Lectures on the Tinnevelly Missions. Robert Granville Caldwell
their sting. After all, this is an exceptional case, and the general rule is that which I have mentioned.
The Missionaries of the various Societies cannot, it is true, amalgamate ; even cooperation, in the proper sense of the term, is impracticable. But if there is no amalgamation and no coope ration, at any rate, with the solitary exception referred to, there is no antagonism, because there is no proselytism. The rule by which all consent to be bound is that of friendly non-interference; and hence when Missionaries of different communions or of different Societies meet, they meet, not as opponents, but as friends and brethren. Even if it should so happen that they are not endowed with any extra largeness of heart, where Christians of any sort are so few and far between, and where Christianity is wrestling for its very existence with a dominant and hateful heathenism, they feel that they cannot afford to "ignore" one another. In the presence of Nan a Sahib, the difference between an English churchman and an English dissenter shrinks into a microscopic point. So anxious are most Missionaries to avoid the possibility of collision, that where the Missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and those of the American Board of Missions found themselves working in the same neigh bourhood, in the confines of Madura and Tinnevelly, where it was impossible to fix a boundary-line, tho Missionaries of the former Society proposed, and the Missionaries of both Societies agreed, that neither Society should be at liberty to establish a school or congregation within a mile of any place where the other Society already had either. Such rules and such feelings have their counterpart in every other portion of the Mission-field. I need not remind the readers of the publications of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, how entirely they are in agreement with the sentiments and practice of the South-African Bishops, and the Bishop of New Zealand.
Even in the greater cities of India, where the excellent rule referred to cannot be acted upon, and where the Missionaries of various Societies carry on their work in somewhat of a promis cuous manner, it would be an error to suppose that the conversion of the Hindus to Christ is hindered by the spectacle of a divided, quarrelsome Christianity. Divisions do, it is true, exist, and it is a pity that they do ; but at any rate it is a consolation that they are not apparent to the Hindu".
In everything which, according to Hindu notions, constitutes a religion, in everything in which Christianity differs from Brahmanism, all Protestant Missionaries appear to the Hindus to be at one. When they see that all Missionaries expound and circulate the same sacred volume, translated into the vernacular; that they all preach salvation through the death of the same Divine Saviour; that they all represent faith as the means of obtaining release from sin, and as the seed of virtue; that they are all free from the suspicion of idolatry ; that they all offer to the same God, through the same Mediator, the " reasonable service" of prayers and praises in the vernacular language; when they find also that they are all alike, or as nearly alike as indi vidual peculiarities will permit, in purity and elevation of cha racter ; that they live on terms of friendly intercourse with one another, repudiate mutual proselytism, and evidently rejoice in one another's successes, they cannot but regard them as teachers of one and the same religion, bearing the united testimony of many independent witnesses to the truths which they teach in common. It is also to be borne in mind that Brahmanism is peculiarly tolerant of diversities. The Hindus are accustomed to regard truth, not as one-sided, but as many-sided, and their most popular philosophy represents this as a necessary result of Divine knowledge coming in con tact with the multiplied varieties of human ignorance. It will be considered by some persons a more legiti mate ground of consolation that heathens cannot become acquainted with any matter on which a really serious difference exists amongst Christians until after they have made up their minds to become Christians themselves. The only doctrines which are, or can be, preached to heathens are those on which all Protestant Christians are agreed, and questions respecting the nature and authority of the ministry and the government of the Church necessarily lie over till heathens have been converted and admitted into the Church. I cannot admit that there is any dereliction of principle in volved in the system of mutual forbearance which I have now described. We exemplify our own principles in our own sphere, and teach our own converts our own views: \re merely refrain from unwarranted intermeddling with the labours of others. There is no disposition on the part of the Missionaries of the Church of England to give up or to undervalue the order and the coherence, the strength and the beauty of the organization which has descended to us from primitive times ; and in this race of systems, v/herever ours should rank, it certainly does not rank hindmost. Everywhere, it is true, more depends upon the man than upon his system. A good, devoted man with a defective system will do more good than a feeble-minded, unearnest man with the best system in the world : but I will say, and I say it without any disparagement of the results which Christians of other commu nions have effected, that where the system of the Church of England is administered by men who are worthy of it, where it is enabled to free itself from the complications and trammels which, like parasitic plants, have twined themselves round it in the course of ages, but which are no part of itself, where it freely' adapts itself to the circumstances of the place, and incor porates into itself all the good it finds there, it is one which cannot easily be matched; and every one who has visited our Missions in Tinnevelly, where this course has generally been followed, will admit, I think, that the condition of those Missions goes far to prove this point.
Though I have represented the progress of Missions in India as, on the whole, encouraging, I trust it will be remembered that what has been done is literally as nothing compared with what remains to be done. If we would fulfil the purposes which Divine Providence appears to have had in view in giving us our Indian empire, we must put forth efforts of a very different order from what we have hitherto done, and especially so now, that we have been roused from our apathy by one of the most terrible visitations with which any nation was ever chastised and warned. I cannot forbear adding, that whilst some other communions are doing more than could reasonably have been expected, and whilst the Missionary Societies of the Church of England have shown their capacity for doing well whatever they are enabled to do, there are multitudes of persons, calling themselves members of the Church of England, who either render those Societies no help whatever in their great work, or mock them with help of the most niggardly kind. If higher and more worthy motives should fail to kindle in the minds of such persons some missionary zeal, I would bring before them, if I could reach their ear, a few facts which might perhaps " provoke them to jealousy."
In 1852, when an analysis of the missionary statistics of India was made, it appeared that the two Societies of the Church of England employed in India and Ceylon 138 Missionaries, or, if we add European Catechists, as was done in the enumeration of the Missionaries of the non-Episcopal Societies, the number may be raised to 160. Now, one of the facts which I should wish " easy-going" churchmen to become acquainted with is, that at the same period the Missionaries of the non-Episcopal societies numbered 30G. Surely the proportion between those numbers is not what it ought to be. In so far as results are concerned, the scale undoubtedly turns more in our favour; for whilst our Missionaries were but 34 per cent, of the entire number, the native converts connected with our Missions amounted to 57 per cent. But though we may hope that God's blessing will continue to rest upon our labours, it is unsatisfactory to find that our labours fall so far short of those of others ; and it may be added, that in the end Providence is generally found to favour most those who labour most. There is an important truth at the bottom of Bonaparte's irreverent saying, " Providence sides with heavy battalions." Another fact, which some persons will be still less prepared to hear, is, that the Americans and the Germans are doing far more for India, proportionately to their interest in it, than is being done by English churchmen. India has been expressly com mitted, by Divine Providence, to the care of England, and England derives from India immense temporal advantages. America has received no special call to evangelize India ; yet the two non-Episcopal Missionary Societies of the United States main tain in India and Ceylon no less than 67 Missionaries. When we compare this number with the 100 Missionaries maintained by the Church Missionary Society, and the 60 maintained by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, I think it must be admitted that the comparison, in so far as it is an indication of zeal and enterprise, is not very much in our favour. Is it not well fitted to " provoke us to jealousy," that the Presbyterians and Congregationalists of the United States should feel themselves obliged to send Missionaries to the British possessions in India, to teach Christianity to the subjects of the British crown ?
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