Memoir of Norman MacLeod, D.D
Appendix E

Extract from Address on Missions.

''.... What, then, it may be asked, have missions done generally for India? What measure of success have they had, or are they likely to have? Or such questions may be summed up in the more general and inclusive one, What is the state and what are the prospects of Christianity in India?

"In attempting, in the most general manner, to deal with questions which demand volumes instead of a speech, however long to reply to them, I shall assume for the moment that I am addressing here, or through the reporters, those only who have not thought or inquired much on the subject.

"Recollect, then, that we are speaking of a country of enormous extent, with a population of at least 180,000,000, the Bengal Presidency alone numbering more than the whole empire of Austria—that this great country is occupied by various races from the most savage to the most cultivated, having various religious beliefs, and speaking languages which differ from each other as much as Gaelic does from Italian, most of them broken up by dialects so numerous as practically to form probably twenty separate languages. Remember that the vast majority of this people have inherited a religion and a civilization, of which I shall have to speak afterwards, from a vast antiquity. Recollect, further, that the attempt to impart the truth and life of Christianity to this great mass has been systematically begun by the Protestant Church in British India within the memory of living men; so that the age of our Scottish missions is represented by Dr. Duff, who commenced them, and still lives to aid them in connection with the Free Church. Realise, if you can, the difficulties which the missionaries engaged in such a tremendous enterprise have had to overcome in the ignorance and indifference, even the opposition, of professing Christians at home, and of timid European officials abroad; their want, for a time, of the very tools and instruments with which to conduct their operations ; their ignorance of the language, of the religious systems, of the mental habits and national idiosyncrasies of the people; their want of a Bible which could be used, and of an educated people who could read it, and of any Christian natives able and willing to interpret it to their countrymen. Remember, finally, the agencies which are at present labouring in India before asking the question as to results. There are in India, say, in round numbers, five hundred European and American missionaries. You will notice that the members of this General Assembly, with those of the Assembly of the Free Church meeting in our immediate neighbourhood, number more than the whole mission staff in British India. Yet these Assemblies represent two churches only in all Scotland; while all Scotland's inhabitants would hardly be missed out of one district of Bengal alone! Or, let us put the proportion of missionaries to the population in another way: There are in England and Scotland about 36,000 ordained Protestant Clergy of every denomination, supported at a cost of several millions annually. These clergy have, moreover, connected with them a vast agency, amounting to hundreds of thousands of Sunday-school teachers, local missionaries, Scripture readers, elders, and deacons, teachers of Christian schools, and pious members of churches, who are engaged in diffusing a knowledge of Christianity, and in dispensing its practical blessings in ways and forms innumerable. Now, suppose all this great agency taken across the ocean and located in the Presidency of Bengal alone, leaving all the rest of India as it is, giving not one missionary to the Presidency of Madras with a population of twenty-two millions; none to Bombay or Scindh with twelve millions; none to the North-West Provinces with thirty millions; none to the Punjab with fourteen millions; none to Oudh with eight millions; none to the Central Provinces with six millions; none to other districts with five millions—but giving all to Bengal, and confining their ministrations there to a population equal to that which they left behind in all England and Scotland, there would still remain in that Presidency a surplus population of fourteen millions without a single missionary! Without presuming to solve the problem when that blessed period is to arrive in which, having no more to do at home, we may be set free to do more for India, I wish you at present to understand what is being done by us, along with other countries, for the diffusion of Christianity in the Eastern, as compared with this, the Northern, portion of our great empire. Now, assuming as 1 do that the missionaries abroad are equal to our missionaries—or, what is the same thing, our ministers at home—yet, deducting from their small band of five hundred men those who are advanced in years, and whose day is well-nigh done— those who are young and inexperienced, and whose day is hardly begun—these who have not the gifts, or the knowledge, or the mental habits, or the spiritual power which is required for thoroughly effective work—and deducting also, as I presume we must do, a few who are unfit from other causes, such as sloth or mere professionalism, then we necessarily reduce the number of such men as are able to cope with the gigantic evils and error3 of India—men able by the power of their teaching and of their character to impress the observant and thinking natives with a sense of the truth and glory of Christianity. In regard, however, to the moral character of all those missionaries, I rejoice to say that our information, derived from every quarter, fully realised our hopes that they were worthy of the Churches which had sent them forth. Hindoos and Christians, natives and Europeans of every rank and class, were unanimous in their hearty testimony upon this point, and fully appreciated the unselfishness of their motives, the sincerity of their convictions, their intimate knowledge of and interest in the natives, and the wholesomeness of their influence upon the whole body of Indian society. Among these missionaries, too, there are some everywhere who, as regards mental power, learning, and earnestness, would do honor to any Church, and who have largely contributed to advance the interests of social science, Oriental literature and history, as well as of Christianity, and who have a right to deepest respect, sympathy, and gratitude from all who have at heart the conversion of India. It is gratifying and assuring to know, also, that the number of missionaries and of their stations is steadily on the increase, while conversions increase in a still greater ratio.

