Lectures on the Tinnevelly Missions. Robert Granville Caldwell
risen to a peculiarly high standard of Christian excellence and devoted- ness. It is a very interesting circumstance, that through the influence and example of this class of converts, Christianity has begun to spread amongst persons belonging to the same social rank who have never been at any missionary school at all, or who have been educated at Government schools from which Christian teaching is carefully excluded ; and it would appear that in Calcutta this new cfass of converts is now more numerous than the former. It is also chiefly owing to the influence of English education that so many social reforms are now making progress amongst the higher classes of the Hindus. This educational department of missionary effort is far from being the only one which claims our sympathy, as some of its advocates appeared at one period to suppose ; but it is certainly one of very great importance ; and I may be permitted to say that it does not seem very creditable, either to the English people or to the Church of England, that the Scotch Presbyterians have been allowed almost to monopolize the Christian education of the higher classes of the Hindus. The Church of England is, un doubtedly, doing a great work in the rural districts ; and in Benares, Masulipatam, Palamcottah, and a few other places, the Church Missionary Society has established English schools for the higher classes ; but it is much to be wished that the English Church put forth more of her strength in the cities the seats of government and commerce, and contribute, what she has not yet done, her full share of effort towards the Christianization of the high-caste Hindus. The inequality at present existing is to be rectified, not by other bodies of Christians doing less, but by the Church of England doing more.
The Socidi/for the Propagation of the Gospel was a" few years ago, led by such considerations to establish a Mission for the higher classes in Delhi a Mission which has for the present been quenched in blood, but which, I trust, will ere long be revived. More re cently still the Society resolved, at the representation of the pre sent excellent Principal of Bishop's College, Calcutta, to make that institution useful, not only for the training up for the ministry of those who are already Christians, but for the still more necessary work of converting educated heathens to Christianity. In the Presidency of Madras it has not yet done anything in this direction, though it has three institutions for the training up of catechists, schoolmasters, and native ministers ; but T trust it will not be much longer the only great Missionary Society in that Pre sidency which leaves to their fate the higher classes of the heathen youth. The Vepery Mission Grammar Scfrool, an institution established by this Society for the education of the Indo-British youth, did much for the improvement of that class, at a time when no other Society did anything. That school has fulfilled its mission, and has now ceased to exist ; but I hope that something will be established in its room, more directly tending to the diffu sion of Christianity amongst the heathen. A few years ago I would have pleaded for the establishment in the same buildings of a thoroughly good English school, for the benefit of the Hindu youth, to be taught, not by ordinary schoolmasters, but by thoroughly qualified, devoted English Missionaries ; but at present what appears to be more urgently required, what appears, indeed, to be the great want of all the Presidential cities at present, is an organized system of means for bringing Christian influences to bear upon the minds of those Hindus who have received a superior English education already, either in Missionary or in Government schools, but who still continue heathens. This class of persons may be numbered by thousands ; and every mem- fcer of the class can be reached through the medium of the English tongue. Here is a promising door of usefulness standing open, an extensive and rich field of labour lying vacant : which Society will have the honour of first entering in 1
The other class of Missions, the popular or parochial, as distin- guished from the purely educational, expend much money and effort on education, especially on the education of the children of the poorer classes in the vernacular languages ; but they may properly be regarded as acting on a different system, inasmuch as they labour for the benefit, not of the young only, but of the people at large ; and the schools which they establish are con nected with, and subordinated to, Christian congregations. With the exception of a few hundred at most, the entire body of native Christians may be claimed as the fruit of this system, which has been much more productive than the other of present, visible results.
In the city of Madras itself, there are about 2,600 converts of this class in connexion with the various Protestant Missions ; but when we leave the Presidency and travel southwards, we shall find a much greater number in almost every province.
In the rich and populous province of Tanjore, in connexion with the Missions of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel which were founded by the venerable Swartz, there is a native Christian community, comprising about 5,000 souls ; and about half that number are connected with the revived Lutheran (Leipsic) Mission of Tranquebar. In those old Missions, Christian life and missionary zeal had sunk to a low point, in consequence of the retention of caste distinctions ; but within the last fifteen years the Gospel Propagation Society's Mission in Tanjore has been greatly purified and invigorated. The parochial system has been introduced, and the native congregations brought under efficient superintendence ; education has made rapid progress ; one of the best training seminaries in the country has been brought into operation : caste, the source of so many mischiefs, has been repressed ; and though, in consequence of these refor mations, especially in consequence of the systematic discourage ment of caste, the numbers of the Christian community have been diminished, the gain to the Christian cause has been more than equivalent.
Further south, in the adjacent province of Madura, a province peculiarly rich in historical associations, the American Board of Missions, a Presbyterian and Congregationalist Society, has occu pied the field in great force. I remember the commencement of that Mission, and happened some years after to travel through the province. At that time not a single convert had been made. On returning to this country three years ago, on my way from Tinnevelly to Madras, I again passed through the district occupied by the American Mission, and found that the number of native converts had increased in the intervening period from nil to between 4,000 and .5,000. The interesting and hopeful move ment which is going forward in that province appears to have originated in the influence of Tinnevelly Christianity. This was admitted by the American Missionaries themselves, and two of their number were deputed a few years ago to visit Tinnevelly, and go from station to station, for the purpose of making them selves acquainted with the details of our Missionary system. In the same province there are several old congregations connected with the Gospel Propagation Society, and an interesting offshoot from that Mission has recently been established amongst the Poliars of the Pulney Hills, a poor, long- oppressed, simple- minded race, to whom the reception of the Gospel has been as life from the dead.
On the western side of the Ghauts, the great mountain-range of Southern India, Christianity is also making progress. The Missionaries of the Basle Missionary Society have been labouring for the last twenty years in the provinces of Malabar and Canara, on the Malabar coast, and when I last heard of their progress, their converts from heathenism amounted to 2,000. Further south, on the same coast, there are the interesting Missions of the Church Missionary Society in the native states of Travancore and Cochin. I have not been long enough in India to remember the commencement of those Missions, but I have twice visited their principal stations, and on the occasion of my second visit, after an interval of nine years, I found both the number of Missionaries and the number of the native Christians under their care nearly doubled. It was particularly gratifying to find that the new converts who had been gathered in were not like the first converts, proselytes from the Syrian Church an old and interesting, though corrupted, Christian communion, but were direct acces sions from heathenism, especially from classes of heathens that had never before been reached. Amongst those newly-reached classes are the "Hill-kings," a race of rude, aboriginal moun taineers, living mostly in trees, and rarely before seen by any European eye. The Church Missionary Society's Missions in those districts comprise nearly 6,000 converts, who have to con tend with greater difficulties than any other native Christians in southern India, in consequence of the heathenism of the Malayala people being the most intense and fanatical with which I am acquainted, and the government of the country being heathen.
Further south still, in the Tamil portion of the Travancore country, are the Missions of the London Missionary Society, the most important and successful Missions of that Society in India, and which in the list of Indian rural Missions rank next to those of the Church of England in Tinnevelly. In connexion with those Missions there are upwards of 18.000 converts to