring and devoted zeal, com- 
 bined with so clear a prophet's vision of the 
 future, as is seen in the Life of French. On one 
 side he seemed pedantic, wrapped up in book- 
 learning and theory, almost hopeless in business
 
 THE PANJAB AND ISLAM 125 
 
 matters ; but on another side he was no visionary 
 or dreamer, rather he was one who threw the 
 whole force of a commanding personality and a 
 triumphant faith into his plans, and actually 
 carried them through or saw them in the way 
 of accomplishment. 
 
 Dr. French's career is one series of breakdowns 
 in health and new beginnings. As Mr. Eugene 
 Stock has pointed out, from first to last he 
 was a pioneer and founder. In Agra he founded 
 the first great Christian college in the North, and 
 was the pioneer of Christian education in those 
 regions. In 1862 he came back to India to found 
 the Frontier Mission in the Derajat, which has 
 led to a settled policy of missionary outlook 
 towards Central Asia. In 1869 he came to 
 Lahore to found the S. John's Divinity School, 
 which was the first inspiring attempt in the North 
 to train a body of Indian fellow-workers in the 
 ministry of the Gospel men who might some 
 day pass beyond the mountain barriers into 
 Thibet, Afghanistan, and Persia, and even into 
 Arabia itself. In 1877 he was a "pioneer and 
 founder" once more, as first Bishop of Lahore, 
 setting an example of a missionary episcopate 
 which will be an ideal for many generations.
 
 126 NORTH INDIA 
 
 Ten years later he had completed his great 
 cathedral in the capital of the Panjab, where 
 Indian and English alike were to join together 
 as one body and worship side by side in the 
 beauty of holiness a pioneer work which is a 
 prophecy of the future unity of the Indian Church, 
 when racial divisions have been obliterated. Last 
 of all he resigned his bishopric, and went back 
 as a simple missionary to labour for a few months 
 and then lay down his life in Mohammedan lands, 
 pointing the way as a pioneer to their conquest 
 from the Panjab. Not one of his great prophetic 
 visions has altogether failed : they have only 
 grown clearer with the lapse of time, and some 
 of them are being worked out to-day. 
 
 There is a beautiful story told by Dr. Imad 
 ud Din of his own last days with the Bishop. 
 Dr. French had called him apart, just before his 
 own last act of Ordination, for a week's retreat on 
 the banks of the Beas River. On arriving in the 
 evening they discovered that they had no food, and 
 went to bed supperless. After a while, the Bishop 
 came and said he remembered having still in his 
 robe-case a piece of bread, which had been placed 
 there a long time ago for use in the Blessed 
 Sacrament, but which had never been used. They
 
 Photo 
 
 To face page 126. 
 
 BISHOP VALPY FRENCH. 
 
 [Elliott & Fry.
 
 THE PANJAB AND ISLAM 127 
 
 soaked it in water, gave thanks, and shared it 
 together, and then went off to sleep. Their 
 meditation during their retreat was on the Sufi 
 saying, " There is a death in which there is no 
 life, and a life in which there is no death." 
 
 But the story most dear to the Church in India 
 is that of French's nobility of conduct in the 
 Mutiny days at Agra. There was imminent 
 danger of an attack in overwhelming force by 
 the mutineers, and the English were hurried into 
 the fort, but French remained outside. The order 
 came for him to come in and leave the Indian 
 Christians in the city, as food and shelter in the 
 fort was barely sufficient for the English. But 
 no power on earth could make French move a 
 step through the fort gates till every Indian Chris- 
 tian was safe inside. Then at last he entered. 
 
 In keeping with this incident were his words 
 spoken at the consecration of Lahore Cathedral, 
 where he claimed that for all time Indians should 
 have a principal place in GOD'S House, and 
 should regard it always as their own cathedral. 
 " I plead with you," he said, " with all entreaty, 
 if ever long after my grey hairs are gone down 
 to the grave unbrotherly exclusion be practised 
 here, to call to your and to your children's re-
 
 128 NORTH INDIA 
 
 membrance this solemn appeal. Let this church 
 be a mother-church indeed, with all the tender- 
 ness and depths of sympathy, the loving place 
 in the arms and heart and home of the true 
 mother : not the chill, distant, jealous regard 
 of the typical stepmother. Let no invidious 
 exclusiveness of race or station find place in this 
 sanctuary." Dr. I mad ud Din preached in the 
 cathedral on the day of its consecration, and was 
 one of the Bishop's most trusted counsellors and 
 chaplains. 
 
 Henry Martyn and French were very near to 
 one another in their missionary outlook ; and it 
 is of deep significance to note that both the young 
 evangelist and the aged Bishop, after spending 
 their strength in India, passed into the Moham- 
 medan lands to fulfil their last life-work and die. 
 The Mohammedan Missions in India do not end 
 with India itself. The field is open, the soil is 
 prepared in India, not for India's sake alone, but 
 in order that from that post of vantage the central, 
 ancient seats of Islam may be reached and won 
 for CHRIST. 
 
 One who realized this, and shared the fate of 
 French and Martyn, dying in a foreign land 
 beyond the Indian boundary, was George Maxwell
 
 THE PANJAB AND ISLAM 129 
 
 Gordon, who has been called the pilgrim mis- 
 sionary. Coming of a wealthy family he literally 
 gave up all for CHRIST, living for the greater part 
 of his all too short life like a Christian fakir, 
 dressing in Indian dress and eating only the 
 simplest, coarsest Indian food. He shared, with 
 Henry Martyn and Bishop French, the inex- 
 tinguishable longing to press forward and carry 
 the banner of the Cross beyond the frontier, into 
 Persia, Arabia, and Afghanistan. With this out- 
 look ever before him he threw himself into the 
 work of training Indian fellow-workers to " endure 
 hardness " and " do the work of an evangelist." 
 He took the younger men from the Lahore 
 Divinity School with him out into the district, 
 and showed them by example how to surmount 
 difficulties and live the life of faith and prayer. 
 More than once he made his way on his camel 
 across the mountains and interviewed the Baluchi 
 chieftains. There were strict orders against pro- 
 ceeding further into Afghanistan itself, and Gordon 
 waited, longing for an opportunity of crossing 
 the border. Meanwhile he founded, chiefly with 
 his own private income, a base for further opera- 
 tions at Dera Ghazi Khan, and worked forward 
 from that centre. 
 
 K.
 
 130 NORTH INDIA 
 
 At last the looked-for opportunity arrived. 
 A British force was ordered to advance on 
 Kandahar, and Gordon was accepted as honorary 
 chaplain. He reached Afghanistan, and had 
 opportunities of witnessing for CHRIST during his 
 short stay with the troops. In 1880 he went 
 out again, accompanied by Bishop French. French 
 was obliged to return to India, but Gordon stayed 
 on while the British garrison was besieged. In 
 an unsuccessful sortie some wounded men were 
 left outside the wall in imminent danger. Gordon 
 at once obtained some Indian bearers, and went 
 out to bring them in. The Afghan fire was so 
 hot that an officer who was with Gordon advised 
 retiring. But the brave missionary persisted, and 
 just as he reached the spot where the wounded 
 lay he was himself shot down and succumbed in 
 a few hours. Thus he died pointing the way 
 forward. 
 
 Henry Martyn lies buried in Tokat, Gordon in 
 Kandahar, Bishop French at Muscat. Slowly the 
 way is being prepared and laid with the graves 
 of saintly men who have passed on from India. 
 Vexilla Regis prodeunt. 
 
 All that has been written above has dealt with 
 the Old Islam, either of the orthodox or of the
 
 THE PANJAB AND ISLAM 131 
 
 Sufi type the Islam of the old Arabic learning 
 and the old Persian mysticism ; but in India to- 
 day we are face to face with an entirely new 
 development of the faith of the Prophet, which 
 eagerly embraces modern science and modern 
 social ideals, and aims at the highest Western 
 culture, combined with a simplified creed and 
 doctrine. 
 
 I have visited many times the city of Aligarh, 
 the centre of this New Islam, and have been much 
 impressed by the silent changes which are taking 
 place in Islamic thought and practice. The 
 college contains nearly four hundred students, 
 and the school another six hundred. The definite 
 aim of the present College Council is to establish a 
 system of education exactly similar to that given 
 in the best public schools in England. The whole 
 institution, down to the debating society and col- 
 lege cricket club, is on the model of the West. The 
 students, who come from the highest Mohammedan 
 families, and from places as distant as Zanzibar 
 and Java, become for the most part frankly liberal 
 and modern in their religious views, and when 
 their college days are over they are often poles 
 apart from the Mohammedans of the older type. 
 J sat down after a cricket match to afternoon tea
 
 132 NORTH INDIA 
 
 in an undergraduate's rooms in Aligarh, and could 
 almost have imagined myself back in Cambridge. 
 The talk, the manner, the very furniture and 
 pictures were Western. The staff itself is also 
 predominantly from the West even the Professor 
 of Arabic is a European. I met three or four 
 old University acquaintances who do all their 
 work in English, and are there for the purpose of 
 teaching English manners and customs. There 
 is a large mosque, attendance at which is parallel 
 to college chapels. The more thoughtful and 
 progressive of the college students with whom I 
 talked were in sympathy with the " New Islam," 
 though one who interested me most remained 
 a strictly orthodox Mussulman. 
 
 A recent writer on Pan-Islam, in a leading 
 Indian review, ends a long and extremely interest- 
 ing article as follows : " There is already harmony 
 in belief existing between the Jews and Mussul- 
 mans. Between a Unitarian Christian and a 
 Mussulman there is still less difference. So these 
 three world religions can be united without much 
 difficulty." Briefly stated, the new Islam seeks 
 to establish that Mohammedanism is simple, non- 
 miraculous, and undogmatic, and that it contains 
 only one fundamental article of belief, namely,
 
 THE PANJAB AND ISLAM 133 
 
 the unity of GOD as declared by Mohammed. It 
 attacks Christianity as irrational, unscientific, and 
 dogmatic, and proclaims its own freedom from 
 dogma and superstition. It is willing to regard 
 the injunctions of the Prophet as to social and 
 family relations as suited to the age when the 
 religion appeared, and not necessarily of ultimate 
 authority. This is very different from the spirit 
 of the last generation, and it is little wonder that 
 maulvis of the older type regard Aligarh with 
 disfavour. Yet every year the great college 
 grows in popularity, and the proposal is con- 
 tinually brought forward that it should be con- 
 verted into a University. 
 
 Where all this will end time alone will show. 
 The new Islam will not spread very rapidly in 
 India, as education is most backward in the 
 Mohammedan community as a whole. In our 
 own Delhi College, for instance, at one of the 
 greatest Mohammedan centres, the old capital 
 of the Moghul empire, our Christian students 
 already outnumber the Mussulman. The edu- 
 cation of Mohammedan girls is at a standstill, 
 while over seventy per cent, of our Christian 
 girls can read and write. Yet even with so 
 small a percentage of education, bigotry is dying
 
 134 NORTH INDIA 
 
 down, and the new Islam is spreading. I have 
 heard the latest modern textual criticism quoted 
 against the Christian Faith in the Bickersteth 
 Hall at Delhi, and the attack highly approved 
 by maulvis of the old school, who little realize 
 that such criticism applied rigidly to Islam would 
 undermine their own position. 
 
 The whole atmosphere in the large cities of the 
 Panjab is changed from the famous time when the 
 present Bishop of Lahore, Dr. Lefroy, used to with- 
 stand abuse and clamour and could hardly get a 
 hearing. The hard dogmatism of Islam is depart- 
 ing, and there seems little positive religion to take 
 its place among the younger generation. I would 
 repeat, the movement will not spread very rapidly, 
 and the old type of Mohammedan controversy, 
 such as Dr. Imad ud Din's books represent, has still 
 its part to play in India ; but it is time that the 
 new Mohammedan theories were met, and a clear 
 and candid apologetic of Christianity were written 
 on modern lines. In this high missionary work 
 scholars at home could render invaluable service. 
 
 Islam has a great contribution to make to the 
 Christian Church. No one who has met the high 
 type of Mohammedan gentlemen who have been 
 brought up in the best Mohammedan traditions,
 
 THE PANJAB AND ISLAM 135 
 
 can have failed to be struck by their nobility 
 of character and natural dignity. Two of my 
 greatest friends in Delhi are Mohammedans of 
 the old scholarly type. They have shown me, a 
 Christian missionary, every kindness and courtesy, 
 and have given me their confidence and friendship. 
 They have given me, what is more, a new idea of 
 the power of Islam at its best in moulding character 
 and creating an atmosphere of reverence. The 
 great strength in life which comes from' an ordered 
 day and month and year in which GOD is ever 
 remembered, and His worship is a first and fore- 
 most duty that godliness which we are in danger 
 of neglecting amid the rush and hurry of the 
 West is a very great and real treasure which 
 we need to regain within the Church.
 
 136 NORTH INDIA 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 AMRITSAR AND THE SIKHS 
 
 "ZDTMRITSAR, with its " pool of immortality" 
 <v/* J - and "golden temple," has been for many 
 generations past the centre of the Sikh religion. 
 This religious movement, which attempted a puri- 
 fication of Hinduism from within by discarding 
 idolatry and obeying a noble code of precepts 
 left by its founder Guru Nanak, is still one of the 
 strongest purifying forces in the North, though it 
 is not advancing numerically. The old beautiful 
 spirit of the early gurus (religious teachers) still 
 lingers, and the passion for union with the divine 
 is not unfrequently met with. The high breeding 
 and chivalry of a military race has left its mark, 
 and there is an air of nobility and distinction 
 among the Sikhs which is unmistakable. 
 
 There is a story told by Kharak Singh in his 
 own words which may present in a vivid form 
 what type of men the Sikhs are, and what a 
 treasure of fervour and devotion they may bring
 
 AMRITSAR AND THE SIKHS 137 
 
 within the Church of CHRIST. " My grandfather," 
 he relates, " was one of the chieftains who helped 
 to raid Delhi. At one time an elephant, mad- 
 dened with drink, with a naked sword tied 
 to its trunk, was sent by the enemy into the 
 Sikh camp. My grandfather attacked the 
 infuriated beast, and cut off its trunk, and 
 gained the name ' Ganesh Mar,' elephant slayer. 
 All my family have been soldiers for many 
 generations. 
 
 " When I was a boy I determined to go and 
 seek after GOD. I ran away from home, but after 
 two years' wandering my father brought me back 
 and forcibly married me to a wife, who was then a 
 child of seven. But I ran away again, and began 
 to practise yoga (asceticism). I practised stopping 
 my breath : it took me three years to learn how 
 to do this properly, but I became so weak that 
 if I sat down I could not rise, and I often fainted. 
 I had one helper with me, a boy sadhu, who also 
 practised yoga. But 1 found no nearness to GOD. 
 I then went on to Benares, and the longing for 
 salvation became so intense that I practised night 
 and day. I believed at this time in the sacred- 
 ness of the Ganges. I followed Hindu ascetics, 
 and ceased to read the Sikh Scriptures. Twice
 
 138 NORTH INDIA 
 
 over I tried to drown myself in the Ganges, 
 hoping in that way to obtain salvation, but some- 
 thing prevented. I sometimes saw the Christian 
 padres in the bazaar, but I despised them as 
 stupid foreigners. I then wandered to Kashmir, 
 still restless and unsatisfied, and became the 
 disciple of Harjas. The Maharajah used to 
 come to him night after night and worship him, 
 and wash his feet and drink part of the water, 
 and ask him questions : ' What is the soul ? ' 
 ' Where am I going to ? ' ' What will happen after 
 death ? ' 
 
 " When the Mutiny broke out I enlisted, and 
 brought a hundred men from the hills to fight 
 against the mutineers. Two medals were given 
 me, one for saving an officer's life. My com- 
 manding officer used to let me off parades in 
 order that I might go on with my search for 
 GOD. I met with many Europeans during this 
 time, but none of them spoke to me about re- 
 ligion. The first person from whom I heard 
 of CHRIST was the Rev. Nehemiah Nilakantha 
 Goreh. When I heard him, the spirit of oppo- 
 sition was stirred up in me, and I purchased a 
 New Testament in the bazaar for eightpence. 
 As I read through S. Matthew's Gospel, there
 
 AMRITSAR AND THE SIKHS 139 
 
 was one verse that exactly suited my case. It 
 was, ' Come unto Me all ye that labour and are 
 heavy laden, and I will give you rest : for My 
 yoke is easy, and My burden is light.' I went 
 now to Mr. Clark, of Amritsar, and yielded myself 
 to the teaching of CHRIST. I was baptized when 
 I was fifty-two years old, and Mrs. Elmslie was 
 my godmother. But my heart was not yet 
 settled, and I did not truly understand the 
 divinity of CHRIST. I looked upon Him rather 
 as a great Guru. 
 