"I have not, of course, spoken here of the labourer influence of chaplains with reference to missions. In numerous instances these have been very effective, but they might be greater in many more. Nor have I alluded to the English bishops, who, as a rule, Lave been, as gentlemen of learning and highest character, an honour to the Church and to Christianity.

"But we have been taking into our calculation the difficulties only on our own side, so to speak, in the way of imparting knowledge to the natives of India. Ought we not also to consider the difficulties on the other side in receiving our message? Of these, as peculiar to Hindoos, I shall have occasion to speak afterwards; but here I would have you remember that, in addition to the difficulties common to inert, slothful, prejudiced, and self-satisfied people in every part of the world,—in Christendom as well as heathendom,—to change any opinion, however erroneous or indefensible, or any habit, however foolish or absurd, the natives of India generally, among other hindrances, have presented to them for their acceptance a religion wholly different in kind from all they or their fathers ever heard of or believed in. It therefore demands time, intelligence, and patience to examine and understand it even when preached to them. It is a religion, moreover, which they have never seen adequately embodied or expressed in its social aspects, whether of the church or the family, but only as a creed; and this, too, of a strange people, whom, as a rule, they dislike, as being alien to them in language, in race, in feelings, and manners, and who have conquered and revolutionized their country by acts, as they think, of cruelty, injustice, and avarice.

"But let us suppose that the intelligent and educated Hindoo has been convinced by English education of the falsehood of his own religion. I beg of you to realize and to sympathize with his difficulties of another kind, when Christianity, as the only true religion, is presented to him for his acceptance. He has brought his Brahminical creed and practices, we shall assume, under the light of reason, conscience, and science, for their judgment, and he has had pronounced upon them the sentence of condemnation. He has discovered that he has hitherto believed a lie, and been the slave of a degraded or childish superstition. But must he not subject this new religion of Christianity, with its sacred books, to the same scrutiny, and judge of them by the same light? Unquestionably he must; and so far a great point is gained, and one most hopeful to the accomplished and earnest missionary, when his teaching is examined honestly and sincerely in the light of truth, instead of being judged by the mere authority of custom or tradition. But such an investigation necessarily implies a trial of the severest and yet of the noblest kind, both to the inquirer and his teacher. And we need not be surprised if the first and most general, indeed, I might say, the universal, result of this scrutiny on the part of the Hindoo, should be the impression that Christianity, as a religion whose characteristic and essential doctrines are alleged facts, is but another form of superstition, with false miracles, false science, and false everything, which professes to belong to the region of the supernatural. These difficulties are moreover increased and intensified by those schools of thought which at present, and as a reaction from the past, exercise such an influence in Europe and America. Their views and opinions are in every possible form reproduced in India, and take root the more readily, owing to the remarkable inability of the Hindoo mind, whatever be its cause, to weigh historical evidence, and to appreciate the value of facta in their bearing on the grounds of religious belief.

"if to this is added the manner in which Christianity, even as a creed, has sometimes, we fear, by truly Christian men, been represented, or rather misrepresented— with its doctrines, if not falsely put, yet sometimes put in a harsh, distorted, onesided, or exaggerated light, proclaimed with little love, and defended with less logic —we shall be the more prepared to weigh the results of Christian missions with some approximation to the truth.

