India's Problem, Krishna or Christ Part 18

4. SELF-SUPPORT OF MISSIONS.

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

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

The self-support of a mission, as such, is a question which is not looked upon with the same urgency, or with the same idea of importance by all missions, or by all missionaries. One party, for instance, would make self-support the supreme end; everything else must be subordinated to it.

Nothing should be undertaken, they say, which is not within the means and the desire of the people to support. For instance, they maintain that the salary of all mission agents and the support of mission inst.i.tutions must be pecuniarily within the means of the Orient and within the limits of its ambitions. I ought to say that no mission, to my knowledge, carries out this principle in its integrity, although there are some missionaries who urge it and proclaim it at all times.

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

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

5. MISSION EDUCATIONAL WORK.

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

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

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

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

Thus, there are two problems, in this connection, which will confront us.

One is the question whether it be worth while for missions to conduct their schools entirely at their own expense, _i.e._-without any government aid. This problem must be faced ere long; and it means either the curtailing of this department of work or the expending of a very much increased sum of money upon it.

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

And the problem may confront us as to whether we are prepared to continue all our schools for non-Christians under conditions which make it impossible for us to give Bible, or even any religious, training in them.

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

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

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

There is adequate excuse for this in the early stages of mission progress.

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

6. THE INDUSTRIAL AND ECONOMIC PROBLEM.

During the last two decades there has been a marked and strong tendency in Indian missions, as in the home churches which support them, to still broaden the scope of missionary effort by adding to its directly spiritual, and to its educational and medical, work, schemes for the industrial, economic and social advancement of the people. This broadening of the conception of the work of the Church in missionary lands is a most interesting study. Less than a century ago nothing that was not directly and intensely spiritual in its character was regarded as, in any sense, a part of missionary effort. To preach the Gospel to the heathen, to establish and to train Christian churches and to develop and direct a suitable native agency-this embraced the whole work of the mission.

Anything beyond this was considered illegitimate. Subsequently the medical department was introduced,-chiefly because of the example of Christ Himself as the Great Healer. Soon the educational work was begun, as a necessity in its elementary stages, and it gradually grew until it has reached its present manifold character and large proportions. Then a few missions began to touch the industrial problem and to establish schools for the training of boys and girls in manual labour. Today that work is finding much increased emphasis, and missions are beginning to take up, in all seriousness, Peasant Settlements as a means of lifting the people economically, and of training them to habits of industry, and to found villages as separate Christian communities. Schools for the blind and for deaf mutes also have been established. In fact all forms of philanthropic effort have now practically been adopted by the missions of India as legitimate forms of their activities. Indeed, it is extensively proclaimed, what has long been strenuously denied, that missions are not founded simply to Christianize but to civilize and to elevate in all matters pertaining to soul, mind and body, the people among whom they are established.

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

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

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

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

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

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

7. MISSION ADMINISTRATION.

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

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

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

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

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

8. PROBLEMS CONCERNING NEW CONVERTS.

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

(_a_) _Shall polygamous converts be received into the Christian Church?_

In Hinduism polygamy (more especially, bigamy) is not uncommon. It is permitted and indeed fostered by that faith and is legalized by the laws of the country. As our faith makes increasing inroads upon that religion, numbers, and yet never a large number, of those who have two or more wives will accept our teaching and, with all earnestness, seek admission into our Christian communion. What shall we say to such? How shall we meet them and their desire? This question has, in a few cases, been sent to the societies at home, the missions seeking from them advice and guidance.

From America the instruction has been received against receiving any such into the Christian Church. This is natural enough from a country which is confronted by the Mormon question. But the problem has its Eastern bearing which is not understood in the West and which has led missionary bodies in India almost invariably to decide in favour of receiving such into the Christian fold.

In the consideration of the problem many things must be kept in mind. None more important than the claims to a cordial welcome from the Church of any man who, in true faith and Christian earnestness, seeks admittance. If it be demanded of the man that he put away all but one of those wives taken in heathenism; then we ask whether it is Christian, or even just, to cast away one to whom he was solemnly and religiously pledged according to the laws of the land and with whom he has been linked in love and harmony for years and from whom he has begotten children? And if he is to put away one or more of his wives, which one shall it be? Shall it be the first wife?