 " It was at this time I met again Swami 
 Dayanand, the founder of the Arya Samaj. I 
 had met him before, when he and I were both 
 fakirs. He told me I had mistaken the mean- 
 ing of the Vedas, and bade me practise yoga 
 once more in order to attain salvation. For a 
 time I followed him, and became an Arya, and 
 the Christians left me. I continued secretly to 
 read the Bible, and at nights, when the day was 
 over, I was continually full of sorrow and distress 
 and restlessness of spirit. One night, when I was 
 in great agony of mind, I happened to be reading 
 Psalm li, and the agony of repentance for my 
 sins became very great indeed. Then suddenly 
 I thought I heard the words spoken out loud to
 
 140 NORTH INDIA 
 
 me, ' Believe on Him Whom I have sent.' The 
 words were so clear, just as if some one quite near 
 was speaking to me. All at once I was filled 
 with joy and peace. It was about two o'clock 
 in the morning. I was so overjoyed that I ran 
 into the inner chamber to tell my wife, and we 
 rejoiced together." 
 
 Pandit Kharak Singh was ordained by Bishop 
 French at his last Ordination. He continued his 
 wandering life, undergoing innumerable hardships 
 even in his old age, and preached the Gospel from 
 Peshawar and Kashmir to Benares, meeting con- 
 stantly with his old fakir companions and plead- 
 ing with them. He was helped with food and 
 hospitality on his journeyings by Hindus and 
 Sikhs as well as by Christians. In his later years 
 he came into great trouble through marrying a 
 young wife who promised to share his wanderings 
 and help him in his missionary tours. She proved 
 unfaithful to him, and he deeply repented of his 
 folly. But he never ceased, from the day of his 
 conversion onwards, to have faith in CHRIST, and 
 to preach His Name, enduring trials and suffer- 
 ings which would have killed many a younger 
 man. He died, at the age of seventy-eight, 
 on February 5, 1900, one who in a most true
 
 AMRITSAR AND THE SIKHS 141 
 
 sense was a pioneer missionary of the Indian 
 Church. 
 
 Robert Clark, who had the privilege of baptizing 
 both I mad ud Din and Kharak Singh, and was 
 perhaps the most famous missionary in the Panjab 
 for length of service and energy of work, died in 
 the same year, 1900. He came out in 1851, and 
 for some time made Amritsar his headquarters. 
 After that he went, at the imminent risk of his 
 life, to preach with Dr. Pfander in the bazaar of 
 Peshawar. Later still he began the new mis- 
 sionary work in Kashmir, where he met with 
 difficulties and opposition from the Maharajah. 
 Clark was a born statesman and organizer, and 
 very soon the organization of the C.M.S. work 
 in the whole province came into his hands. 
 Almost every Mission in the Panjab bears his 
 mark upon it, and he seemed to be ubiquitous 
 and never-tiring in his fifty years of incessant 
 labour. His mind was of the strong and some- 
 what narrow Evangelical type, and he had little 
 of the refined idealism and devotion to the his- 
 toric Church of Bishop French. But he was 
 eminently practical, and an outspoken and coura- 
 geous evangelist. His name is still remembered 
 in Amritsar, Peshawar, and Lahore by Hindus,
 
 142 NORTH INDIA 
 
 Mohammedans, and Sikhs, and the Christian 
 village of Clarkabad preserves his memory by 
 its designation. 
 
 With Amritsar the name of A.L.O.E. is in- 
 timately associated. Miss Tucker (to give her 
 real name) came out at the age of fifty-four, and 
 spent the remaining eighteen years of her mis- 
 sionary life in Amritsar and Batala. Her in- 
 fluence among the boys in the Baring High 
 School (a school for Indian Christian gentlemen's 
 children) gave to many of them an ideal of refine- 
 ment and chivalry which had a marked effect 
 upon their character. She was a kind of mother 
 to the boys, inspiring them with school patriotism 
 by writing for them " Batala songs " and setting 
 before them the missionary vocation. Many of 
 the present clergy of the Panjab are old Batala 
 students. Her life is a wonderful example of 
 what a powerful missionary influence a highly- 
 educated Christian lady may have in India, even 
 though she come out late in life to a strange 
 climate and new surroundings. With her memory 
 in Amritsar is also associated the name of a 
 widow lady, Mrs. Elmslie, of whom Miss Tucker 
 wrote : " She is one of a million. Tall, fair, 
 graceful, with a face that Ary Scheffer might
 
 AMRITSAR AND THE SIKHS 143 
 
 have chosen, her soul seemed to correspond to 
 her external appearance. Saintly as she was, 
 she was not at all gloomy : she tried to make all 
 happy, and was business-like and practical." She 
 was the niece of the famous hymn-writer, Dr. 
 Horatius Bonar. 
 
 No sketch of Amritsar and the Sikhs would be 
 complete without reference to Rowland Bateman. 
 I have come across many non-Christians and Chris- 
 tians who have known and loved him, and their 
 faces always light up as they speak about him. 
 He lived with Indians, worked with them, and 
 loved them with all his heart, and was never so 
 happy as when he was dwelling in Indian style, 
 with Indians round him and about him. Few 
 missionaries have made such evangelistic tours 
 as Bateman, living and sleeping in the mud huts 
 of the villages, and sharing the simple village life 
 wherever he went. No missionary could less be 
 mistaken for an English sahib. 
 
 Narowal, a small town about forty miles dis- 
 tant from Amritsar, has been in the past the 
 scene of a remarkable ingathering of very able, 
 educated men from the higher castes an in- 
 gathering which in a smaller way reproduced the 
 scene in Calcutta in the early days of Dr. Duff.
 
 144 NORTH INDIA 
 
 This was due in a very great measure to the 
 labours and influence of the Rev. Bhola Nath 
 Ghose, who was there with Mr. Bateman. Mr. 
 Ghose was a Bengali, with a very strong per- 
 sonality and ardent personal devotion to our 
 LORD. He was one of Dr. Duffs converts. At 
 the Baring High School, as head master, there was 
 for very many years another of Dr. Duffs con- 
 verts, Babu I. C. Singha, whose memory still 
 to-day is revered in Batala. 
 
 At the present time in a district not far from 
 Amritsar a movement is going on among the 
 Sikhs called the Prem Sangat, which may lead 
 to important results. I had the privilege of 
 hearing Miss Bose, an Indian Christian doctor, 
 who has been many years at work there, telling 
 the story in Lahore, how all direct opposition 
 among the Sikhs in many villages had passed 
 away, and how at a large gathering of the Prem 
 Sangat one after another of the Sikh village 
 chiefs had stood up and declared that JESUS 
 CHRIST was the true Guru. It is early days 
 yet to express any confident expectation as to 
 what may be the end, but the movement is so 
 entirely of the people, and carried on by the 
 people, that it stirs the heart to hear about it.
 
 AMRITSAR AND THE SIKHS 145 
 
 A personal reminiscence may end this short 
 chapter. I had living near me one of the Mazhabi 
 Sikhs (a body of Sikhs who at one time nearly 
 became Christians), one of the most faithful and 
 religious men I have ever seen. He had little 
 intelligence, and belonged to the lowest servant 
 class called "sweepers," but was the very soul 
 of piety. At one time I found him harbouring 
 a little English boy who had run away and was 
 terribly frightened and hungry. His devotion 
 to animals was extraordinary. They were his 
 daily friends and companions, and he had a won- 
 derful tenderness with them. Every morning, 
 long before sunrise, he would be seated outside 
 his hut chanting his prayers, sometimes snatches 
 of a Christian hymn appearing in the midst of 
 his Sikh devotions. He said one day, " Sahib, 
 the dogs begin to bark very early in the morn- 
 ing, and the birds to sing before I start to say 
 my own prayers ; they are praying and singing 
 to GOD just as we do ourselves."
 
 146 NORTH INDIA 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE FRONTIER MISSIONS 
 
 *"KJ)ERHAPS there is nowhere to be found in 
 ~^~ the modern mission-field a nobler pioneer 
 work undertaken by laymen, than that of the 
 opening up of the North Panjab to missionary 
 influences in the middle of the nineteenth century. 
 Before even the country was settled, while still 
 fanaticism was ready to blaze forth at any moment, 
 invitations came in from civil and military leaders, 
 who were devoted Christians, to " enter in and 
 possess the land " for CHRIST. Even beyond their 
 power they offered willingly for the carrying on 
 of the work, and more than one became himself a 
 missionary. 
 
 In 1849, the Government of the Panjab was 
 in the hands of the famous triumvirate, Henry and 
 John Lawrence, and Robert Montgomery. With 
 them were associated a body of earnest younger 
 men: Cust and Temple, Thornton and McLeod, 
 Napier and Nicholson, Edwardes and Reynell
 
 THE FRONTIER MISSIONS 147 
 
 Taylor. These performed such brilliant achieve- 
 ments in righteous and sympathetic administra- 
 tion, that when the Mutiny came, it was from the 
 Panjab that the troops were mustered which saved 
 the situation. 
 
 Without in any way interfering with the reli- 
 gious liberties of those under them, these civilians 
 and officers showed themselves fearless and out- 
 spoken Christians in all their undertakings. The 
 Mohammedans, Hindus, and Sikhs honoured them 
 all the more for being true to their own religious 
 convictions. They opened with their own funds 
 Mission after Mission, and if only the Church at 
 home had been able at the right time to give the 
 men, the Panjab mission-field would be different 
 to-day. 
 
 The scene at Peshawar in 1853, is typical ot 
 those wonderful days of Christian lay enthusiasm. 
 Edwardes arrived as the new Commissioner, 
 Colonel Mackeson his predecessor having just 
 been murdered. Major Martin called immedi- 
 ately after his arrival, and asked for leave to 
 establish a Christian Mission. " Certainly," was 
 Edwardes' reply, " summon a meeting, and I will 
 preside." Martin was so overcome with joy, that 
 he fell on his knees in the room, and poured out
 
 148 NORTH INDIA 
 
 his heart in praise to GOD. The meeting was 
 held in Edwardes' house. Robert Clark, who was 
 the chief speaker, notes how the marks of the 
 blood of the late Commissioner were still visible 
 on the pillars of the door. One sentence from 
 Edwardes' address should be remembered : 
 
 " I say clearly, I have no fear that the establish- 
 ment of a Christian Mission in Peshawar will 
 disturb the peace : we may be quite sure that 
 we are much safer if we do our duty, than if we 
 neglect it, and that He Who brought us here with 
 His own right arm, will shield and bless us, if in 
 simple reliance upon Him we try to do His will." 
 
 The response of the small English community 
 was extraordinary. Three thousand pounds were 
 collected on the spot, and everything needed for 
 the equipment of the Mission was also undertaken. 
 Martin himself retired from military service, and 
 became one of the first three missionaries. Robert 
 Clark and Dr. Pfander, were the two others. 
 Dr. Pfander started his work by preaching in the 
 central bazaar of Peshawar, at the imminent risk of 
 his life, and the other two joined him. Day by day 
 he bore witness. Many times he was warned by 
 leading Mohammedans that he would be killed, 
 but his life was wonderfully preserved.
 
 MISSION CHURCH, PESHAWAR. 
 
 To face page 149.
 
 THE FRONTIER MISSIONS 149 
 
 Peshawar to-day is still the most turbulent and 
 fanatical town in India. Looting goes on from 
 time to time, and officers are murdered, but for 
 more than fifty years the missionaries' lives have 
 been kept safe, and the opposition to the Name 
 of CHRIST in the city itself has been partly broken 
 down by patient, loving, medical and educational 
 work. 
 
 One of the brighest and happiest memories I 
 have in India is that of a visit to Peshawar. 
 I went first to the beautiful church one of the 
 most beautiful and " Eastern " in India where I 
 saw the arrangements which had been made to 
 avoid giving offence to Mohammedan converts 
 and inquirers. Then Dr. Lankester took me to 
 the hospital. This is built on the great high-road 
 along which all caravans from the interior pass 
 into the city. The sight in the courtyard of the 
 hospital was one never to be forgotten the crowd 
 of patients and their friends with every type 
 of dress and racial characteristic, varying from 
 the white Central Asian to the dark Mongolian, 
 from the fierce black-bearded Afghan to the quiet 
 brown-bearded Kashmiri, from the pale sallow 
 Persian to the dark sun-burnt Panjabi. Some 
 were fanatical mullahs, now quiet and restrained ;
 
 150 NORTH INDIA 
 
 others were wild border tribesmen, with sword- 
 cuts received in tribal feuds, waiting to be healed 
 in order to go back and fight again ; others were 
 patient, simple village people, who had come with 
 their whole family, on the backs of camels and 
 mules, down the steep passes. 
 
 One was there, very different from the rest, 
 a tall man, whose face had received the most 
 ghastly sword cut wounds I have ever seen, and 
 who followed Dr. Lankester about as he went 
 his rounds. When I glanced at him from time 
 to time, he pointed to his own face, and then 
 to the doctor with a look of dumb gratitude 
 that was more than touching. I asked after- 
 wards about him, and found that he had come 
 from a remote region called Kafiristan. The 
 word means " Infidel Land," and, by some strange 
 unrecorded history, the people in that moun- 
 tainous district to the North-West of Kashmir, 
 have never become Mohammedan, while every 
 tribe around them has done so. They have 
 remained to this day Kafirs or " Infidels." Some 
 have thought that they represent an old, almost 
 obliterated Christian community, sunk back into 
 semi-heathenism. Now they are being forced to 
 embrace Islam at the point of the sword. The
 
 THE FRONTIER MISSIONS 151 
 
 following was the poor man's story : " When 
 Amir Habibullah came to the throne, the great 
 chiefs were ready for an insurrection, but the 
 Amir in order to pacify them, allowed the mullahs 
 to preach a jehad (religious war) against Kafiristan. 
 They came sweeping down on us for plunder and 
 massacre. I was cut down and lay unconscious, 
 with a dead body covering me. When I woke I 
 found that the whole village had been put to the 
 sword, and the Afghans had gone forward. I 
 crept out, weak as I was, and found my way 
 across the mountains here, where the Doctor 
 Sahib has saved my life." 
 
 I heard many other such stories during my visit, 
 and went up the grim mountain passes looking out 
 towards lands as yet unreached, and at present 
 unreachable, except by means of these our hospi- 
 tals. A line of medical Missions now stretches 
 from Kotgur in the East, to Quetta in the West. 
 I wish I had space to tell of Neve and his work 
 in Srinagar, and Pennell in Bannu two of the 
 noblest living missionaries in India. These and 
 others like them are doing each in his own 
 way the same work that Lankester is doing at 
 Peshawar a work that is surely preparing a 
 highway into Central Asia in the future. They
 
 NORTH INDIA 
 
 are men with a vision the vision of Henry 
 Martyn, and Heber, and French, and Maxwell 
 Gordon. As one watches them one knows that 
 the chivalry of Missions has not died away. 
 
 There is a report widely current this year that 
 an Indian Christian has crossed the frontier, and 
 openly preached the message of CHRIST in 
 Afghanistan, and has been detained and im- 
 prisoned. Whether it be true to-day or no, there 
 can be little doubt that in the near future, with 
 the National Missionary Movement spreading in 
 the North, and the higher ideal of missionary work 
 gaining ground in the Indian Church, some Indian 
 Christian will soon pierce through the barrier that 
 no Englishman can pass, and young India will 
 show the glorious heroism of faith. Afghanistan, 
 from which so constantly in Indian history, fierce 
 raids have been made down the passes to plunder 
 and to kill, may in its turn be conquered through 
 the same passes by the greatest of all conquests 
 the victory of the Gospel of Peace. 
 
 If this book meet the eye of any Indian Chris- 
 tian in the North, may it quicken in him the 
 thought that Afghanistan will be Christian India's 
 special and unique opportunity a work of evan- 
 gelization left for the sons of India to accomplish ;
 
 PADRE THOMAS EDWARDS. 
 
 To face page 153.
 
 THE FRONTIER MISSIONS 153 
 
 and may we offer up one longing prayer to GOD 
 that the true nobility of self-sacrifice may be 
 found burning brightly in the Indian Church 
 when the time arrives for action ! 
 
 I will take one more scene from another of 
 these Frontier Missions. Kotgur lies fifty miles 
 north of Simla, on the road to Tibet, with the 
 snow -peaks rising high beyond it. In early 
 days it had been an outpost in the Gurkha wars, 
 and there are still signs of cantonments, though 
 now no armed garrison is needed, for the whole 
 interior is peaceful. The Mission work was started 
 by the generosity of a civilian, named Mr. Gorton, 
 and an officer, Captain Jackson, and is an offshoot 
 of the Simla Mission in which Padre Thomas 
 Edwards carried on a devoted work for many 
 years, respected alike by Indian and European. 
 Last year I walked out from Simla with the 
 Bishop of Lahore, who was to hold at Kotgur 
 a Confirmation. On the way we passed the 
 shrines of the different gods and goddesses. 
 The hill folk are steeped in superstition, and 
 very backward ; each hill-top or corner is sup- 
 posed to be inhabited by some demon : cries 
 and shouts and beatings of gongs were heard 
 from time to time betokening their worship: we
 
 154 NORTH INDIA 
 
 passed a great tree which was still famous as 
 the scene of the last human sacrifice. Then 
 suddenly beneath us we saw the little Christian 
 church with its cross and wooden belfry, and 
 heard the children's voices singing a Christian 
 hymn. The peacefulness of the scene, and the 
 sense of the sweet beauty of our Christian Faith 
 in the midst of the gross heathenism all around, 
 were beyond description. 
 