"In so far as the results of missions in India can be given by mere statistics, these have been collected with remarkable care, and published in 1864 by Dr. Mullens, himself an able and distinguished missionary. From these we gather that there are in round numbers about 140,000 natives in Hindostan professing Christianity ; 28,000 in communion ; with upwards of 900 native churches, which contribute £10,000 annually for the support of the Gospel. About 100 natives have been ordained to the ministry, while 1,300 labour as catechists. Upwards of 33,000 boys and 8,000 girls receive a Christian education at mission schools. As a means as well as a result of mission work, I may state that the whole Bible has been translated into fourteen of the languages of India, including all the principal tongues of the empire ; the New Testament into five more ; and twenty separate books of the Old and New Testament into seven more. These mission agencies are scattered over all India, and shine as sources of intellectual, moral, and Christian light amidst the surrounding darkness of heathenism. Now, surely some good and lasting work has been thus done, and seed sown by these means, which may yet spring up in the hearts of men.

"But I will by no means peril the results of missions on any mere statistics. Not that I have any doubt as to the care and honesty with which these have been furnished or collected, but because of the impossibility of obtaining by this method a just impression of what has been actually accomplished by Christian missions. To some they would seem to prove too much, unless the races, the districts, the beliefs out of which the conversions have come are taken into account, along with the intelligence and character of the converts. To most they might prove less than they are capable of proving, as they afford no evidence of the indirect results of missions, or of what is being more and more effected by them on the whole tone and spirit of Hindoo society, as preparatory to deeper and more extensive ultimate results. Nevertheless, the more the real value of the work which has been accomplished is judged of by the individual history of those returned as converts, making every deduction which can with fairness be demanded for want of knowledge, want of moral strength, or want of influence, there yet remains such a number of native converts of intelligence and thorough sincerity, such a number of native Christian clergy of acquirements, mental power, and eloquence, and of strength of convictions and practical piety, as commands the respect of even educated and high-caste Hindoos. Such facts disprove, at least, the bold assertions of those who allege that missions have done nothing in India. One fact, most creditable to native Christians, ought not to be forgotten by us—that of the two thousand involved in the troubles of the Mutiny, all proved loyal, six only apostatised, and even they afterwards returned.

"But in estimating the present condition of India with reference to the probable overthrow of its false religions, and the substitution for them of a living Christianity, we must look at India as a whole. Now, we are all aware of the vast changes which have taken place during a comparatively recent period in most of those customs, which, though strictly religious according to the views of the Brahmins, are now prohibited by law, and have passed, or are rapidly passing, away in practice—such as Suttee, infanticide, the self-tortures and deaths of fanatics at great idol-festivals, &c. We know, too, of other reforms which must be in the end successful, such as those affecting the marriage of widows, polygamy, the education of females, &c. Such facts indicate great changes in public opinion and that the tide of thought has turned, and is slowly but surely rising, soon to float off or immerse all the idols of India. In truth, the whole intelligent and informed mind of India, native and European, is convinced, and multitudes within a wider circle more than suspect, that, come what may in its place, idolatry is doomed. The poor and ignorant millions will be the last to perceive any such revolution. They will continue to visit and bathe in their old muddy stream, as their ancestors have done during vast ages, wondering at first why those whom they have been taught to follow as their religious guides have left its banks, and drink no more of its waters, wondering most of all when at last they discover these waters to be dried up. Others of a higher intelligence may endeavour for a while to purify them, or to give a symbolic and spiritual meaning to the very mud and filth which cannot be separated from them. Men of greater learning and finer spiritual mould will seek to drink from those purer fountains that bubble up in the distant heights of their own Vedas, at the water-shed of so many holy streams, and ere these have become contaminated with the more earthly mixtures of ! the lower valleys. But all are doomed. For neither the filthy and symbolic stream of the Puranas, nor the purer fountain of the Vedas alone, can satisfy the thirst of the heart of man, more especially when it has once tasted the waters of life as brought to us by Jesus Christ : or, to change the simile, although the transition between the old and new may be a wide expanse of desert filled up with strange mirages, fantastic forms, and barren wastes, yet whether this generation or another may reach the Land of Promise flowing with milk and honey, the people must now leave Egypt with its idols, and in spite of murmurings, regrets, and rebellions, can return to it no more.

