Lectures on the Tinnevelly Missions. Robert Granville Caldwell
Christianity, nearly all of whom speak the same language as our own converts in Tinnevelly, belong to the same castes and classes, and may be regarded as the same people ; and though in point of numbers they are considerably behind our Tinnevelly Christians, yet in education, public spirit, missionary zeal, and liberality in contributions to charitable objects, they have made, in proportion to their numbers, at least equal progress.
I now come, last of all, to Tinnevelly, the province in which it was my own privilege to labour during the greater part of my Indian life. Tinnevelly is the most southern province on the Coromandel coast) lying immediately to the south of Madura, and though a peculiarly hot, sandy, and unattractive region, it claims to be regarded by the Christian with pecxiliar interest ; for there the eye and heart wearied elsewhere with proofs of the power and prevalence of heathenism are gladdened by the sight of the largest, the most thriving, and the most progressive Christian community in India. The only Missions anywhere in the East which are said to be equally or more progressive, are those of the American Baptists amongst the Karens in Burmah ; but as I am not personally acquainted with those Missions, I am unable to say whether this representation is correct. In the subsequent Lectures I hope to describe more fully the Missions in Tinnevelly; it will suffice at present to say, that in that province alone, through the united instrumentality of the Church Missionary Society and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 20 missionary dis tricts have been formed, and 43,000 persons men, women, and children rescued from heathenism and brought under Christian instruction ; and that now, amongst other signs of approaching maturity, considerable progress is being made by the native Church towards the support of its own institutions without foreign aid. It is true that much remains to be done before our Christian community in Tinnevelly is in all respects worthy of the Christian name, and that there, as elsewhere, Christian pro fession and public spirit are not always accompanied by personal piety ; but it is necessary, and very consolatory, to bear in mind that in what has already been accomplished there is much reason for thankfulness, and that the degree in which old things have already passed away is an encouragement to us to hope that in due time all things will become new.
In one of my subsequent lectures I will endeavour to give a fair estimate of Hindu Christianity, and to prove that, whatever be its defects, it includes a large amount of real sincerity; but I may here remark, that the liberality with which the religious members of the Anglo-Indian community contribute to missionary purposes is a pleasing testimony to the reality of the work which is going forward. Though the English in India do not number more than 60,000 souls, the great majority of whom are private soldiers, the average amount contributed in India for the promotion of missionary objects has been estimated at about 40,OOOZ. per annum. The list of contributors will be found to include the names of many judges and magistrates, heads of departments and governors, men of high official standing and of long Indian experience, who testify, not only by their contri butions, but oftentimes by their counsel and co-operation, their estimate of the importance of the work. There is something in structive also in the proportionate amount of their subscriptions. If the eye runs down a list of Anglo-Indian contributors to any missionary or charitable object, more donations of 100 rupees (10Z.) will be discovered than of sovereigns in this country.
It is an interesting feature of real missionary work everywhere, and certainly not less so in India than in other parts of the world, that it is carried on with so small an admixture of party- spirit. In Tinnevelly, for example, we may confidently say, " Behold how good and joyful it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." Generally, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the Church Missionary Society have chosen different and distant spheres of labour, the former labouring chiefly in the Colonies, the latter exclusively amongst the heathen; but in India the spiritual care of our own countrymen being provided for by the East India Company's Ecclesiastical Establishment, aided by the efforts of Additional Clergy Societies, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel is set free to labour, like the younger Society, amongst the heathen alone; and in Tinnevelly, the Mis sionaries of both Societies labour not only in adjacent districts of the same province, but in one and the same department of work. Under these circumstances some antagonism or jealousy might possibly have been apprehended ; but so far from anything of the kind having appeared, I only wish that all Christ's ministers in this country were labouring in their Master's cause with anything like equal harmony and brotherly cordiality. Two Bishops of Madras, the Bishop of Calcutta, and the Bishop of Victoria, observed, and recorded their gratification in observing, the good feeling which existed, and the last public expression of that feeling which took place before I left Tinnevelly was one which was peculiarly interesting to myself. The Missionaries and a few European catechists of both Societies met in my house for prayer and conference, and for the transaction of business connected with various societies which are supported in common; and on that occasion I had the pleasure of receiving twenty-eight guests, of whom nineteen belonged to the Church Missionary Society, and nine to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Seven of the guests were native clergymen. Whatever differences exist, or are supposed to exist, between the two Societies, they relate, not to actual missionary work, but to preliminaries ; and when once those preliminaries are settled, when Missionaries of either society have actually been appointed to a station, and their work is commenced, no appreciable difference remains. All labour alike under epis copal superintendence, with the same purpose in view, in the same spirit, and in substantial conformity to the same principles of action. The only strife which I ever observed between the two Societies was of a friendly, Christian sort, which conduced greatly to the advantage of both. C. M. S., with her larger body of Missionaries, and her boundless finances, would always endeavour to outstrip S. P. G. ; and poor S. P. G., though sadly crippled by poverty and even by debt, would always endeavour not to be outstripped.
It is not only, however, with respect to the mutual relations of the two great Societies of the Church of England that party- spirit has been successfully repressed in India ; it has been re pressed within much wider limits.
In this old Christian country, the church of Christ, the com munity of baptized believers, which ought to be in all things an example to new Christian communities in distant lands, is rent into hostile sects and parties, each of which is accustomed to look only on " its own things," and too often thinks it serves God by ignoring God's gifts to its neighbours. The missionary spirit, which is the spirit of Christ and of love, has done much to mitigate both the spirit of divisiveness and the spirit of exclu- siveness; but, partly from the resistance which relentless theories offer to charity, and partly from ignorance, few even of the friends of Missions in England seem to have much relish for looking upon " the things of others." In India, and throughout the Mission- field, the missionary spirit has freer scope, and has generally brought about a more satisfactory state of things. The religious divisions which originated in England, and which are fed from England, have not, it is true, been healed in India; but the feelings out of which those divisions arose have been repressed, and care has been taken that they should have as few opportu nities as possible of breaking out into action. The various Missionary Societies, on sending out Missionaries to India, have generally selected, as the sphere of their labours, some extensive district some province or kingdom in which the name of Christ was entirely, or almost entirely, unknown; and in such unoccupied regions they have located their Missionaries, in the hope that they would not be tempted to interfere with tba Mis sionaries of any other Society, and that they would be exemps from the danger of being themselves interfered with. This is the rule which has generally been acted upon in Southern India ; and hence, in most Provinces, Christianity exhibits but one phase. In Malabar and Canara, the only Mission is that of the Lutherans ; in the Cochin and Malayalam-speaking portion of Travancore, that of the Church Missionary Society; in the Tamil portion of Travancore, that of the London Missionary Society ; in Tinne- velly, those of the two Church of England Societies; in the greater part of Madura, that of the American Board of Missions. This is undoubtedly the general rule, and although there are exceptions, the only exception of any importance is that of the Leipsic Society. That Society has intruded into almost every part of the field of labour occupied by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in the province of Tanjore, and received with open arms all who have seceded from our congregations on the ground of our discouragement of caste. Were it not for this lamentable exception, it might have been said that the antagonism of rival sects and parties is unknown in the Indian Mission-field, and that though the religious divisions of Europe exist, they have been deprived of