 The missionaries were an aged white-bearded 
 German pastor and his wife, whose presence 
 seemed in keeping with the rest of the picture. 
 The next morning, Sunday, the village Christians 
 were up early, and standing in the sunshine out- 
 side the church they greeted the Bishop as he 
 drew near. The rain was past, and the air was 
 the purest translucent blue. The service was 
 very quiet. The old German pastor played the 
 music very softly, and led the singing through- 
 out. The candidates, all in white, came up one 
 by one to receive the gift, the last being a young 
 Sikh convert of noble parentage, who had given 
 up all for CHRIST, in order to live with a young 
 American Churchman the ascetic life. His face 
 was shining with strong determination and bright 
 energy as the Bishop shook hands with him after
 
 THE FRONTIER MISSIONS 155 
 
 the service and wished him GOD-speed. He was 
 very humble and quiet, but full of earnestness, 
 and devoted to his young American brother. 
 Later in the year I met the two together in the 
 plague-camp at Lahore, sleeping on the bare 
 ground, and nursing, in turn, a little Rajput lad 
 from the mountains, who was dying of confluent 
 smallpox. In the summer the two go away 
 together far into the interior, sometimes tending 
 the lepers, sometimes passing on to the borders 
 of Tibet. They go barefooted and bareheaded, 
 wearing the ochre-coloured sadhu's dress, and 
 they are received and listened to with reverence. 
 On our return journey we climbed up the hill- 
 side to Bereri, where Mrs. Bates (" a succourer 
 of many and of me also ") has nursed back to 
 health and strength many a tired missionary. 
 From thence we ascended the highest peak in 
 the district to gain a full view of the snows. 
 Before we could reach the top the clouds had 
 descended, and the distant view was blotted 
 out. We stood there in the mist all alone, 
 and were saying Mattins together. We had 
 come to the verses in the Te Deum " The 
 noble army of martyrs praise Thee : the holy 
 Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge
 
 156 NORTH INDIA 
 
 Thee " when the mists suddenly separated, and, 
 towering high above us, covered in eternal snow, 
 the mountains of Tibet seemed almost to loom 
 over us, a steep pathway of dazzling light leading 
 from us to them across the clouds. We paused 
 involuntarily, and watched till the clouds rolled 
 back once more, and then went on : " Thou art 
 the King of Glory, O CHRIST." As we said the 
 words the thoughts of both of us were in that 
 far-off land which we had seen for the moment 
 in its pure natural beauty, so impenetrable, a land 
 where CHRIST'S glory has not yet shed its light ; 
 and we prayed with greater earnestness the mis- 
 sionary prayer of the Indian Church, that all 
 people might feel after and find their heavenly 
 FATHER, and His Spirit be outpoured upon all 
 flesh.
 
 THE INDIAN POINT OF VIEW 157 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE INDIAN POINT OF VIEW 
 
 are changing with great rapidity in 
 North India, and our present missionary 
 methods are coming under a fire of criticism 
 which cannot but be purifying and enlightening, 
 if we are humble enough to learn what is wrong. 
 
 Missionary work developed in the North when 
 the power and prestige of the English was 
 strongest, when Indians themselves, conscious of 
 their own weakness, were startled by the strength 
 of the West. To learn English, to read English 
 literature, to follow English manners, was for a 
 time the prevailing fashion, and the education 
 that was given encouraged the fashion to the 
 uttermost. At such a time it was very difficult 
 for English missionaries to see the danger of 
 a reaction ahead. Everything seemed working 
 with them towards the spread of the Faith as 
 they themselves understood it and had learnt 
 it. Almost universally they went with the tide,
 
 158 NORTH INDIA 
 
 and made everything round them English in 
 their turn. They built Gothic churches of a 
 debased English pattern, they introduced all the 
 Western accretions into the services of worship ; 
 they gave the English Prayer Book, rubrics and 
 all ; they established Mission work on English 
 lines, and followed English models. There were 
 of course, exceptional men, such as some of those 
 whose lives have been sketched in earlier pages, 
 who were original and un-English in their methods, 
 men like Father O'Neill and French and Bate- 
 man. But the current was generally too strong, 
 and the evil of Westernizing tendencies was in 
 many cases active before the consequences were 
 realized. 
 
 The groove, therefore, was cut, the system was 
 made, and new efforts have nearly all gone to cut 
 the groove deeper and perpetuate the system. 
 Yet, both theoretically and practically, the system 
 stands condemned. 
 
 Theoretically, the whole trend of modern edu- 
 cational thought is towards growth from within, 
 rather than imposition of ideas from without. It 
 would not be too much to say that the theory of 
 education has been revolutionized in the last thirty 
 years. The first study of the teacher now is the
 
 THE INDIAN POINT OF VIEW 159 
 
 pupil. This, translated into missionary language, 
 would mean that the missionary (who is neces- 
 sarily a teacher) must study the Indian point of 
 view from the first, and get into the Indian atmo- 
 sphere before he can teach. There is a vernacular 
 of thought and habit and temper to be learnt, as 
 well as a vernacular language. 
 
 Practically, the old Anglicizing system stands 
 condemned by its results. Some of our con- 
 verts have become so " English " that they refuse 
 to go to Hindustani services : some, owing to 
 temptations of worldly advancement, are will- 
 ing to sell their birthright for a mess of pottage, 
 and pass off as Eurasians 1 : many, on the other 
 hand, of our best Indian Christians have been so 
 repelled by the rapid denationalization which has 
 taken place that they hold aloof from mission 
 circles altogether, and lead an independent life 
 of their own. Those who formerly went furthest 
 in copying the missionary's English ways have 
 gone in some cases to the extremest lengths of 
 reaction. One of the ablest of our Indian Chris- 
 
 1 By so doing they obtain a higher grade of pay. 
 Though the Volunteer Companies in India are not open 
 to any without English blood, there are many Indian 
 Christians in the ranks.
 
 160 NORTH INDIA 
 
 tians gave me once his own experience. " Eight 
 years ago I despised my own countrymen ; my 
 education and upbringing in the Mission made 
 me do so. I was seriously thinking at one time 
 of adding another name, such as ' Brown/ to my 
 Indian name, and passing off as a Eurasian. 
 Now I can hardly bear to look back upon that 
 period without a deep sense of shame." 
 
 Looking from the Indian point of view, another 
 factor needs to be taken into account. The mis- 
 sionary is not only a Western, but a Sahib. Let 
 me dwell on this point, for it is not adequately 
 realized in England what the position of an 
 Englishman in India is, and what impression he 
 makes upon the people. I shall not soon forget 
 the strangeness of my first few days in Delhi 
 the policeman saluting, the people salaaming, the 
 Indian soldier standing at attention, every one 
 making way. I thought at first it was all directed 
 towards my companion, who was well known in 
 Delhi. But no ! all was exactly the same when 
 I was alone. It was due to the simple fact that 
 I was a Sahib. 
 
 The Englishman is of the ruling race, and 
 every Englishman is called " Sahib." He is 
 given the front seat and the first place as a
 
 THE INDIAN POINT OF VIEW 161 
 
 matter of course. A thousand little privileges are 
 his for the asking. The number of English is 
 very small indeed. Each one, in most cities, is 
 a marked man as he goes down the street, and 
 very much like a small squire or noble in an 
 English country town. To come from compara- 
 tive insignificance and unimportance in England 
 into such a position, is bad for most men ; and 
 Englishmen would have been more than human 
 if they had not, in a large number of cases, 
 succumbed to the temptation either of arrogance 
 or of patronizing superiority. The latter is now 
 more often the spirit which prevails ; it is often 
 kindly and well-meaning, but it is none the less 
 galling to the modern critical Indian. He feels 
 continually, whether rightly or wrongly, that the 
 Sahib is looking down upon him as an inferior, 
 and when he is sensitive he watches for every 
 sign of a slight, and magnifies it into an insult. 
 It is impossible to go into detail : I only wish 
 to give the general Indian impression. It might 
 not unfairly be summed up under four heads : 
 the Sahib is (i) a foreigner, (ii) influential, (iii) 
 overbearing, (iv) patronizing. 
 
 Into this class and rank of " Sahib " the mis- 
 sionary comes on his arrival. Outwardly, when 
 
 M
 
 1 62 NORTH INDIA 
 
 he lives outside the city in the English quarters, 
 there is little difference between himself and the 
 Government official. The air of the great British 
 Raj clings about him, and even if he is not 
 regarded as an actual official, he is a Sahib all 
 the same, who can influence Government, and he 
 receives the treatment of a Sahib from every 
 Indian who meets him. 
 
 It will be seen at a glance that this is a position 
 of extraordinary danger for one who is to repre- 
 sent the poverty and humility of CHRIST, to live 
 the life of the Crucified, to imitate Him Who 
 came " not to be ministered unto, but to minister." 
 Yet the position of a " Sahib " in the past has 
 been almost forced upon the missionary. . In 
 earlier days the new spirit of independence had 
 not come among Indians themselves : there was 
 little or no national feeling : there was very much 
 dependence and acquiescence in the Englishman's 
 claims. The missionary, coming out to those 
 whom he looked upon as heathen of a degraded 
 type (for bad missionary theology has also much 
 to answer for) assumed, almost without thinking, 
 the air of a superiority which was so readily 
 granted, and caught the prevailing Anglo- Indian 
 tone. He used his influence with Government
 
 THE INDIAN POINT OF VIEW 163 
 
 to the full to obtain privileges and grants ; he 
 became linked in a hundred ways with the ruling 
 class ; he lived very often in the English quarters ; 
 and though he might have none of the over- 
 bearing nature of the Sahib, and little of his 
 patronizing spirit, still his position was open to 
 fatal misunderstandings, and only exceptional 
 men were able to make clear, in such surround- 
 ings, the Christian ideal. The missionaries who 
 won the Indian heart, and were looked upon as 
 saintly men, were those who broke free from 
 Anglo-Indian influences and lived the Indian life, 
 or those who lived in country districts among 
 the country people where an Englishman was 
 very rarely seen, and the Sahib spirit was little 
 known. 
 
 It must be remembered in this connection that 
 the Indian has his own very strong conceptions 
 of the form of life a religious man ought to 
 lead. His ideal is renunciation. It is true that 
 the ideal has become lowered in modern, popu- 
 lar Hinduism. Crowds of so-called sadhus, or 
 ascetics, who are supposed to have renounced the 
 world, are mere professional beggars, who make 
 a trade out of the religious idealism of the people. 
 But in spite of numberless travesties, the ideal
 
 164 NORTH INDIA 
 
 still holds, and stories of genuine renunciation 
 are by no means uncommon. That true religion 
 means renunciation remains perhaps the strongest 
 religious instinct both among educated and un- 
 educated Indians of all creeds. The lives, already 
 told, of such different men as Father Goreh and 
 Dr. Imad ud Din and Pandit Kharak Singh will 
 show the English reader how strong the instinct 
 is. Here is an "Indian point of view" which 
 must never be forgotten. 
 
 The following incident may now be understood 
 and appreciated, and may bring home the picture 
 of what Indians are really thinking. I was, in 
 a city in North India, going out to pay a call 
 in company with an Indian gentleman. As we 
 walked along we talked about Christianity and 
 its ideals. Just then a Sahib drove by in a trap, 
 with a groom seated behind. The crowd scat- 
 tered before him, and the policeman saluted in 
 military style. " Look," said the Indian gentle- 
 man to me as he drew me aside, " there is your 
 Christianity driving along ! That Sahib is the 
 missionary of this place, and that is his position, 
 and that is how he goes to his work. Come with 
 me a little further." We came at last to a Hindu 
 ascetic who was seated on the bare ground with
 
 THE INDIAN POINT OF VIEW 165 
 
 a group of followers round him. " There," he 
 said, " is our ideal. That is our religion. There 
 are many frauds and beggars living that life, I 
 know, but that is a true sadhu, and people would 
 come miles to worship such a one. I will tell 
 you a story which is true. There lives in this 
 city a gentleman who has taken a high medical 
 degree. Missionaries, such as the Sahib there 
 who drove by in his carriage, would regard him 
 as having no religion, and would call him a 
 heathen ; in one sense they would not be far 
 wrong, as he is not a religious man ; yet I know 
 for a fact that, when the religious longing comes 
 upon him, he goes out night after night and sits 
 at the feet of that sadhu, to find some satisfaction 
 for the inner craving of his Hindu nature. Are 
 you going to satisfy the spiritual longings of the 
 East by bustling activity, great buildings, riding 
 about in carriages in European style, living like 
 a Sahib, and presenting an ideal which we regard 
 as unspiritual ? Come and speak to us in our 
 own religious language. Come and show us a 
 vision of religion such as we can understand, and 
 then we will hear you. But you will never win 
 us so long as you remain Sahibs ! " 
 
 It was easy, of course, to see the partial fallacy
 
 1 66 NORTH INDIA 
 
 in the implied contrast, and to point out that 
 bustling activity might really be spiritual, and 
 that good works were recognized in every reli- 
 gion. But even so the contrast made one wince 
 and begin to think hard about East and West, 
 and the need of a language for the Christian 
 religion in India " understanded of the people." 
 
 Let me give an extract from a singularly 
 kindly and sympathetic article in a leading 
 Indian review, which points the same moral : 
 " Looked at from the philanthropic and social 
 point of view, the missionary effort in India 
 deserves great consideration. But the missionary 
 is, after all, human. He is no exception to racial 
 prejudices. He lives and dies an Englishman at 
 heart, very little influenced by his Oriental sur- 
 roundings. He loses in consequence many oppor- 
 tunities of realizing the Eastern mind. The 
 Gospel of the Prophet of Nazareth that he brings 
 is like Eastern nectar in a Western bowl not 
 quite palatable therefore to Oriental taste. . . . 
 The Eastern ideal has been to dissociate wealth 
 and power from religious perfection. The sage, 
 or rishi, lives a life of poverty and spirituality. 
 Poverty is considered the most suitable environ- 
 ment for spiritual growth. CHRIST'S ideal was,
 
 THE INDIAN POINT OF VIEW 167 
 
 after all, the Eastern ideal ' Ye cannot serve 
 GOD and Mammon.' " 
 
 But I have not yet finished presenting the 
 anomalies of this strange land and the difficulties 
 in which the missionary is placed by his position. 
 The Panjab is predominantly military in its 
 English population. Five out of every six 
 Englishmen are soldiers. The military ideas' go 
 still further than those of the civilian as to the 
 status and dignity of a Sahib ; and a very definite 
 theory is held as to what is expected of every 
 Englishman in India, and in what manner English 
 position and prestige are to be maintained. The 
 atmosphere of the Panjab on its English side is 
 saturated with these ideas. Before I had been a 
 month in India, I had heard them till I knew 
 them by heart. They run somewhat as follows : 
 " Never, under any circumstances, give way to a 
 ' native,' or let him regard himself as your superior. 
 We only rule India in one way by upholding our 
 position. Though you are a missionary you must 
 be an Englishman first, and never forget that you 
 are a Sahib. You may do incalculable mischief if 
 you lower the dignity of an Englishman, by allow- 
 ing ' natives ' to treat you familiarly or take 
 liberties with you : they are the inferior race, and
 
 1 68 NORTH INDIA 
 
 we hold India by the sword. Be kindly by all 
 means, but always be on your guard, and do not 
 give away English prestige." 
 
 An atmosphere of such ideas, held by thousands 
 of Christians who are daily representing by their 
 conduct Christianity to Hindus, is an exceedingly 
 difficult one for missionary work. For we must, 
 as missionaries, reverse the whole position and 
 counteract the false impression of Christianity 
 given. We must continually " give way to the 
 native" if we are to show any humility worthy 
 of the Name of CHRIST ; we must try and lose 
 our " superiority," and become the servants of all, 
 if we are to follow CHRIST ; we must come to 
 India with the one wish in our hearts, to break 
 down all barriers of race, not to build them up. 
 It may be realized, therefore, how very difficult 
 the military atmosphere is for a missionary to 
 breathe. For the missionary is very human, with 
 warm English blood tingling in his veins ; and 
 the martial, conqueror's spirit, the pride of blood 
 and race, the clannish feeling, are very hard 
 to keep under due control, even when he comes 
 out as a minister of peace and good will. It is 
 true that the contradiction of ideas may be very 
 slight in the North-West among the fighting
 
 THE INDIAN POINT OF VIEW 169 
 
 races ; but among the Hindus the contradiction is 
 glaring, for their religious ideal is still deeply 
 tinged with Buddhism, which inculcates a tender- 
 ness towards all sentient creatures. 
 
 I remember taking one of our Delhi students 
 into Canterbury Cathedral ; when we came out, 
 I asked him for his opinion of its beauty. He 
 told me that one thing had so filled him with 
 horror that all other thoughts were obliterated, 
 and that was to see flags of war and bloodshed 
 set up, almost as it were for worship, in the 
 Temple of the Gospel of Peace. I was reading 
 the Beatitudes with another older student, and 
 when we had read the first three, he said to me, 
 " These are the very opposite of what we see 
 of Christianity in India ; the Englishman may 
 ' inherit the earth,' but he would never like to be 
 called 'meek'!" 
 