"When I thus speak of the destruction of Hindooisin, I am far from attributing this result solely to the efforts of missionaries, though these have not only taken a most worthy share in the work of destruction, but have also laboured at the more difficult and more important work of construction. The whole varied and combined forces of Western civilisation must be taken into account. The indomitable power of England, with the extension of its government and the justice of its administration, has, in spite of every drawback that can be charged against it, largely contributed to this result. So also, in their own way, have railroads and telegraphs, helping to unite even outwardly the people and the several parts of India to each other, and all to Europe. The light which has been shed by the Oriental scholars of Europe upon the sacred books and ancient literature of the Hindoos, has been an incalculable advantage to the missionary, and to all who wish to understand and to instruct the people of India. But nothing has so directly and rapidly told upon their intellectual and moral history as the education which they owe solely to European wisdom and energy. The wave-line which marks its flow, marks also the ebb of idolatry. This influence will be more easily appreciated when it is remembered that 3,089,000 Hindoos and about 90,000 Mohammedans attend Government schools, and upwards of 40,000 of these attend schools which educate up to a University entrance standard, in which English is a branch of examination. These schools have been found fault with because they do not directly teach religion. It has been said that they practically make all their pupils mere Deists. But apart from the difficulties which attend any attempt on the part of Government to do more, even were it to assume the grave responsibility of determining what system of theology should be taught, and of selecting the men to teach it, yet surely Deism is a great advance on Hindooism. If a man occupies a position half-way between the valley and the mountain-top, that alone cannot determine whether he is ascending or descending. We must know the point from which he has started on his journey. Thus departing from the low level of the Puranas, it seems to me that the Hindoo pupil who has reached the Theism of even the Vedas only, has ascended towards the purer and far-seeing heights of Christian revelation. Anyhow, the fact is certain, whatever be the ultimate results, that education itself, which open up a new world to the native eye, has destroyed his old world as a system of religious belief.

"I know few things, indeed, which strike one more who for the first time comes into contact with an educated native, than hearing him converse in the purest English on subjects and in a manner which are associated, not with oriental dress and features, but with all that is cultivated and refined at home. You feel at once that here at least is a way opened up for communication by the mighty power of a common language, and of a mind so trained and taught as to be able thoroughly to comprehend and discuss all we wish to teach or explain. The traveller sometimes accidentally meets with other evidences of the silent but effective influences of English education. I remember, for example, visiting with my friend a heathen temple in Southern India, It was a great day, on which festive crowds had assembled to do honour to a famous Guru. There were some thousands within and without the temple. While seeking to obtain an entrance, we were surrounded by an eager and inquisitive crowd, but civil and courteous, as we ever found the natives to be. Soon we were addressed in good English by a native, and then by about a dozen more who were taking part in the ceremonies of the place. After some conversation I asked them, the crowd beyond this inner circle listening to but not comprehending us, whether they believed in all this idolatry? One, speaking for the rest, said, 'We do.' But from his smile, and knowing the effects of such education as he had evidently acquired, I said kindly to him, 'My friend, I candidly tell you, that I don't think you believe a bit of it.' He laughed, and said, 'You are right, sir, we believe nothing!' 'What?' I asked; 'nothing? not even your own existence?' 'Oh yes, we believe that,' he replied. 'And no existence higher than your own?' I continued to inquire. 'Yes,' he said, 'we believe in a great God who has created all things.' 'But if so, why then this idolatry?' I asked again. 'We wish to honour our fathers,' said another of the group to my question. On which the first speaker addressed his countryman, saying, 'What did your fathers ever do for you ? Did they give you the steam-engine, or the railway, or the telegraph ?' Then turning to me, he said, with a smile, 'Though we must keep up and cannot forsake these national customs while they exist in our country, and our people believe in them, yet, if you educate the people, they will give them up of themselves, and so they will pass away.' Whatever may have been the intention of the speaker, I believe this conversation gives a fair impression, not of the deepest and most earnest minds in Hindostan, but of the mind of the ordinary pupil who has received an English education, though little more. It is thus, however, that all things are working together for the ultimate conversion of India to the truth and life of Christianity under Him who is the Head of all things to His Church.