Certainly that would not be Christian. Or shall it be the second wife who is the mother of his children and whom he probably married at the request of the first, who was childless, in order that he might raise seed unto himself? It is not easy, on Christian grounds, to decide such a problem as this; nor is it very Christian to put a ban upon any woman who, in accordance with their religion and their country's laws, has formed this sacred alliance with a man and has lived with him for years. Nor can it be right to brand with illegitimacy the children born of such a wedlock.

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

(_b_) _Should the baptism of a person, in any case, immediately follow his confession of Christ?_

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

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

(_c_) _Another question frequently asked is that concerning secret baptism._

Shall a missionary, at any time and under any circ.u.mstances, secretly baptize such as are anxious to make confession of Christ, but are debarred by family opposition, or by similar causes, from public baptism? This problem frequently arises in connection with work for heathen women. Under the influence of the work of a Bible woman, or a lady missionary, a woman may abjure her faith, accept Christ as her Saviour and yearn for baptism.

But to be baptized publicly and to confess Christ before her people openly would inevitably result in her being driven from home, separated from her children and people, and robbed of all opportunity to influence them in behalf of her newly found faith. Moreover, by this public confession she is deprived of all family support and becomes a helpless dependent upon the mission for her daily bread. The question rises whether such a woman should be quietly baptized and thus left to pursue her way in her own home and with her family as a pledged, but secret, follower of the Lord. There is much to be said in favour of, as there is against, such a baptism. Many contend that such an acceptance of Christ would be unworthy and would be robbed of its saving power. But such are not conversant with Hindu life and some of its terrible conditions. Some would maintain, perhaps with more wisdom, that it would be better not to baptize such, but to encourage them to believe that they are accepted of Christ and to treat them in every way as Christ's own disciples.

Another problem in this connection is as to the right or wisdom of an unordained lady missionary to administer this initiatory rite to such women converts. This question, of course, will be largely decided in accordance with the ecclesiastical connection of those who consider it.

There is a growing number of persons who believe that it would be well that ladies be authorized to administer this rite under such circ.u.mstances.

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

This revival is really the result of western influence-largely the product of Christian teaching and activity in that land. In its last a.n.a.lysis it is therefore not to be deplored, but rather to be welcomed. At the same time this new awakening seems to be, for the present, connected with a reactionary and a militant spirit. It speaks in the interest of a new nationalism and a false patriotism which extols everything Eastern simply because it _is_ Oriental. Its aggressiveness is manifest even in America.

We are becoming familiar, in this country, with the yellow-robed Hindu monk who has probably been trained in a Christian mission college and who talks Hinduism with a strong Christian accent. Though he has violated a peremptory command of his ancestral faith in crossing the seas; and though, of necessity, he daily tramples in this land the whole decalogue of Hindu life and ritual, he feels competent to champion Hindu philosophy here! And he seems to find a coterie of admirers and quasi disciples in this land of light and privilege! Recently an old cla.s.smate of mine informed me, with all solemnity, that Eastern thought is now invading the West; and that he himself had become a theosophist! I have, since hearing this statement, travelled considerably over this country and confess that his statement does not seem so absurd as at first I thought. For, I have seen the recent phenomenal spread of Christian Science and of other vagaries with which we are too familiar in this land. What is Christian Science but the subtle, evasive idealism of India unequally yoked to a form of Christian truth and ritual. What is theosophy, but the stupefying philosophy and the benumbing metaphysics of the East, clothed in its own garb of Oriental mysticism and senseless, spurious occultism. It is a sad reflection upon our Western life that so many people who fail to find rest in the divinely inspiring teachings of Christ, sink into the depths of a credulity which will accept the inanities of Madame Blavatsky and the wild a.s.sumptions of Mrs. Eddy. Let these people go out to India and live there for years to see how Hindu thought and teachings have, for three millenniums, worked out their legitimate results in the life of the teeming millions of that land. Let them observe the debasing immorality, the hollow ceremonialism, the all-pervasive ignorance and superst.i.tion which rest, like a mighty pall, upon that people and which make life mean and render n.o.ble manhood impossible. The situation in India reminds one of the legendary house built upon the banks of Newfoundland. The foundation was completed when a dense fog swept over the place and rested upon all.

After the superstructure was built and finished the fog lifted and it was found, alas, that the building was erected some two hundred yards away from the foundation, and rested upon nothing! Whatever one may say about Hindu thought and philosophy as a basis of conduct, that people have been living for many centuries in the dense fog of ignorance, superst.i.tion and ceremonialism; and their life has been unworthy and debased because it rested upon nothing.