 Added to this, with the sensitiveness of an 
 intellectual nature, the Hindu resents intensely 
 the assumption of superiority on the basis of 
 material brute force, which the military atmo- 
 sphere implies ; and claims that religion should 
 be wholly separated from such assumptions. He 
 declares that Hindu hearts can be conquered by 
 a Buddha or by the patient, suffering, Oriental
 
 170 NORTH INDIA 
 
 CHRIST, but not by an Islam or a Western 
 Christianity brandishing the sword. 
 
 One further picture is needed, and then it will 
 be possible to speak of remedies. The criticism 
 is continually heard that the Christian commu- 
 nity in the North is denationalized and worldly. 
 About the former accusation something already 
 has been said, and it will come up again in the last 
 chapter. In the North, especially in the United 
 Provinces, there can be little question that the 
 criticism is not unfounded. But the latter accusa- 
 tion, that of " worldliness," is one that calls for 
 special notice. There is much that is wholly untrue 
 in such an accusation. I could point at once to 
 Christians, in every mission-station with which I 
 am familiar, who are the soul of unworldliness, 
 and they are not few in number. But there are 
 two predisposing causes, which have operated 
 most banefully in the past, and have created a 
 worldly atmosphere extremely difficult for the 
 growth and development of the higher Christian 
 character. 
 
 First of all, there has been the expensive stan- 
 dard of the European. The habits of India are 
 extremely simple, indeed one of the most beauti- 
 ful traits about the people is their simplicity of
 
 THE INDIAN POINT OF VIEW 171 
 
 life. But when a family becomes Christian in 
 the northern cities, this simplicity tends to dis- 
 appear. It seems impossible to check the process, 
 and there are certain compensations ; but the eager 
 pushing forward towards more material comforts 
 and expensive English habits, brings with it an 
 air of worldliness, and tends to deaden the ideal 
 of renunciation and self-sacrifice. It may be that 
 this is only a passing phase, but it is a painful 
 one. 
 
 The second cause is still more serious, and 
 could have been avoided, if the danger had been 
 more clearly seen at the outset. The paid "agent" 
 system within the Church has been carried to an 
 excess, with the consequence that voluntary self- 
 sacrifice has been checked. The temptation to 
 pauperize in India is very great indeed, for a new 
 convert is continually resourceless. Some post is 
 found for him in " mission employment," and he 
 becomes a paid " agent " of the Mission, though 
 often spiritually unfit. The consequence has been 
 a lowering of the standard of spiritual work. I 
 shall not forget my astonishment on hearing, at 
 the first Mission Council that I attended, such 
 phrases as " Oh ! So-and-so 's a twenty rupee 
 catechist," his character being marked, as it were,
 
 172 NORTH INDIA 
 
 by his monthly stipend. Wherever the blame lies, 
 there can be little doubt that the monetary idea 
 has crept in all through this side of our work, and 
 spiritual power seems to have gone out in pro- 
 portion. It was very noticeable how, in answer to 
 a series of questions which I sent to leading 
 missionaries of the Church in preparing this 
 chapter, the trouble which was most constantly 
 mentioned was the dearth of really spiritual cate- 
 chists. 
 
 As a result of this lowering of the spiritual 
 standard of our paid evangelists, the National 
 Missionary Movement in the Indian Church has 
 received but a cold welcome in many English 
 mission-stations. In one city the paid " agents " of 
 the Mission deliberately tried to strangle it at its 
 birth. In another a kind of boycott was attempted. 
 A missionary, who has been living the full life 
 of renunciation among the people of the land, 
 was received by these " agents " with a surprise 
 almost amounting to disdain. The height of his 
 sacrifice and devotion was unintelligible to them. 
 They evidently disliked it. Perhaps the most 
 noticeable fact is this, that in two mission-stations, 
 where the whole congregation of Christians is 
 made up of catechists, readers and teachers, who
 
 THE INDIAN POINT OF VIEW 173 
 
 are paid for doing evangelistic work, conversions 
 have been practically nil for many years. 
 
 The spirit spreads from the catechists to the 
 poorer Christians whom they teach. I received 
 a letter recently from an unknown Indian Chris- 
 tian, which, amid a good deal of abuse, concluded 
 as follows : " Missionaries should pay greater 
 attention to improve the position and prospects 
 of their own flock. That is their chief duty. I 
 entreat you never to appear as an advocate of 
 Hindus. It will be suicidal to your (sic] own 
 cause." Such a spirit as this has no missionary 
 value. It is clear that the ideal of renunciation 
 has to be built up within the Church as well as 
 expressed to those without. 
 
 It would be quite unfair and ungenerous to 
 mention this criticism of the Indian Christian 
 community and the missionary workers, without 
 referring to the far greater stumbling-block pre- 
 sented to thoughtful Hindus by Anglo- Indian 
 " worldliness." Here again there is much that 
 is wholly untrue in the general accusation. There 
 are many Anglo-Indians who are a pattern of 
 self-denial and good works ; and in famine times 
 there are no nobler helpers of the poor and 
 destitute than the Anglo-Indians who are on the
 
 174 NORTH INDIA 
 
 spot. Very many have sacrificed life itself in 
 ungrudging service. But side by side with this 
 must be placed the follies and extravagances of 
 the "Simla season," the constant balls, gymkhanas 
 and race-meetings of the cold weather in the 
 plains, the club-life with its round of gaiety and 
 luxury. This, in a country so desperately poor 
 as India, where millions upon millions are living 
 on the verge of starvation, and a single meal of 
 coarse grain each day is all that can be obtained, 
 this Anglo-Indian waste of wealth on personal 
 comforts is an " offence " to the Christian religion 
 that cannot easily be over-estimated. Indians ask 
 with reason, " Is this a religion of renunciation, 
 such as we in the East can understand ? " 
 
 I have given above, as far as possible without 
 exaggeration yet with candour, the Indian point 
 of view of the English missionary and his work its 
 dangers and its blemishes. Further aspects will 
 arise in the next chapter on " The National Move- 
 ment," and the two chapters really form one whole 
 picture of a change of thought and outlook, which 
 is affecting every side of Indian life. To put the 
 criticism into words which have been repeated to 
 me in many places by thoughtful non-Christians : 
 " The missionary is too much of a Sahib, and
 
 THE INDIAN POINT OF VIEW 175 
 
 he tends to make his converts un- Indian. The 
 Christians, both European and Indian, whom we 
 see in India, are too worldly, too materializing in 
 their tendencies. The standard set up, though 
 we recognize its social and philanthropic value, 
 does not accord with our own religious ideal." 
 
 It is obvious that there is an answer to this, and 
 that the picture given is one-sided ; but that will 
 not solve the difficulties, if there is truth in the 
 criticism itself. The way of progress is clearly to 
 meet the criticism on its own ground, i.e., to take 
 away the impression of the Sahib, to avoid the 
 aspect of worldliness and materialism, and to 
 express the Hindu religious ideal, where it is 
 Christian, in a way " understanded of the people." 
 Then, when the initial prejudice is removed, those 
 sides of Indian Christian life to which the critic 
 is at present blind its inner home beauty, its 
 love for the poor and outcast, its freedom, its 
 inward joy and peace will be understood and 
 appreciated. 
 
 When the problem is raised in this form, the 
 question clearly becomes primarily a personal one. 
 How can the average English missionary career 
 in India be guarded against the great dangers 
 confronting it and prepared to meet them, and
 
 176 NORTH INDIA 
 
 how can an example be set both before our 
 Indian congregations and the outer world, which 
 will not be misunderstood ? 
 
 It is an obvious rule that in studying a foreign 
 language, such as German, there is no method 
 so effective as to go away and live only where 
 German is spoken and a German " atmosphere " 
 is all round one, because in such a way German 
 is learnt, not merely in hours of study, but 
 in hours of leisure and recreation. One gets 
 saturated, as it were, with German thought and 
 idea and habit, and in this way attains that 
 tone and manner and gesture of speech, which 
 is as important as the words of the language. 
 To apply this principle in India, it would mean 
 that we must try and get far closer to our 
 work than has been done in the past, and live 
 in Indian surroundings rather than in Anglo- 
 Indian. As those who desire to be one in heart 
 and soul with the people of the land, we must 
 not expect or even wish them to approximate 
 to our standard of living, but must continually 
 expect and wish ourselves to approximate to 
 theirs. Only in this way can we avoid the double 
 evil of " Anglicising " our people, and being looked 
 upon ourselves as " Sahibs."
 
 THE INDIAN POINT OF VIEW 177 
 
 Difficulties at once suggest themselves when 
 such a step is mentioned, and some of them seem 
 almost insurmountable. To begin with a very 
 serious one, our organization has been laid down, 
 our bungalows built, our places of residence fixed 
 for us ; and all this was done at a time when the 
 modern critical spirit did not exist in India, and 
 the dangers of the missionary system which was 
 being established were not contemplated. Can 
 we now alter the system ? 
 
 A married missionary told me his own experi- 
 ence. " I must confess," he said, " that my mis- 
 sionary life in India has been one long disappoint- 
 ment. I was placed here, and came into my 
 surroundings : I did not make them ; that is the 
 only way in which I can justify to myself remain- 
 ing in them. Outwardly, as I now live in my 
 mission bungalow, with my wife and children and 
 many servants, I appear far more well-to-do in 
 the eyes of my congregation and ' above ' them, 
 than I did when I worked among the pit villagers 
 in England. There seems always a great gulf 
 fixed between us, a distance, an aloofness. Try 
 as I will I cannot get them to look upon me 
 as other than a ' Sahib.' Now that was not for 
 a moment my intention when I left England. 
 
 N
 
 178 NORTH INDIA 
 
 I was then burning with missionary fire and 
 enthusiasm, longing to make myself the friend 
 and brother of my people. But this ' master and 
 servant ' relationship, that seems expected of me 
 all day long, is chilling me, and while living in 
 these quarters I do not seem to be getting any 
 nearer to those among whom I work than when 
 I came out. It would seem as though this must 
 continue, as long as I live in the style I do. If 
 it were not for my wife and children, I would 
 alter at once my manner of life, and start to 
 live like my people and among my people." 
 
 "If it were not for my wife and children "- 
 there is another difficulty ! I hasten to add that 
 I believe the married missionary's life is needed 
 in India. I do not wish at all to cut the Gor- 
 dian knot by advocating universal celibacy. The 
 problem cannot be solved in that way. It is 
 rather, How can the married missionary with his 
 family live closer to his work and among his 
 people, as an equal, not as a superior? I would 
 also hasten to add that the problem is not solved 
 by transplanting colonies of Christians outside 
 the city to live round the missionary's bungalow. 
 That, again, is cutting the Gordian knot. It 
 divorces the Indian Christians from the life of
 
 THE INDIAN POINT OF VIEW 179 
 
 the country, and is a most potent cause of de- 
 nationalization, and very often of pauperization 
 also. 
 
 I will take another kind of Mission with which 
 I am thoroughly familiar the Community Mis- 
 sion. It is true that in large Brotherhoods or 
 Sisterhoods there are obvious advantages. There 
 is continuity of work and the inspiration of a 
 common life : there are fixed times for united 
 worship and intercession. Just as the married 
 life ought to have its expression in the mission- 
 field, so, I believe, there is need for this witness 
 also. But the danger of becoming a little English 
 colony, living outside the real life of the people, 
 is almost as great in this case as in that of married 
 families. Extensive buildings are needed, and a 
 multitude of servants ; and Indians fight shy of 
 a large company of Englishmen living in English 
 fashion. My own experience at Delhi has taught 
 me, that though we live in the city, we are 
 painfully remote from the life of the people. 
 Concerning another Brotherhood (one of the 
 noblest in India), a missionary who has been in 
 closest touch with the Indian people, wrote to me 
 as follows : " The men are evidently saints, and it 
 is a great privilege to be with them . . . but they
 
 180 NORTH INDIA 
 
 are not really in touch with the joys and sorrows 
 of the people, and live too much among them- 
 selves. They live in an ideal world, but it is 
 Western, not Eastern. The result is much the 
 same that one finds at the ordinary mission- 
 station a remoteness and a lack of intimate 
 knowledge. There is not enough coming to grips." 
 The same criticism would probably apply to our 
 Communities of women-workers. The exception 
 would have to be made in the case of our Zenana 
 Hospital doctors and nurses. Their work is 
 unique, and their experience unique. 
 
 I have had long and intimate talks, and lived 
 for more than a month with a missionary, who 
 has himself, in his own case, untied the knot, and 
 lives as an " Indian" among Indians. It has 
 been an experience never to be forgotten. His 
 intimate knowledge of the people, and their trust 
 in him and devotion to him, have been an object- 
 lesson and given me more food for thought than 
 anything else I have seen in India. A spirit of 
 sacrifice has sprung up both among Christians and 
 among non-Christians wherever he has gone, and 
 there has been an extraordinary response to the 
 ideal. He is so little of a " Sahib " that he has 
 been roughly handled by that great respecter of
 
 THE INDIAN POINT OF VIEW 181 
 
 persons, the Indian policeman. Hindus trust him 
 as a brother, and ask him into their houses. It is 
 all Christianity pure and simple, expressed in a 
 language " understanded of the people." But, 
 alas ! here again the path is strewn with obstacles 
 Already he has had a very serious illness, and in 
 the hot weather he is now obliged to itinerate in 
 the hills. Could such a life be lived by one whose 
 health was not robust ? Could it be lived for a 
 long series of years in the heat of the plains? 
 Above all, could it be combined with educational 
 and institutional work and become part and parcel 
 of the routine of an organized mission-station ? 
 After all, the Gordian knot is scarcely untied even 
 here it is only loosened. 
 
 Difficulties will only resolve themselves by 
 means of patient and watchful experiment, and 
 a gradual reformation of our system in the light 
 of the new conditions and the new criticism of 
 our work. It is quite possible that a large 
 number of bungalows, which are in English 
 quarters, and away from the work itself, may 
 be given up altogether, and that even married 
 missionaries may find that living in the city under 
 certain conditions is not so difficult as it appears. 
 It is possible that a reduction, say of twenty per
 
 1 82 NORTH^INDIA 
 
 cent, could be accomplished in the scale of 
 missionary living and establishment, and more 
 Indian ways and Indian food could be adopted 
 without any real sacrifice of health. Brother- 
 hoods and Sisterhoods might still find a common 
 corporate life practical at stated intervals in the 
 year, while going out two and two together to live 
 in the very simplest fashion among the people 
 during the remainder. Every effort might be 
 made to get Indian Christians to join our 
 missionary communities on equal terms with 
 Europeans. Young missionaries, on first coming 
 out to the country, might live, while learning the 
 language, in Indian Christian homes, in Indian 
 Christian ways, and so from the very first gain 
 the vernacular of India both in speech and 
 custom. 
 
 But even if all this were worked out in practice, 
 there would still remain a vitally important place 
 for the Franciscan ideal for men and women who 
 would give up every Western comfort, and live 
 among the people the very life of the people 
 themselves for men and women who would 
 willingly adopt the full life of holy poverty and 
 renunciation, towards which the Hindu heart will 
 respond with an affection almost amounting to
 
 THE INDIAN POINT OF VIEW 183 
 
 worship. For it cannot be too often stated that 
 we are in a land of imagination, emotion, idealism 
 very beautiful, very extravagant even, but surely 
 very dear to Him Who did not refuse the ex- 
 travagance of a woman's devotion, and declared 
 that Mary, not Martha, had chosen the better 
 part. 
 
 I go back continually in my own thoughts 
 to that picture of Father O'Neill and Padre 
 Nehemiah Goreh living together in Indore 
 Indian and English one together in innermost 
 heart and soul " I cannot tell you how I loved 
 him ! " writes Goreh, and O'Neill writes in almost 
 the same words their mode of living, Indian 
 through and through, and Christian through and 
 through, " understanded of the people." It is true 
 that the life of one of them was short, very short, 
 but would any one say of it, " Wherefore was this 
 waste ? " Certainly no one who knew India ! 
 
 I took the manuscript of this chapter for 
 criticism to a leading Indian Christian whose 
 opinion I value. As I went through the first 
 part of what I had written, he demurred 
 and interposed. " No," he said, " the earlier
 
 missionaries were not to blame : we ourselves 
 were to blame for any Westernizing that took 
 place. We were so disorganized, so dependent : 
 we were not awake even to our own great past. 
 Changes had to be made, and, in a great many 
 matters, revolutionary changes. Certain things 
 from the West were bound to come in, and they 
 have come to stay. The mistake, where there 
 was a mistake, lay in this, that the delicacy 
 of the process of adaptation was not realized ; 
 the danger of crushing budding instincts of 
 independence was not understood ; the domin- 
 ance of the superior missionary in the congrega- 
 tion was too strong he little realized how strong 
 it was ! There was therefore little assimilation by 
 Indian Christians of the strong Western food, and 
 much indigestion. But we were most to blame." 
 