"In endeavouring to sketch, however rapidly and imperfectly, the general results of all the combined forces I have alluded to, I must not omit to notice the religious school of the Brahmo Somaj. The educated and more enlightened Hindoos occupy almost every position of religious belief between that of a little less than pure Brahmanism and a little less than pure Christianity. Some defend idolatry as being a mere outward symbolic worship of the One God everywhere the same, and also as a national custom; and, without opposing Christianity, they would have it remain as one of many other religions, asking, as has been done indignantly and in the name of 'Christianity which preaches love to one's enemies,' 'Why should the God of Jesus Christ be at daggers-drawing with the gods of heathendom ?' Others are more enlightened and more sincere. Of these, the greatest undoubtedly was the late Rajah Rammohun Roy, one of the most learned and accomplished men in India. In order to obtain a religion at once true and national, he fell back on the Vedas as embodying a pure Monotheism, rejecting at the same time the authority of all later Hindoo books, however venerable, from the heroic Mahabharat and Ramayana down to the Puranas. He did not, however, despise or reject the New Testament, but gathered from it and published ' The Precepts of Jesus, the Guide to Happiness.' He called his Church,— for his followers were organised into a society which met for worship,—'The Brahmo' (the neuter impersonal name for the supreme) 'Shabha,' now changed into 'Somaj,' or assembly. The position thus occupied by the Rajah is yet to a large extent maintained by the representatives of the old Hindoo Conservative party, whether their Church is called the 'Veda Somaj,' or 'Prathana Somaj.' But the Vedas having been found untenable by others, as tending necessarily to pure Pantheism, a religious system with better foundations was accordingly sought for, and after in vain endea-vourinc to discover it in 'Nature,' or to evolve it from ' Intuition,' the new movement has, under the guidance of Keshub Chunder Sen, approached Christianity. After having heard that distinguished man preach, and having seen the response given to his teaching by his splendid audience, numbering the most enlightened natives as well as Europeans in Calcutta, and after having had a very pleasing conversation with him, I cannot but indulge the hope, from his sincerity, his earnestness, as well as from his logic, that in the end he will be led to accept the whole truth as it is in Jesus. But of one tiling I feel profoundly convinced, that the Brahma Somaj, which numbers thousands of adherents, is to be attributed indirectly to the teaching and labours of Christian missionaries; and its existence, in spite of all I have read and heard against it, brightens my hopes of India's future.

"I would here remind of facts in the history of the Church in past ages as worthy of being remembered, in order to modify the eager desires of the too sanguine as to immediate results, and to cheer the hopes of the too desponding as to future results, as well as to check the rash conclusions of those who, arguing from the past history of a few years, prophesy no results at all in the ages to come. As signs of the progress of that religion which, through the seed of Abraham, was in the end to bless, and is now blessing all nations, what conversions, let me ask, were made from the days of Abraham to the Exodus ? How many during the long night in Egypt? Yet, each of these intervals represents a period as long as what separates us from the day when the first Englishman visited the shores of India, or when the Church sprang into renewed life at the Reformation. What, again, of results during the brief period, yet so full of teaching, under Moses, accompanied by such mighty signs and wonders, when the Church was in the wilderness? Why, on entering the land of promise, two men only represented the faith of all who had left idolatrous Egypt? And yet, when it looked as if all was lost, God spake these words, ' As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.' Recollect, too, what long periods of confusion and darkness followed the settlement of the tribes in Palestine. The experiment, if I may so call it, seemed to have utterly failed of educating a peculiar people, and so preparing it for the ulterior work of converting the world. That chosen race ended in captivity in the country from whence Abraham, its father, began in faith, his journey fourteen centuries before. Nevertheless, that race did its work at last! The first forms of its religious faith yet live, being cleansed from all idolatry since the time of the Captivity, but since that time only; and Christianity, as its flower and fruit, lives, and, after marvellous and strange vicissitudes, is grown into a mighty tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations, and which is destined to be the one tree of life for the whole world. And so this feature in history constantly repeats itself—a time of activity and repose, of winter and summer, of sleep and waking, of death and resurrection ; a time of long and varied preparations, with not unfrequently very rapid fulfilments, like sudden outbursts of a long-seething flood, or volcano; while these fulfilments become again beginnings of a new and as varied a course in history, ever accumulating blessings for the whole family of man.