 When I came to the " Sahib " position of the 
 missionary " Ah ! there," he cried, " you are 
 going deeper. Now you are getting to some- 
 thing fundamental. It is that position which 
 conflicts with the Christianity of the Gospels. 
 The mere Westernizing that has taken place is 
 as nothing compared with that." 
 
 When I came to the English military atmo- 
 sphere of the Panjab, he agreed that this was
 
 THE INDIAN POINT OF VIEW 185 
 
 most dangerous for the missionary, and in most 
 direct conflict with Hindu religious ideals. 
 
 With regard to my suggestions as to mis- 
 sionaries living in the city, as far as possible in 
 Indian manner, he was entirely in agreement, 
 and enthusiastic about the effect of such a life 
 if carried out with complete renunciation ; he 
 doubted, however, how far this would be com- 
 patible with the missionary system already 
 established. " The first thing needed," he said, 
 " is that the missionaries' houses should be so 
 free to Indians that they can come in and out 
 naturally, without any feeling of restraint, and 
 that Indians may distinguish missionaries utterly 
 and entirely from the Sahib. Indians will not 
 criticize the extra expense of the European 
 missionary's mode of life, if the barrier of restraint 
 is broken down, and the ' Sahib ' spirit is absent. 
 It is the inner spirit that needs changing." 
 
 " But," he went on, " I am afraid you will think 
 me political in what I am going to say, though 
 I am viewing the matter now as a Christian 
 problem. There appears to me to be one reason 
 for the Anglicizing of the Indian Church, and 
 its present weak and dependent character, which 
 you have not mentioned. I grant you that much
 
 1 86 NORTH; INDIA 
 
 can be done and many vital changes can be 
 made under present conditions, and I can assure 
 you that every effort that the missionaries put 
 forth in order to come nearer to the people, will 
 receive the warmest welcome from the people 
 themselves. But we are speaking of the Indian 
 Church, and this, as you know, includes the 
 Bishops and the chaplains and the Government 
 Establishment. The Church is one, and the 
 clergy are one. A chaplain travelling at double 
 first-class fare at the tax-payers' expense, and 
 living in every way like a Sahib, with a Sahib's 
 ideas of the ' inferior race,' remains a stumbling- 
 block still to the logical Hindu mind, however 
 much the anomaly may be explained away. The 
 Hindu will say, and will persist in saying, ' There 
 is one form of Christianity for the English, and 
 another which the missionary teaches to the 
 Indian.' Again, while the Indian Church itself is 
 so Government-ridden (and the Government is a 
 foreign Government of a conquering race), will 
 not Indians always remain subordinates within 
 the Body of CHRIST, wherein all should be equal ? 
 Will not the ' Indian point of view ' be continually 
 subordinated to Government interests ? The 
 pulse of a new life is beating in Indian hearts
 
 THE INDIAN POINT OF VIEW 187 
 
 they are critical of these things as they never 
 were before ; they feel subjection and inequality 
 as they never did in the past. What will be the 
 Church's answer to the new spirit ? The Anglo- 
 Saxon Church, even in its early missionary days, 
 led the English people into freedom, unity and 
 self-dependence. Can the Indian Church, tied as 
 she is to a foreign State Establishment, do the 
 same in India?" 
 
 But the questions raised here lead me directly 
 to my last chapter, " The National Movement." 
 
 [NOTE This chapter was written before the appear- 
 ance of a remarkable article by Mr. Stokes in The East 
 and the West (April, 1908), entitled "Interpreting CHRIST 
 to India." For a detailed and practical statement of the 
 Franciscan ideal I would refer to that article. I need 
 hardly add that my whole sympathy is with the writer 
 and his mode of work, and I can imagine no more effective 
 way in India of interpreting CHRIST.]
 
 1 88 NORTH INDIA 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 
 
 mHE new factor in the North of India, which 
 will affect every side of missionary work, 
 has been the growth of the spirit of nationality 
 among the educated classes and its spread to the 
 illiterate. This spirit is not merely Indian: it is 
 one of those mysterious movements affecting 
 different races and peoples. It has passed literally 
 from one end of Asia to the other, and is found 
 moving in similar directions in places as far distant 
 as Pekin and Teheran. While taking colour from 
 the religion of each country the movement is 
 primarily racial, yet at the same time it is full of 
 religious import and will have marked religious 
 effect. 
 
 When a new phenomenon in science appears, 
 such as the discovery of radium, every scientific 
 worker puts to himself the question, " What does 
 this mean to me in my particular subject ? " 
 There may be needed a readjustment or even a
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 189 
 
 reconstruction of ideas. In the great science of 
 human life a new factor has arisen the awaken- 
 ing of Asia. All the chancellories of Europe have 
 begun to bestir themselves and ask, " What does 
 this mean to us ? " But there are also religious 
 problems of vital moment involved. We need to 
 have Christian statesmen on the alert, ready to 
 ask, " What does this new factor mean to the 
 missionary enterprise ? How may the new move- 
 ment in the East affect the kingdom of CHRIST ? 
 What new methods are needed now to extend 
 that kingdom ? " Our LORD Himself has told us 
 that " the scribe instructed unto the kingdom 
 brings forth out of his treasures things new and 
 things old." What new treasures of the Faith can 
 be brought forth to meet the new aspirations 
 which are coming to the birth ? 
 
 The awakening of the East in its effect upon 
 politics, art, literature, and thought, may well be 
 called a Renaissance. With very much of this 
 Renaissance with the longing for freedom and 
 enlightenment, the love of country, the desire for a 
 true and healthy national existence, the wish to ele- 
 vate the countless myriads of the common people 
 no thoughtful Christian can fail to sympathize. As 
 an Englishman he may feel at times that the day
 
 190 NORTH INDIA 
 
 of his power is on the wane, but as a Christian he 
 cannot but rejoice and welcome into the brother- 
 hood of man the new nations that are now being 
 born. For in much of what is taking place he 
 can see the seed of Christian ideas beginning to 
 spring forth from the soil. Nationality, liberty, 
 enlightenment, the raising of the multitudes all 
 these are not strange words in Christian ears, but 
 words which rise from the great Evangel of Him 
 Who came " to preach good tidings to the poor ; 
 to proclaim deliverance to the captives and re- 
 covering of sight to the blind ; to set at liberty 
 them that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable 
 year of the LORD." Christian education, the 
 Christian Scriptures, literature saturated with 
 Christian thought, these all have played their part 
 in the past century, and are now beginning to 
 bear fruit in India. Other causes it is true have 
 been at work and are more in evidence at the 
 moment, so that it is easy to take a superficial 
 view and call the whole movement purely secular. 
 Yet I cannot see how this can be maintained 
 by any one who holds intelligently the Faith 
 of the Incarnation, and who believes that JESUS 
 is the Son of Man. Spiritual impulses moving 
 over an area including 800,000,000 of the human
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 191 
 
 race cannot be without religious significance to 
 the believer in Him Who is " the Light that 
 lighteneth every man coming into the world." 
 It is indeed possible to overlook the Christian 
 element and let it go by default, to miss the 
 opportunity instead of buying it up ; it is sadly 
 possible for Christian nations to act in un-Chris- 
 tian ways, and set back the forward progress of 
 humanity ; but on the other hand if the Christian 
 nations are faithful to high principles, and the 
 Christian messengers make clear their message, 
 then it may come to pass that, amid the shaking 
 of the nations of the East, we shall see the Son 
 of Man coming in His glory, and, before this 
 generation pass away shall welcome " one of the 
 days of the Son of Man." 
 
 To the missionary, face to face with the new 
 situation in the cities of India, a whole series of 
 questions arises. How far can the national move- 
 ment be warmly welcomed, without trenching on 
 spheres that are purely political ? How far can 
 Christianity be stripped of its foreign accretions 
 and so appeal more strongly to indigenous senti- 
 ment ? How far can the Christian missionary 
 cease to be an Englishman in rank and status, in 
 order to be at one with the people of the land ?
 
 192 NORTH INDIA 
 
 How far can the new movement itself be boldly 
 claimed for CHRIST ? How far is the Church in 
 India a National Church ? These and a hundred 
 other problems have to be met and faced, if the 
 centres of modern thought and activity in India 
 are to be reached and influenced. 
 
 One feature is apparent in educated India 
 to-day. There is life where before was stagna- 
 tion. The spiritual nature of Indian thinkers 
 and writers is absorbed in the prospect of an 
 awakening East, an Indian Nation, a free and 
 enlightened People, a deliverance from the night- 
 mare of superstition and the tyranny of caste. It 
 is true that the problems and difficulties of the 
 future have been little realized, but a great hope 
 has been born. There is a day in the East never 
 to be forgotten, the day of the coming of the 
 monsoon rains after the long dusty drought. 
 The dead parched ground seems to put on new 
 verdure in a single night, and the new tender 
 grass appears upon the barren soil. Even so it 
 has been in the last few years in India. Before 
 that time, a note of helplessness and despair ran 
 through the thoughts and writings even of those 
 who were the most persistent workers for the 
 good of the country. But now educated India is
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 193 
 
 tingling with new life. The form taken may be 
 at times extremely crude and even repellent, but 
 it is life, life, life ! 
 
 Young India is wakeful, alert, precocious ; it 
 turns to its national leaders as to a magnet, and 
 is irresistibly attracted. The student class is poor, 
 often terribly poor, but high-spirited and remark- 
 ably intelligent. The villages are sending ever- 
 increasing numbers to the schools and colleges in 
 the cities, and these come back to their homes 
 filled with the new spirit. A typical instance 
 would be that of a village student in one of our 
 North Indian cities who told me his life history. 
 He had been educated in a mission school, and 
 had learnt good principles, but had received no 
 deep impression. He was a clever lad and his 
 ambition was to rise in the world. Then one day 
 there came to him what might have been called in 
 religious language his conversion. With over- 
 whelming force he heard the call come to him to 
 give up his life for his country. For months he 
 could think of nothing else. Day and night the 
 dream was before him. At last he determined to 
 put himself to the test. Hindu though he was, he 
 tried to fraternize with Mohammedans as fellow 
 Indians, and, though meeting with continual re- 
 
 o
 
 194 NORTH INDIA 
 
 buffs, had persisted for more than two years, and 
 succeeded in gaining their friendship. His father 
 had insisted on his marrying at once and taking 
 up Government service ; but he had steadily re- 
 fused, having determined to lead a celibate life in 
 order to be free to work for his country. He had 
 been banished from home in consequence, and 
 reduced to great straits, but had kept to his resolu- 
 tion. My last communication with him revealed 
 the fact that he had been spending the whole of 
 his vacation administering famine relief to the 
 lowest castes. 
 
 This is an example of the new earnestness that 
 is spreading in the land. I have met with it in 
 every city which I have visited. When it pene- 
 trates the great agricultural population of India, 
 such an example will be multiplied in every dis- 
 trict, for the villagers are by no means enervated 
 or demoralized, as is frequently the case in the 
 towns ; they are, in most parts, a sturdy, thrifty, 
 determined folk, quick in intelligence and mother 
 wit, with a wonderful capacity for hardship and 
 endurance. Those who come to our college from 
 the villages of the Panjab are more actively stirred 
 by the new spirit, and have greater tenacity in 
 retaining their enthusiasm, than those who come
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 195 
 
 from the towns. The new movement is still in 
 its infancy, yet from every educational centre 
 comes the same tidings. It is the village students 
 who are showing most markedly the effects of the 
 awakening, and who are coming more and more 
 under its influence. When it is remembered that 
 India is a land of villages rather than of towns, 
 and that the new movement will increase in 
 volume just in proportion as the villages are 
 affected, it will be understood what immense 
 developments may yet be in store. The move- 
 ment will go on : nothing now can stop it : 
 momentum is being gathered at every stage. 
 The problem before the Church is to determine 
 wisely and boldly her own attitude under the 
 new conditions. Neutrality is impossible, and 
 a policy of drift is not only unworthy but also 
 futile. 
 
 It will be well to examine the trend of the 
 National Movement in the North to-day, before 
 considering the present aspect of the Christian 
 Church and the changes that may be needed. I 
 shall deal only with the movement on its religious 
 side. While doing so, the fact must not be for- 
 gotten that the great Mussulman community still 
 holds aloof. At present the new Islam is busy
 
 196 NORTH INDIA 
 
 setting its own house in order, and cares only very 
 slightly for Indian politics. 
 
 The most vigorous religious movement of 
 Nationalism in the North-West is that which 
 goes by the name of the Arya Samaj, or " Church 
 of the Aryas." This Samaj aims at bringing back 
 the old Vedic conditions, when idolatry did not 
 exist, and life was built up on the basis of a 
 religious education of an Aryan type. The Aryas 
 are no dreamers. They can show practical re- 
 sults in the well-known Dayanand College at 
 Lahore, and in the " Gurukul," or religious semin- 
 ary at Hardwar, besides many other institutions 
 for the training of boys and girls, the care of the 
 sick, and the nurture of orphans. Their leaders 
 are Indians of good family who have given up 
 much for the cause, and there are spiritual men 
 among them who are leading the ascetic life. 
 The organization has followed closely the lines 
 of Christian missionary work ; and the Samaj 
 has spread rapidly in the Panjab, both among the 
 educated classes and also in the villages, where 
 it has seriously threatened the power of the 
 Brahmans. In some places it is bitterly hostile 
 to Christianity, but in the end the Christian Faith 
 need have little to fear from it and much to gain.
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 197 
 
 The more the Samaj proceeds on modern lines 
 and meets with modern social and educational 
 difficulties, the more nearly will it approach that 
 Faith which has shaped those lines of progress 
 and met those difficulties and overcome them. 
 From a sincere and earnest reforming spirit, such 
 as the best side of the Arya Samaj presents, 
 Christian missionaries from the West may learn 
 many valuable lessons in return for those that 
 they themselves have given and can give. The 
 Samaj is doing a service of great positive value 
 in its protest against idolatry and other evil cus- 
 toms. The reply of our LORD to His disciples 
 when they wished to forbid those who were 
 struggling against evil but were not His followers, 
 applies in this case, " Forbid them not." 
 
 In Bengal the Arya Samaj has not spread ; but, 
 side by side with much that is irreligious and 
 purely materialistic, a remarkable revival in 
 modern Hinduism has taken place a revival 
 which in many ways presents the nearest parallel 
 to the part Neo-Platonism played in the fourth 
 century. As preached by Swami Vivekananda, 
 or Sister Nivedita, it refuses to cast away the 
 Puranic legends of Hinduism and the idol wor- 
 ship. It attempts rather to allegorize them, and
 
 NORTH INDIA 
 
 fill them with a spiritual meaning. It brings the 
 present national aspirations within their scope, 
 and welcomes Nationalism itself as a new Avatar 
 or incarnation of Krishna, sent to save the people. 1 
 The emotional side is prominent in the new 
 Krishna cult. The passion of self-surrender is 
 encouraged, and devotion to country is made 
 equivalent to devotion to Krishna himself. On 
 the intellectual side an altruistic philosophy has 
 been built up out of Vedantism, which commands 
 sincere respect, though it does not escape from 
 the pitfalls of pantheistic thought. The chief 
 scripture of this school is the Bhagavad Gita, or 
 " Song Celestial," a section of India's greatest epic 
 poem in which the Lord Krishna is dramatically 
 represented as teaching Arjuna, before the battle, 
 detachment from earthly things and supreme 
 attachment to himself. In it occurs the famous 
 prophecy, better known than any other verse of 
 Hindu scripture, declaring that in each age, when 
 
 1 The Krishna legend declares that, when things are going 
 wrong, the god Vishnu incarnates himself in one of many 
 forms to overcome the evil and save mankind. Krishna 
 was one such supposed incarnation, and his re-appearance 
 is expected. The god is born, according to the legend, 
 under lowly conditions, and then suddenly reveals his 
 power and is welcomed as deliverer.
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 199 
 
 wickedness comes to the full, the Lord Krishna 
 will appear to save the righteous and slay the 
 wicked. 
 
 From one point of view the power and glamour 
 of the present Neo-Hindu revival, and the fascina- 
 tion which it has for many noble minds, is in 
 itself a Nemesis upon false missionary efforts of 
 a past generation. The excuse may be offered 
 that Hinduism was cruder and less philosophic 
 in earlier days, and that Christian apologetics 
 were then not called upon to meet the higher 
 Hindu position ; but it cannot be denied that 
 missionaries as a rule seriously undervalued Hindu 
 philosophy and literature, and made little or no 
 attempt to appreciate its most valuable lessons 
 and to correlate them with the Christian Faith. 
 What Harnack has pointed out, in his Expansion 
 of Christianity, to have been the method of the 
 Early Church when coming into contact with 
 Hellenic culture, has not been even attempted, 
 till quite recently, in India. That the work was 
 extremely difficult, and the abuses of popular 
 Hinduism were patent, does not excuse the 
 Church in India for an unchristian lack of sym- 
 pathy with what was good and noble. I have 
 been studying, in connection with the writing of
 
 2oo NORTH INDIA 
 
 this book, Indian missionary literature of the past, 
 and few things have pained me more than the false 
 and one-sided picture given of the Hindu religion. 
 The Neo-Hindu revival has therefore gained 
 a strong .position at the outset, and it is at 
 present adding to its strength by its absorp- 
 tion, under religious forms, of the national ideal. 
 The foreign aspect of Christianity at this point 
 tells against it with the rising generation. "There 
 is," says one of the Oxford Mission Brother- 
 hood, " among the educated classes in Bengal 
 a reaction away from Christianity altogether. 
 Not many years ago exactly the contrary was 
 the case. ... It seemed as if there was likely 
 to be a very considerable movement towards 
 Christianity. Now all this has entirely changed. 
 Keshab Chander Sen has ceased to be a hero 
 to the Babu of Bengal, and the names you hear 
 on their lips are such names as Ram Krishna and 
 Swami Vivekananda, that is to say, men who take 
 this position : ' we have in Hinduism all that 
 your boasted Christianity can give us, and a 
 great deal more.' . . . They spiritualize the 
 monstrosities of Hindu mythology. . . . They 
 are determined to find or to make a religion 
 which shall be Oriental, Indian, and National.
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 201 
 
 Christianity now appears to them foreign, Euro- 
 pean and English. . . . There is yet another 
 reason. There is the influence of the women. 
 There behind the Pardah in the Zenanas are the 
 wife and mother. The women are very religious. 
 They are greatly attached to orthodox Hinduism 
 far more than the men ; and thus at present all 
 their religious feeling, all their reverence, all their 
 devotion are thrown into the scale of Hinduism." 
 One of the most prominent figures in the Neo- 
 Hindu revival is Sister Nivedita. Her Christian 
 name is Miss Margaret Noble, and although to- 
 day a passionate adherent and a devoted worker 
 of the Ram Krishna Mission, her thoughts and 
 writings continually run in Christian ^channels. It 
 would not be too much to say that she borrows 
 more from Christianity, especially from Mediaeval 
 Catholicism, than from Hinduism itself. Thus 
 Krishna is referred to as the Indian Christ, the 
 nature-worship of the mother-goddess in Bengal 
 is made parallel to the devotion to the Madonna, 
 acts of idolatry are " sacramental." In this way 
 the grossness of idol-worship is obscured ; and 
 crude, animistic cults, unworthy of an enlightened 
 people, are not only tolerated but encouraged. 
 Mrs. Besant is engaged in a somewhat similar
 
 202 NORTH INDIA 
 
 task from the standpoint of a theosophy which 
 she declares to be both Christian and Hindu ; but 
 her appeal is rather to the old, conservative Hin- 
 duism, and her influence is not strong with the 
 younger Hindu Nationalists. What is needed is 
 a clear Christian Apologetic, suited to the East, 
 sympathetic and discriminating, showing the ful- 
 filment in the Incarnation of the longing for the 
 Presence of GOD manifest in the flesh, which 
 Hinduism represents but fails to satisfy. 
 
 It is of great significance to note that some of 
 the most earnest and self-sacrificing leaders of 
 young India have come very close at one time 
 or other in their lives to our present missionary 
 organizations. But they have found no home 
 for their new aspirations in a Church order and 
 system which appears to them foreign and de- 
 nationalizing, and they have turned back in a 
 bitter reaction to Hinduism. One of the noblest 
 of these was Brahma Bhandab Upadhya. He 
 was baptized in a C.M.S. Mission, but there his 
 ascetic Hindu ideal found no place. He then 
 became a Roman Catholic, but there his passionate 
 natural instincts gave him no rest. At last he 
 reverted to Hinduism of the strictest ascetic and 
 national type, and died a sadhu.
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 203 
 
 The spirit of self-renunciation is witnessed in 
 much of the new religious fervour of young Ben- 
 gal, and already remarkable results are being 
 witnessed. Nafar Chandra Kundu, a young high- 
 caste Bengali of the Ram Krishna Mission, after 
 repeated acts of social service among the poor, at 
 last sacrificed his own life in trying to rescue from 
 a fetid sewer two Mohammedan coolies. At a 
 recent religious festival more than two thousand 
 young educated men of Calcutta were found ready 
 to help the poorest pilgrims, labouring night and 
 day among a crowd which numbered nearly a 
 million, laying aside in their new-found enthu- 
 siasm prejudices of caste. That there is much 
 that is reactionary and impossible to reconcile with 
 progress and enlightenment, need not blind us to 
 the fact that a new phase in Hindu thought and 
 practice is beginning, which may carry with it 
 important consequences. It presents a challenge 
 to the Christian Faith which cannot be refused. 
 
 Mr. Bepin Chandra Pal, in his book called 
 The New Spirit, has given perhaps the most 
 interesting outline of the possibilities for the 
 Hindu development of the National movement. 
 But up to the present I have not come across 
 any public utterance so clearly representing the
 
 204 NORTH INDIA 
 
 circle of religious ideas in which thought is 
 moving as the following passage from a speech 
 which I quote at length : 
 
 " There is a creed to-day in India which calls 
 itself Nationalism. It is not a mere political pro- 
 gramme, but a religion ; it is a creed in which 
 all who follow it will have to live and suffer. 
 Let no man dare to call himself a Nationalist 
 to-day with a sort of intellectual conceit. To 
 be a Nationalist in India means to be an 
 instrument of GOD, and to live in that spirit. 
 For the force that is awakening the nation is not 
 of man : it is divine. We need not be a people 
 who are politically strong ; we need not be a 
 people sound in physique ; we need not be a 
 people of highest intellectual standing ; but we 
 must be a people who believe. In Bengal there 
 came a flood of religious truth. Certain men 
 were born whom the world would not recognize. 
 One of them, the man who has done most to 
 regenerate Bengal, could not read or write a 
 single word. 1 But he had the divine faculty in 
 him, the faculty of faith. GOD sent that man, 
 and set him in the Temple of Dakshineshwar, 
 
 1 He is referring to Ram Krishna, the founder of the 
 Neo- Hindu revival.
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 205 
 
 in Calcutta ; and from North and South, and 
 East and West, men, who had studied all that 
 Europe can teach, came to sit at the feet of the 
 ascetic, and the work of raising India was begun 
 the birth of GOD in the nation was accom- 
 plished. 
 
 " Certain forces have appeared against the new 
 religion. It always happens that when the 
 Avatar appears, when GOD is going to be born 
 in the people, such forces of opposition arise. 
 The question then becomes a personal one. Are 
 you who take your part in this divine move- 
 ment able to endure ? (Yes.) Do not say 
 lightly ' Yes ' : it is a solemn thing. Suppose 
 the question is put to you, ' Will you suffer ? ' 
 how will you answer ? Have you got a real 
 faith that the movement is' from GOD, or is it 
 merely a political aspiration ? Or is it merely 
 a larger selfishness ? Or is it merely that you 
 wish to be free in order to oppress others, as you 
 are being oppressed ? Do you hold your political 
 creed from a higher or a lower source ? Is it 
 really GOD that is born in you ? Do you really 
 believe ? Have you realized that you are merely 
 the instruments of GOD, and that your bodies 
 are not your own ? If you have realized all this,
 
 206 NORTH INDIA 
 
 then you are true Nationalists, able to save the 
 spirit of India from lasting obscuration. 
 
 " You all know what Bengal used to be a term 
 of reproach, and a byword among nations. What 
 has made Bengal so different to-day ? Bengal has 
 learnt to believe. She now has her faith in GOD. 
 Bengal was once drunk with the wine of European 
 civilization. When this was so, Bengal became 
 atheistic, a land of doubters and cynics. When I 
 went to Bengal four years ago I found the 
 prevailing mood was apathy and despair. People 
 had expected that regeneration could only come 
 from outside, from foreign sources, and when they 
 found themselves sinking lower and lower they 
 were in despair. But this state of despair was the 
 best thing that could happen to us, for now, at 
 last, with our intellectual pride broken, the heart 
 of Bengal was open and ready to receive the voice 
 of GOD. The whole nation rose. She felt a 
 mightier truth than any that earth can give, 
 because now she trusted not in intellect, not in 
 worldly resources, but in that faith in the divine 
 mission of the nation which comes from GOD. 
 
 " One thing I would ask you to note about the 
 men who are leading the movement. There are 
 very few who have not been touched with the
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 207 
 
 touch of the sadhu (religious ascetic). If you 
 asked what influenced Babu Bepin Chandra Pal, 
 it was a sadhu : the man who started this paper 
 which is now being prosecuted, lived the life of 
 a sadhu. The man who has given all to National 
 education lives in secret the life of a sadhu. 
 Only suffering and sacrifice can bring to birth 
 the new religion. It is always necessary that 
 the divinely-appointed strength should grow by 
 suffering. Sri Krishna cannot grow to manhood 
 unless the Asur forces of the world are about him, 
 and work against him, and make him feel his 
 strength. So it has been with us. The question 
 was asked of Bengal in the first outbreak of 
 triumphant hope, ' Can you suffer ? ' The young 
 men, who had rushed forward in the frenzy of 
 their new-found strength, had to learn its real 
 nature that it was not their own strength, but 
 from GOD, and they themselves but instruments. 
 We have learnt since then not to trust in material 
 things. Swadeshi by itself may but lead to a 
 little more material prosperity, which may mean 
 a little more selfishness. Under the Roman 
 Empire there was material prosperity and indus- 
 trial development : but when the hour of trial 
 came for those subject-nations who had developed
 
 2o8 NORTH INDIA 
 
 materially and industrially, they were found to be 
 not alive they were dead, and crumbled into dust. 
 
 " What then have we learnt during the last 
 four years ? Our elder men have had one over- 
 mastering idea, that there is a great power at 
 work in India which is not their own. They 
 do not know where he will guide them, but 
 they are ready to follow. If the finger points 
 to prison, to prison they will go to suffering, 
 suffering they will endure. They do not know 
 how this will all help, and worldly-wise people 
 will say 'you are wasting your strength.' But 
 we know that our forces are not outside forces. 
 There is only one divine force, and that force is 
 within us : and for that force I am not necessary, 
 you are not necessary. GOD is the worker and 
 the work. He is immortal and invincible in 
 the hearts of His people. 
 
 "You see, then, this movement which no obstacle 
 can now stop. You see the birth of the Avatar 
 in the nation. You see GOD being born again 
 on the earth to save His people. Sri Krishna, 
 who is now among the poor and despised of the 
 earth, among the cow-herds of Brindaban, will 
 declare the Godhead, and the whole nation will 
 rise. He has a work for his great and ancient
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 209 
 
 nation, India. Therefore he has been born again 
 to do it : therefore he is revealing himself in 
 you not that you may rise by human strength 
 to trample under foot the weaker peoples, but 
 because something must come out of you, which 
 is to save your nation and the world. That which 
 the ancient Rishis (seers) knew and revealed of 
 old, is to be known again on earth and revealed 
 in the Avatar ; and in order that Sri Krishna may 
 reveal himself again, you must realize him in 
 yourselves, and shape your own lives, and the 
 life of this great nation, that they may be fit to 
 reveal him." 1 
 
 Few thoughtful Christians can fail to find in 
 such a speech as this an echo of what is most 
 dear and precious to themselves, though the form 
 appear most startling, and the idea of such an 
 Avatar of Krishna most fantastic. The danger 
 is that under the cover of such high-sounding 
 phrases the old abuses may be left unreformed 
 and unreformable, and faith built upon an un- 
 substantial basis may die away as enthusiasm 
 grows cold. Krishna-worship in the past has 
 been a fruitful source of evil legends and prac- 
 tices which inevitably lead to national degenera- 
 1 See Appendix, Modern Krishna Worship. 
 
 P
 
 2io NORTH INDIA 
 
 tion. Can these be exorcised from the new 
 Krishna -cult by mere allegorizing, when the 
 appeal is made not to the refined and cultured, 
 but to the ignorant and superstitious ? A 
 national movement in India, where age-long 
 abuses encumber the ground, must be a puritan 
 movement ; otherwise there would seem little hope 
 for progress on modern lines. A Reformation is 
 needed in India as well as a Renaissance, a 
 Luther as well as an Erasmus. Idolatry of the 
 grossest type among the masses, and a hard 
 caste-system of the most oppressive kind, are 
 not toys to be trifled with and called by beautiful 
 names ; they are cankers which eat into the soul 
 of the people like a fell disease. 
 
 With regard to the anti-foreign aspect of the 
 new Hindu revival, and the lengths to which it 
 may go against the Christian Faith, a scene 
 occurred this year which would have been abso- 
 lutely incredible a short time ago. On February 
 6th a large meeting was held to hear a lecture 
 on Bhakti (devotion), at which nearly 3,000 were 
 present, and Mr. Tilak took the chair. Dr. Garde, 
 an elderly and highly-respected and learned 
 Hindu, a friend of Mr. Tilak's, got up to speak' 
 and traced the doctrine of Bhakti in Hinduism
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 211 
 
 from Vedic down to modern times. He men- 
 tioned, while doing so, the name of CHRIST as 
 a great Western saint who practised Bhakti. The 
 name of our Blessed LORD, even when thus men- 
 tioned, was received with such shouts and hisses 
 that the speaker was obliged to sit down, and 
 in spite of the chairman's efforts to keep order 
 the meeting had to be closed. As I have said, 
 this would have been quite incredible in India 
 only a short time ago, and in a great part of 
 India it would be impossible still. Yet it shows 
 us what may be expected if the anti-foreign move- 
 ment becomes anti-Christian. 1 
 
 When the present position of the Christian 
 Church in India is considered in connection with 
 the new movement, there is much to encourage 
 
 1 In this brief summary of the Hindu religious move- 
 ments which are shaping Indian national thought I have 
 not referred to the Brahmo Samaj and other kindred 
 societies such as the Prathana Samaj. This is a serious 
 omission, as, though the numbers in these societies are 
 small, they contain among them some of the choicest 
 souls in all India, men who are doing the noblest con- 
 structive work. At the same time they do not enter 
 so directly into the political sphere as the two larger 
 movements within Hinduism which I have singled out 
 for special mention. The Brahmos may best be described 
 to English readers as the Unitarians of India.
 
 212 NORTH INDIA 
 
 while there is also much to sadden. On certain 
 sides Christianity has already won signal triumphs, 
 which must sooner or later affect the National 
 Movement itself, and even now cannot be ignored 
 by Indian Nationalists. 
 
 The most striking effect of Christianity upon 
 Indian national life has undoubtedly been the 
 uplifting of the pariah and aboriginal. When 
 I was lecturing at Allahabad, a Hindu gentleman, 
 one of the leading citizens, got up and said of his 
 own accord : " I am a Brahman of the Brahmans, 
 and belong, as you all know, to the most orthodox 
 school ; but I am an Indian and love my country, 
 and I must confess that the way in which Chris- 
 tianity has raised the pariahs of Madras is beyond 
 all praise, and puts me to shame as a Hindu 
 when I think of how little we ourselves have 
 done." I have heard one of the most ardent 
 Nationalists exclaim : " After all, when it comes 
 to practice, Christianity alone is effecting what 
 we Nationalists are crying out for, namely, the 
 elevation of the masses." 
 
 A leading article in one of the most thoughtful 
 and influential Hindu papers runs as follows 
 it is written by the editor himself, a Hindu : 
 " There is one question which concerns the well-
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 213 
 
 being of some fifty million Indians who belong 
 to the depressed classes. It is becoming more 
 and more apparent that they are dissatisfied with 
 their present lot, and would welcome any agency 
 which would help to improve their condition. 
 Neither the Hindu religion, nor the caste system, 
 has any place for what are called the Panchama 
 classes. It is no exaggeration to say that the 
 treatment accorded to them by the higher classes 
 is scandalously unjust, and the conditions under 
 which they are made to live are intolerably 
 degrading. Their very neighbourhood is thought 
 to bring pollution. It is no wonder that, circum- 
 stanced as they are, and utterly neglected by 
 those who are regarded as their spiritual and 
 social superiors, they should be eager to adopt 
 any course which tends to help them to lead 
 the life of men. One such course which has 
 proved most successful is their conversion to 
 Christianity and the abandonment of a religion 
 to which they nominally belonged, but about 
 which they know absolutely nothing, and which 
 has refused to give to their life any cheer or 
 culture. No one will deny that the change effects 
 a marvellous reform in the life of these classes, 
 and opens to them far more cheerful prospects
 
 214 NORTH INDIA 
 
 than they could even dream of in their former 
 condition. . . . The one broad truth is, that so 
 long as the lower classes remain in the sphere of 
 Hindu society there is no hope of material ad- 
 vancement for them, and when once they have 
 left it they breathe a freer and fresher atmosphere 
 which gives them hope of better prospects in life. 
 . . . The fact remains that under the Hindu 
 religion and system these classes have lived for 
 centuries as degraded specimens of humanity unfit 
 to attain the higher and nobler qualities of 
 man. . . Who would deny that this advance in 
 the life of these classes, whether it is or is not 
 proof of the spiritual power of the Gospel of 
 CHRIST, is an undoubted evidence of its elevating 
 influence? It must be realized that the consola- 
 tions of religion and the pleasures of life cannot 
 for ever be the monopoly of a few privileged 
 classes. Everybody knows how gladly and with 
 what zeal Christian missionaries perform the work 
 of evangelization, which is really a work of grand 
 social reform. It does little credit to reformers 
 among us that with this object-lesson before them 
 they have not afforded to the lower classes, who 
 form the backbone of our society, a fraction of the 
 bright possibilities in life."
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 
 
 This aspect, therefore, of the Church in India is 
 encouraging and full of hope for the future. In 
 the long run, as the National Movement advances 
 and ideals of social service advance at the same 
 time, the witness of such a Church of the poor, a 
 Church which can uplift the degraded and outcast 
 and make them worthy citizens, will tell among 
 the more thoughtful educated Indians. But this 
 can hardly happen in the North for another thirty 
 years. The chief effects of the present mass 
 movements towards Christianity are in the distant 
 South. The Christian congregations in the North 
 are still very small and weak, and the Church 
 itself is so intimately linked with the foreign 
 Government, and has become itself so denational- 
 ized, as to repel the new spirit rather than to 
 attract. 
 
 Indeed the lot of Indian Christians in the 
 North is not an enviable one, and they need our 
 warmest sympathy in their present difficulties. 
 They are isolated from the thoughts and aspira- 
 tions of the people round them, cut off by a great 
 gulf from their old associations, and yet find the 
 very smallest sympathy in general from English 
 Christians. A favourite proverb used about them, 
 and used even by themselves about their own
 
 216 NORTH INDIA 
 
 position, is this, that they are like the washer- 
 man's dog, who is neither allowed in the house 
 nor at the washing place (dhobi ka kutta na ghar 
 ka, na ghat ka). They are losing, therefore, to a 
 large extent the inspiring and stimulating effects 
 of the new spirit, and they are not at present' 
 a large enough body to create and develop a 
 vigorous and varied life of their own. Still 
 further, there has been unquestionably too great 
 an amount of missionary pauperizing and mis- 
 sionary dominance in the past, and this has 
 grievously kept back the whole community. 
 
 These conditions will alter, and changes are 
 already taking place. The missionary dominance 
 is less marked ; greater powers of self-government 
 and independence are being exercised ; the 
 Christian community is steadily increasing, and 
 the power of higher education is telling. But 
 while the future is hopeful, the present is critical. 
 The witness borne to the outside non-Christian 
 world by the Body of CHRIST is neither a strong 
 nor a convincing one. The National Movement, 
 therefore, in the North either passes the Church 
 by entirely or else treats it as an enemy to be 
 avoided. 
 
 The chief Christian influence in the North
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 217 
 
 which is holding the more thoughtful Indians and 
 preventing Nationalism from becoming anti- 
 Christian, is that of the missionary colleges. 
 While the Church has remained outside the new 
 movement, these have in a remarkable way held 
 their place in the esteem and respect of the 
 people. There is scarcely a single instance of the 
 anti-foreign spirit affecting detrimentally our 
 Christian colleges. They have, speaking generally, 
 passed through the crisis of the last two years 
 unscathed, and they are recognized as sympathetic 
 with all that is best in the new spirit, and as being 
 one of the best training-grounds of Indian charac- 
 ter. I have taken some pains to gather facts as 
 to recent Christian college development, and, as 
 far as I can ascertain, in spite of a certain amount 
 of strained feeling for a time, they are now 
 stronger than before and their numbers greater. 
 The only place where Christian education has 
 been adversely affected is East Bengal ; but even 
 there, I understand, the opposition is beginning to 
 decline. 
 
 The Christian colleges have in a wonderful 
 way been assimilated by the people themselves 
 and become in a sense indigenous. To take an 
 example in our own college at Delhi we have an
 
 218 NORTH!NDIA 
 
 Indian Principal with three English Professors as 
 his subordinates, we have two very able Moham- 
 medans acting as honorary Professors, we have 
 scholarships given by Brahmans, and an orthodox 
 Hindu giving his services gratuitously as architect 
 and superintendent of extensive new college build- 
 ings. The old students love the Christian colleges 
 to which they belong, and work for them and sub- 
 scribe to them, and the affection for them grows 
 in wider and wider circles. The reverence for 
 Christianity among the educated classes in India 
 (in striking contrast to their repulsion from the 
 present aspect of the Church) is due in a very 
 great measure to Christian college influences. 
 Without these, Christianity would scarcely be 
 treated with tolerance in many parts, much less 
 with respect and reverence. It is noticeable that 
 the city in which, as has been related above, the 
 name of our LORD was received with hisses, is 
 one from which Christian educational work was 
 withdrawn more than a generation ago, and which 
 does not possess any large Christian school or 
 college to-day. 
 
 There is, then, a good prospect that if we hold 
 strongly the almost commanding position we have 
 obtained in the Universities, we may still keep the
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 219 
 
 National Movement in touch, and even in sym- 
 pathy with progressive Christian thought, until 
 the witness of the Christian Church itself grows 
 stronger, her foreign dress is shaken off, and 
 her contribution to the life of the nation is recog- 
 nized. But if we stand still in education we are 
 courting defeat. The estrangement from the 
 Church will grow deeper and deeper. The anti- 
 Christian influences will gather to a head in the 
 centres of thought, and these will turn the current 
 of the National Movement itself in an anti- 
 Christian direction. The Church will appear more 
 and more the Church of the foreigner, and the 
 sympathies of Indian Christians with the higher 
 aspects of Nationalism will be retarded. No more 
 fatal event could take place than that the Church, 
 which aspires to be in the future the National 
 Church of India, should drift further and further 
 away from the present vigorous current of national 
 life and development, and form a little backwater 
 of her own. 
 
 Christian education is the link of connection 
 between the Church and the new forces. We 
 cannot afford to weaken it for a moment. To use 
 a military metaphor, it will not do to win rapid 
 successes on the flanks by means of the " mass
 
 220 NORTH INDIA 
 
 movements," and leave our front unprotected and 
 open to anti-Christian attacks. A country like 
 India, where the Brahman or intellectual caste 
 has maintained its sway for centuries, where 
 the material side of life has always played so 
 secondary a part, will to-day, in the era of new 
 movement and awakening, be moved still by 
 thought and by leaders of thought. We are not 
 dealing with China or Japan, where the practical 
 looms so large, but with India, the land of philo- 
 sophies and idealisms. The new national thought 
 as it arises must be held close to the Christian 
 ideal, and this can only be done seriously, syste- 
 matically and without useless controversy, in our 
 colleges and schools. 
 
 Christianity, it is true, must be presented in 
 living examples, and in a bodily form, with active 
 working members. I have not the slightest 
 wish to minimise the importance of this side 
 of missionary endeavour. But India after all 
 is the land of idealists. The lowest peasant, in 
 spite of his terrible poverty and his hard material 
 conditions, is an idealist at heart, and will ever 
 remain one. While, therefore, the moving facts of 
 Christianity need ever to be presented in action, 
 and the witness of the Christian Body is of
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 221 
 
 supreme importance, it is the interpretation of 
 these facts in the schools, in the colleges, in the 
 Press, which will make their influence widely felt. 
 The ideas based on these facts must be kept 
 before the leaders of the thought of the country, 
 and must win their acceptance or at least their 
 acquiescence. We must keep our hold on the 
 students, and they will still, even from within 
 Hinduism, speak and think in Christian ways 
 when they grow up. This speaking and think- 
 ing will influence countless numbers who never 
 see a missionary's face. 
 
 The opinion here expressed is not my own. 
 It is the opinion of every leading Indian Christian 
 with whom I have come in contact. I have not 
 found a single Indian Christian who would not 
 view with dismay any weakening of our educa- 
 tional position. One who is on the Governing 
 Body of the Panjab University, and Principal of 
 his college, writes as follows : " The work which 
 our Christian colleges are doing for the future of 
 Indian Christianity is of inestimable worth, and 
 is the most important missionary work that is 
 being done in India at the present time. Their 
 work is like that of leaven, slowly but surely 
 altering the thoughts and ideals of the country.
 
 222 NORTH INDIA 
 
 Leaven cannot be measured statistically. There is 
 now a mighty movement of intellect going on 
 in India. To weaken or withdraw at such a time 
 would be suicidal. Education, here, as in the 
 West, must ultimately dominate the life of the 
 country. Missionary colleges should be carried 
 on in the fullness of intellectual, moral, and 
 spiritual efficiency, so as to set before youthful 
 India the image of the Divine even CHRIST. If 
 this is not done, the ascendency of CHRIST, which 
 is dimly perceptible among the educated classes, 
 will decline, and be overthrown by other influences. 
 We need determination and faith, and the Christian 
 leaven will leaven the mass yet. . . . Without 
 this Christian education of the highest type, 
 materialistic and secular influences or anti-Chris- 
 tian influences will practically determine the 
 future. The spiritual and devotional will tend 
 either to be excluded or to take retrograde 
 channels. Even the best spiritual pantheistic 
 thought, because of its impersonal character, will 
 afford little or no guidance. The only moulding 
 power I know is a personal power, and I believe 
 that the Christian Church is able to place the 
 figure of JESUS of Nazareth, Who was crucified 
 dead and buried, and rose again the third day
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 223 
 
 from the dead, in such a way before the Indian 
 peoples that, lost in wonder and adoration, they 
 will be lifted up and strengthened. A motive 
 power India needs it is her supreme need. 
 Earthly wisdom will afford her many, but there 
 is no power that earth can give which can 
 compare with the quickening vital energy that 
 will come from the vision of the CHRIST living 
 from the dead, the personal Saviour of men, the 
 King of the East and of the West, the very 
 image of the unseen GOD, to see Whom is to be 
 in contact with the unseen. The new life that 
 will come to India from this vision, this contact 
 with the unseen, is the only force needed to lead 
 her to fulfil her destiny in the world." 
 
 Such words from a leading Indian Christian are 
 an inspiration. They raise our hope, and uplift 
 our ideal ; yet the writer, with whom I have had 
 long and intimate conversations, would desire to 
 add with all possible emphasis, that Christianity, 
 if it is ever to become the faith of the Indian 
 nation, must be stripped completely bare of its 
 present foreign accretions and excrescences, and 
 be made indigenous ; otherwise it will remain an 
 exotic plant, unacclimatized and sickly, needing 
 the continual prop and support of the West.
 
 224 NORTH INDIA 
 
 To this end there must be a change in our 
 missionary theology. We need to have a deeper 
 faith in GOD, and in His love for men. We 
 must believe that GOD has not left Himself with- 
 out a witness for thousands of years among the 
 most religious people in the world. We must 
 believe that holy men of old in India spake as 
 they were moved by the HOLY GHOST, and we 
 must no longer despise the HOLY GHOST by 
 speaking slightingly of their message. We must 
 believe that CHRIST is really the Light of the 
 world, the Divine WORD who is the Life of men 
 that He Himself has been lightening every 
 Indian coming into the world, and that the many 
 millions of yearning human spirits in India have 
 had His spiritual light to guide them, before any 
 missionary came to teach them the full message 
 of the Incarnation. We shall then find, if not an 
 Old Testament, yet, a true praeparatio evangelica 
 in the Vedas and Upanishads, in the poetry, and 
 even in the legends of ancient India, as well as 
 in the traditions of Muhammad, the utterances 
 of the Sufi mystics, the sayings of Kabir, and the 
 verses of the Granth. It is true that selection 
 will be needed, and purification ; but that is a 
 different thing from the wholesale destruction or
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 225 
 
 wholesale neglect which is at present far too 
 common. 
 
 There must also be a change in our missionary 
 method. CHRIST'S words, " I came not to destroy 
 but to fulfil," will need to be written on all our 
 work in letters of gold. " Whatsoever things are 
 true, whatsoever things are honourable (margin 
 reverend), whatsoever things are just, whatsoever 
 things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, 
 whatsoever things are of good report ; if there be 
 any praise, if there be any virtue " in Hinduism 
 or Buddhism, or Islam (and there is very much 
 indeed of each and every one of these things) 
 we need to " think on [margin, take account of] 
 these things." We must no longer build up a 
 wholly foreign system which turns Indian Chris- 
 tians into foreigners in their own country, so that 
 this terrible sentence could be written by an 
 impartial and kindly observer writing in a leading 
 Indian review, " An Indian Christian is, with 
 honourable exceptions, thoroughly denationalized ; 
 at best he is but a spectator standing unconcerned 
 on the shores of the stream of national life 
 though he is not all to blame for it." 
 
 If it be asked, How can this change of method 
 be effected ? the answer will be, By a change of 
 
 Q
 
 226 NORTH INDIA 
 
 temper and spirit running through all the work. 
 To become an Indian to the Indian to win the 
 Indian, to decrease that the Indian may in- 
 crease, these, after more than a hundred years 
 of Indian Church life, must not be theories merely 
 but an integral part of missionary principle. Men 
 and women who come out to work must be 
 trained and disciplined in this spirit, just as they 
 are trained and disciplined in learning the 
 vernacular. 
 
 In our own branch of the Church, which aspires 
 to be called the National Church of India, but 
 which, alas ! if the truth be told, is at present 
 in many ways the least national of all in the 
 North, and the most bound up with elements 
 that are foreign, the changes will have to be 
 nothing less than radical, if the word " national " 
 is not to be a mere mockery a word scarcely 
 to be used without an apology or a smile. The 
 State Establishment will have to go ; it is already 
 an anachronism, and an offence ; if chaplains 
 remain, they must be only for the troops. The 
 living, growing Church of the Indian people must 
 no longer be at the mercy and dictation of 
 a Secretary of State, seven thousand miles away, 
 both for the appointment of its chief Bishops, and
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 227 
 
 the establishing of its Bishoprics. The English 
 Book of Common Prayer, with all its sixteenth 
 century Articles and Rubrics, must no longer be 
 imposed upon the Indian Church giving a wholly 
 Western setting and type to Eastern minds in 
 their deepest religious moments. The solemn 
 words of the Apostle must be recalled to-day, in 
 this new connection : " Now therefore why tempt 
 ye GOD, to put a yoke upon the neck of the 
 disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were 
 able to bear ? " 
 
 Furthermore, for the Church's very life's sake, 
 Indian Christians must be found, who may be 
 consecrated as Bishops. The Church that has 
 produced a Father Goreh, and a Satthianadan, 
 a Krishna Mohan Banerji, and an Imad ud Din, 
 a Sorabji, and a Manchala Ratnam, a Piari Mohan 
 Rudra, and a Jani Ali to mention only a few 
 names from different parts of India can surely 
 never be regarded, after more than a hundred 
 years of growth, as unable to " produce the man " 
 even for a Suffragan or Coadjutor ! Such an 
 assertion is an insult that the Indian Christian 
 community deeply resents. 
 
 Once again, a Synod, properly constituted, 
 and truly representative of Indian Church life,
 
 228 NORTH INDIA 
 
 in which Indians have a clear and audible voice 
 in their own affairs, must be substituted for a 
 mere Synod of English Bishops in which Indians 
 have no part even as assessors. In a country 
 such as India a country of spiritual instincts, 
 intellectual powers, mystical insight, and religious 
 genius, a country that has produced leaders in 
 religion who have commanded the allegiance of 
 half mankind it ought to have been possible for 
 the Christian Church to rise at least to as high 
 a level of self-government and self-expression 
 as the Church of West Africa. Yet there, both 
 indigenous Bishops and a fully constituted Synod 
 are accomplished facts ; while in India we have 
 neither the one nor the other. 
 
 One of the main conclusions which a study of 
 Indian Church History during last century leaves 
 in the mind is this, that the State predominance 
 has hampered continually organic growth on the 
 Indian side, and that the English Bishops have 
 been almost powerless to resist its influence. 
 
 Ultimately, the present difficulties and per- 
 plexities of the Indian Church resolve themselves 
 into the one great problem of the intermingling 
 of races, within one Body. The principle of 
 racial equality in CHRIST has to be fought out
 
 THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT 229 
 
 once more, as it was fought out in S. Paul's own 
 time. The struggle will be a severe one, and 
 will need hard blows. But the victory is certain, 
 and in winning this victory within her own ranks, 
 and asserting in action this great Christian 
 principle, the Church will be preparing herself 
 to be at last the true nursing mother of the 
 Indian nation. For that which Neo-Hinduism 
 shows no signs of accomplishing, the Christian 
 Church, coming victorious out of her own internal 
 struggles, may at last achieve. She may first 
 learn within herself, and then give to India, the 
 spirit of unity. She may at last combine in one 
 Body, not only the English and the Indian, but 
 also the Hindu and Mussulman, the Brahman and 
 the Pariah, the Buddhist and the Parsi. Then 
 indeed a new Indian nation will arise, purified 
 and united, uplifted and transformed by the Spirit 
 of the living GOD revealed in JESUS CHRIST.
 
 230 NORTH INDIA 
 
 APPENDIX A 
 MODERN KRISHNA WORSHIP 
 
 in many respects the new Krishna 
 cult resembles Neo-Platonism in its alle- 
 gorizing methods and its philosophic basis, in 
 other ways it is more closely parallel to the 
 spread of the Mithras Legend in the late Roman 
 Empire ; for it offers to the multitude salvation, 
 both temporal and spiritual, by the grace of 
 the legendary Krishna, who is identified with the 
 supreme GOD and worshipped with divine honours. 
 As the spread of the new Krishna cult and 
 its close connection with Nationalism are little 
 understood in England, and as there are distinct 
 signs that this new form of Hinduism will be the 
 most serious rival of Christianity in the near 
 future, it will be of interest to English readers 
 to read the following leading article taken from 
 the chief Nationalist daily paper, which I abbre- 
 viate for want of space. Such political articles, 
 cast in a religious setting, are almost of daily 
 occurrence in Indian newspapers of this school.
 
 MODERN KRISHNA WORSHIP 231 
 
 " To-day every Hindu will celebrate the Birth- 
 day of the Lord Krishna with becoming earnest- 
 ness and devotion. He will observe the day as 
 one peculiarly fit to feel the GOD within him. He 
 will fast, he will make himself holy, he will go to 
 places of acknowledged sanctity, he will hear his 
 sacred books, he will worship the Lord Krishna, 
 either in his own house or in a neighbouring 
 temple, he will give alms to the poor, he will 
 sing his holy name and pass the day in medita- 
 tion, prayer, and serious thoughts. How meet it 
 is then that we should realize the Lord Krishna 
 in our national life, and feel that he is once more 
 in our midst, inspiring, guiding, controlling and 
 protecting ! He is the perfect Being, and no 
 Hindu feels the least hesitation in declaring that 
 the Lord Krishna is GOD Himself. The Lord 
 Krishna is the essence of our Hindu Philosophy, 
 the peculiarity of our Hindu thoughts and senti- 
 ments, the be-all and end-all of our actions, the 
 spirituality of our Indian life, the blossom of our 
 Indian flower, the burden of our Indian song. 
 He is our Nationality. The Lord Krishna, by 
 taking on him flesh, has shown the immense 
 possibilities of man. The Incarnation of the 
 Lord Krishna has revealed to what height a man
 
 232 NORTH INDIA 
 
 can rise. On this sacred day of the Lord 
 Krishna's Birth, let us pray for grace that he 
 may stand by us in these days of repression, 
 and give us firmness and strength. 
 
 "In all great movements there are seasons of 
 life-development. There is first a season of secret 
 growth when the world knows nothing of the 
 momentous birth that Time has engendered, when 
 Krishna is growing from infancy to youth among 
 the poor and despised and weak ones of the earth. 
 Then there comes the leaping forth of the great 
 name to the light, the delight of the oppressed 
 who wait for a Deliverer, the violence of the 
 tyrant and his frantic attempts to slay the young 
 Deity. But the new Idea, magnified by martyr- 
 dom, aggrandized by defeat, lifts its head higher 
 and higher into the heavens, and the world is full 
 of its indomitable presence. Then comes the life 
 of Krishna at Dwarka, when the victorious Idea 
 lives out its potent and unhindered existence, and 
 works its will with a world that has become as 
 clay in the hands of the Potter, and teaches what 
 it has to teach, and then returns to the great 
 Source of all energy from whence it came. 
 
 " In the season of ordeal and persecution only 
 the children of grace, for whom the Gospel is
 
 MODERN KRISHNA WORSHIP 233 
 
 preached, are able to see the vision of its glory. 
 The world admires and hates, but will not believe. 
 It promulgates an ordinance that the firstborn of 
 the Idea shall be sought out and put to the sword. 
 As in the early days of the Christian Church, so 
 always, zealous persecutors ' breathe out threaten- 
 ings and slaughter against the disciples of the 
 LORD ' and ' make havoc of the Church, entering 
 into every house, and, haling men and women, 
 commit them to prison.' Even the nation itself 
 to which the Gospel is preached, the rich men and 
 high priests, receive its doctrine with contempt, 
 because its enthusiasms are unintelligible to their 
 worldly wisdom, its inspired teachings are a 
 scandal to their narrow systems ; they even 
 accuse its apostles before the tribunal of alien 
 rulers a Pontius Pilate, a Felix, or a Festus 
 as ' pestilent fellows and movers of sedition 
 throughout the nation.' But Nationalism is an 
 Avatar, and cannot be slain. The powers of evil 
 cannot destroy the Lord Krishna. Nationalism 
 is a divinely -appointed shakti (power) of the 
 Eternal, and must do its GOD-given work before 
 it returns to the Universal Energy from whence 
 it came."
 
 234 NORTH INDIA 
 
 APPENDIX B 
 
 LITERATURE DEALING WITH MISSION 
 WORK IN NORTH INDIA 
 
 *T*NSTEAD of a Bibliography, I propose to give 
 *"^ in this Appendix some suggestions which may 
 be useful to those who wish to study the subject of 
 this book in greater detail. 
 
 No better general view of Church mission work 
 in North India can be obtained than that pre- 
 sented by Dr. Eugene Stock in the History of the 
 Church Missionary Society. The " Indian" chapters 
 in the three volumes should be read consecutively, 
 and to them should be added the sections dealing 
 with India in Two Hundred Years of S.P.G. For 
 the history of special Missions four books stand out 
 conspicuously : History of the Oxford Mission, by 
 Father Longridge ; History of the Dublin Mission, 
 by Dr. Eyre Chatter ton ; History of the Punjab 
 Missions (C.M.S.), by the Rev. Robert Clark; and 
 History of the Cambridge Mission, by Canon
 
 LITERATURE DEALING WITH MISSION WORK 235 
 
 B. K. Cunningham. For biographies, Father 
 Gardner's Life of Nehemiah Goreh is by far the 
 most important. It is the book that tells more 
 about the inner history of the religious struggle 
 that is going on, and the beauty of the Indian 
 Christian character, than any I know. It is 
 a great loss that the lives of other Indian Chris- 
 tians have not as yet been written in the same 
 way and in the same spirit. Lives of English 
 workers are numerous, but their importance is 
 secondary, for they teach more about English 
 character, with which we are familiar, than Indian 
 character, of which we know so little. The Life 
 of Babu Ram Tanu Lahiri, translated from the 
 Bengali of Pandit Shiv Nath Shastri (published 
 by S. K. Lahiri & Co., Calcutta), will give vivid 
 impressions of Indian character in contact with 
 English civilization and Christian thought. It 
 deals with one of the most interesting periods of 
 Calcutta history. 
 
 For a general view of the races and castes of 
 North India, Sir Herbert Risley's new book, The 
 People of India (published by Thacker & Spink, 
 Calcutta), is very important. The anthropological 
 conclusions have been subjected to much criticism, 
 but his chapters on " Caste and marriage," " Caste
 
 236 NORTH INDIA 
 
 and religion," are among the best contributions to 
 a very difficult subject. The new edition of the 
 Imperial Gazetteer of India will be found of great 
 value as a book of reference, and the Census 
 Report of 1901-2 is a store of most useful in- 
 formation. Mr. Yusuf Ali's book entitled Life 
 and Labours in India is a very pleasing sketch of 
 Indian manners and customs. Sister Nivedita's 
 Web of Indian Life gives an interesting but some- 
 what highly -coloured picture of Hinduism in 
 practice, especially from the woman's side. 
 
 For a study of Hinduism as a religion it is very 
 difficult to name satisfactory books. One of the 
 best popular views of the Hindu religious system, 
 written by an orthodox Hindu, is to be found in 
 Hinduism, Ancient and Modern, by Lala Baij Nath, 
 of Allahabad. For Hindu religious philosophy 
 I should recommend the Veddnta-sdra, translated 
 and edited by Jacobs, in Triibner's Oriental Series. 
 This is a short manual of the classical Vedantic 
 system. Deussen's Lectures on the Vedanta gives 
 the fundamental ideas of Vedantism in a form 
 more intelligible to ordinary English readers. It 
 must be remembered that the author's standpoint 
 and views are hardly those of most European 
 philosophers. A very interesting little book by
 
 LITERATURE DEALING WITH MISSION WORK 237 
 
 various writers, entitled Aspects of the Vedanta, 
 contains some important chapters by Pandit Sita- 
 nath Tattvabhushan. This last-named writer is 
 very able, and anything that he writes is well worth 
 reading. The Writings of Swami Vivekananda 
 are most instructive as a picture of modern aggres- 
 sive Hinduism ; they also give his own interpreta- 
 tion of the Vedantic system. Along with them, 
 the Bhagavadgita should be carefully studied in 
 some good translation with notes. There is a 
 useful scholar's edition a literal translation- 
 translated with the commentary of Shankara, by 
 Pandit A. Mahadeva Shastri ; a translation for 
 English readers is, I believe, available in the 
 Temple Classics. It needs to be understood more 
 clearly that the Vedanta and the Bhagavadgita 
 to-day form the central core of Hindu Scriptures 
 among educated Hindus ; other sides of the vast 
 Hindu system and literature are not studied in 
 the same serious way, nor made the basis of a life- 
 religion. 
 
 With regard to the various reforming Samajes, 
 it is best to apply for literature to the centres of 
 their organizations. P. C. Mozumdar's books are, 
 perhaps, the best exposition of the views of the 
 Brahmo Samaj. His Lectures of Keshab Chander
 
 238 NORTH INDIA 
 
 Sen and The Oriental Christ are both well worth 
 reading. Pamphlets would also be sent to any 
 English inquirer by Lala Kashi Ram, Brahmo 
 Mandir, Lahore, or by the Secretary, Sadharan 
 Brahmo Samaj, Cornwallis Street, Calcutta. 
 
 The best view of the Arya-Samaj teaching 
 may be obtained from a study of the Satydrth 
 Prakdsh, by Swami Dayananda Saraswati, which 
 forms, as it were, the Scriptures of the movement. 
 Pamphlets may be obtained from the D. A.V. 
 College office, Lahore. For the Prathana Samaj 
 papers, inquiry should be made to K. Nataranjan, 
 Esq., Editor, Indian Social Reformer, Bombay. 
 
 In studying Mohammedanism it is difficult to 
 avoid controversial writings. Palmer's translation 
 of the Quran, with notes, in the " Sacred Books of 
 the East," is probably the best for English readers. 
 A little book by Amir Ali Syed in the " Religions, 
 Ancient and Modern " series, price is., entitled 
 Islam, will give in shortest compass the Moham- 
 medan point of view. He is, perhaps, the ablest 
 Indian expounder of Islam in modern times. 
 Lives of the Prophet by Sir Syed Ahmed, Sir 
 W. Muir, and Professor Margoliouth, will give 
 the history of the first beginnings of Islam from 
 different standpoints. Interesting supplementary
 
 LITERATURE DEALING WITH MISSION WORK 239 
 
 books would be Arnold's Preaching of Islam, 
 Tisdall's Sources of Islam, and Mohammedan 
 Objections to Christianity (S.P.C.K.), and Muir's 
 Apology of A I Kindy. 
 
 With regard to the National Movement, the 
 best method of study would probably be to take 
 in The Modern Review (published at the Modern 
 Review office, 210. 3. I., Cornwallis Street, Cal- 
 cutta, \2s. postal order for a year's subscription). 
 This is a monthly review, dealing with the most 
 pressing religious, social, and political questions. 
 It is written chiefly by Indians themselves from 
 an Indian standpoint, and does not merely echo 
 English opinion. Its tone is often strongly critical 
 of Government methods and administration, but 
 that is to be looked for from independent thinkers 
 during a time of upheaval. It should be under- 
 stood that educated Indians read reviews and papers 
 to-day more than books. If English students are 
 to follow the new thought of the country they 
 must read reviews that are edited by Indians. 
 The Indian Review is another excellent monthly 
 of a somewhat more conservative type (published 
 by G. A. Natesan & Co., Esplanade, Madras. IQJ. 
 per annum). 
 
 All Indian books referred to in the above list
 
 240 NORTH INDIA 
 
 can be obtained by writing to G. A. Natesan & Co., 
 Esplanade, Madras, who are ready to act as agents 
 and obtain for customers books that they do not 
 themselves publish. Postal orders form the best 
 medium of payment of small Indian accounts. 
 
 The present writer would gladly communicate 
 with any English student who desired to enter 
 more deeply into the subjects mentioned. Ad- 
 dress : Cambridge Mission, Delhi, India.
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Abdul Masih, n, 12, 15, 20. 
 Afghanistan, 152, 153. 
 Agra, 19, 31, 124-127. 
 Aligarh, 131-133. 
 Allahabad, 74, 102-119,212. 
 A.L.O.E., 142. 
 Amritsar, 136-145. 
 AryaSamaj,8o, 139,196,197. 
 
 Banerji, K. M., 25-30. 
 Bankipur, 68. 
 Baptism, i, 2, 52-60. 
 Barisal, 90-92. 
 Bateman, R., 143. 
 Benares, 19, 61, 76-80, 137- 
 
 140. 
 Bishop's College, 16, 17, 25, 
 
 27. 67, 85. 
 
 Bombay, 22, 75, 117. 
 Brahmans, 29, 6164, 105, 
 
 196, 212. 
 Brown, D., 6, 10. 
 
 E. F., 84, 86, 93, 97, 
 
 101. 
 
 Calcutta, 2-7, 13-34,36, 67, 
 
 82-101, 203. 
 Carey, W., 5. 
 Cashmere, see Kashmir. 
 
 Caste, 20, 21, 30, 194, 228, 
 
 229. 
 
 Cawnpore, 10, 109-119. 
 Chhota Nagpur, 35-60. 
 C.M.S., 40, 107, 108, 141, 
 
 202. 
 
 Clark, Robert, 141, 148. 
 Corrie, Bishop, 7, n, 19. 
 Cotton, Bishop, 32-34. 
 Cowley Fathers, 67-75. 
 
 Dacca, 90, 95. 
 Delhi, 32, 111-118, 160. 
 Dublin Mission, 46. 
 Duff, A., 22-27. 
 
 Education, question of, in, 
 
 216-223. 
 
 Edwards, Padre Thos., 153. 
 English rule, 3-8, 22, 23, 
 
 146-148, 157-187. 
 Epiphany, Brotherhood, 83, 
 84 ; Sister- 
 hood, 93. 
 
 Paper, 95-97. 
 
 Eurasians, 100, 116, 117. 
 
 French, Bishop, 124-130, 
 140. 
 
 241
 
 242 
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Gordon, G. M., 128-130. 
 Gore, Bishop, 84, 87, 98. 
 Goreh, Fr. N., 61-81. 
 
 ,, Deaconess E., 66, 
 
 117. 
 Gossner, J., 35-40. 
 
 Heber, Bishop, i8-ao. 
 Hinduism, 102, 136, 197- 
 211. 
 
 Imad ud Din, Dr., 120-128. 
 
 Jesuits, 54. 
 Johnson, Bishop, 83. 
 
 Kashmir, 140, 149, 150. 
 Keshab Chander Sen, 82, 
 
 200. 
 
 Kharak Sing, 136-140. 
 Kiernander, J., 2-5. 
 King, Bishop, 83. 
 Kols, 36-48, 51. 
 Kotgur, 1 53-1 55. 
 Krishnagar, 29, 51. 
 
 Lahore, 32, 45, 116, 125- 
 
 127. 155- 
 
 Lankester, Dr. 150, 151. 
 Lefroy, Bishop, 134, 153, 
 
 154- 
 Lutherans, 36-42. 
 
 Macaulay, Lord, 23. 
 Marshman, J., 5. 
 Martin, Major, 147, 148. 
 
 Martyn, H., 7-10, 128, 129. 
 Medical work, 114, 115, 144, 
 
 149-152. 
 Middleton, Bishop, 13-18, 
 
 34- 
 
 Milman, Bishop, 34, 41-43. 
 Mohammedans,, 10-12, 72, 
 
 73, 120-135, 147, 195. 
 Moravians, 35. 
 
 Nadiya, 26, 29. 
 
 National movement, 188- 
 
 229. 
 Native Ministry, 12, 15, 19, 
 
 20, 28, 29, 42, 99, 108, 
 
 116, 140, 227, 228. 
 Nivedita, Sister, 201. 
 
 O'Neill, Father, 68. 
 Oxford Mission, 82-101. 
 Oxford and Cambridge 
 Hostel, 103-107. 
 
 Panjab, 26, 120-135, 146, 
 
 147, 167, 221. 
 Peshawar, 140, 147-151. 
 
 yuetta, 151. 
 
 Ramabai, 73, 74. 
 
 Ram Krishna, 200204. 
 
 Ranchi, 37-39. 
 
 Rudra, P. M., 25, 30, 227. 
 
 Safdar Ali, 72, 73. 
 Serampur. 5.
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 243 
 
 Sigra, 76. 
 
 Sikhs, 136-147, 154. 
 Simeon, C., 6, 7. 
 S.P.C.K., 1-4. 
 S.P.G., 32, 108, 109. 
 S.V.M.U., 103. 
 
 Theosophy, 80, 81. 
 Walker, C. H., 85, 96. 
 
 Westcott brothers, 109-111. 
 Whitehead, Bishop, 84-86, 
 
 in. 
 
 Whitley, Bishop, 42-45. 
 Wilberforce, W., 7, 8. 
 Willis, E. F., 84, 87. 
 Wilson, Bishop, 20, 27, 31, 
 
 32- 
 
 Zenana, 31, 111-117, I &-
 
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