"Having thus spoken generally of missions in India and their results, I must proceed more particularly to the consideration of the various methods adopted by missionaries for Christianising the Hindoos.

"But, before we can reply satisfactorily to the question regarding means, we must first have a still clearer apprehension of the nature of the end to be attained by them, involving some knowledge of the Hindoo religion as a system of belief and of social life. If we do so, we shall soon learn that we cannot, as is too often done, class Hindoos with other heathen's (whether in India or beyond its shores), nor argue from what has been done by this or that instrumentality in the Sandwich Islands, for example, or in Africa, Burmah, or even Tinnevelly, that the same instrumentality will necessarily be as effectual in Calcutta or Benares. It is admitted, of course, that among all races and in all countries the Truth, as revealed by Jesus Christ, is the one grand means of Christianising them ; but the practical question before us is, What is the best way of communicating this truth in certain given circumstances? Now, to obtain the true answer to this question necessitates other questions regarding the character, habits, and beliefs of the people we have to deal with, and regarding those peculiar circumstances, within and without, in which they are placed, which materially affect their reception of Christian doctrine and life.

"With the risk, therefore, of repeating to some extent what, as bearing on other parts of my subject, I have already alluded to, let me direct your attention more particularly and more fully than I have yet done to some of those characteristics of the Hindoos which distinguish them from every other people in India or in the world. Observe, in the first place, that they are a distinct race. I have already said that various races make up the population of the great continent of Hindostan. The Hindoo belongs to that Indo-Germanic or Aryan stream of which we ourselves are a branch, and which has flowed over the world. It entered India from the north-west, and advanced, during long ages of the far past, towards its southern plains. It found there other and older races, who either fled to the mountains and jungles to Maintain their freedom, or were conquered and degraded into Sudras, or Pariahs, without caste or social position. These Aryans, like a lava flood, poured themselves over the land, breaking through the older formations, overlying them or surrounding them, but never utterly obliterating or absorbing them. Now it is not with those aboriginal races—who, though probably once possessing a higher civilization, are now comparative savages, and have religions peculiar to themselves, such as the Bheels, Khonds, Santals, Coles, &c.—that we have at present to do ; nor yet with races of low caste or no caste, like the Shanars of Tinnevelly, the Mail's of Ahmednugger, or the lower population still of Chamba. But it is of this Hindoo race, whose religion is Brahmin-ism, and which, above all others, constitute the people of India, numbering about a hundred and fifty millions of its inhabitants—it is of them only I at present speak; for if they were Christianised, India practically would be so, but not otherwise. That lofty, unbending portion of the community, the Mohammedan, numbering twenty millions, is not within the scope of my present argument. "Secondly, we must not forget that this Hindoo people represent a remarkable civilisation, which they have inherited from a time when earth was young. They possess a language (the Sanscrit, the earliest cultivated) which scholars tell us is the fullest, the most flexible and musical in existence, to which Greek, although its child, is immensely inferior ; which is capable, as no other is, of expressing the subtlest thoughts of the metaphysician, and the most shadowy and transient gleams of the poet. In that language the Hindoos produced a heroic and philosophic poetry centuries before the Christian era, which even now holds a foremost place in the literature of the world. It has been asserted—I know not on what authority—that they were proficient in astronomy long ere its very name was mentioned by the Greeks; and that in comparatively recent times they solved problems in algebra which not until centuries afterwards dawned on the acutest minds of modern Europe. When we add to this a structure of society—to which I shall immediately allude—so compact as to have held together for more than two thousand years, we must feel admiration, if not for their physical, at least for their intellectual powers, and acknowledge that we have here no rude or savage people, but a highly cultivated and deeply interesting portion of the human family.

"Thirdly, we must consider the religion of the Hindoos, both as a creed and as a social system, with its effects on their general temperament and habits of life.

"The Hindoo religion, like Judaism and Christianity, is one which has survived the revolutions of long ages. The religions of the Greeks and Romans, of the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Assyrians, with many others, are to us as fossils of a dead world. Hindooism, older than these, still exists as a power affecting the destinies of teeming millions. We can gaze upon it as a living specimen of one out of many of the monster forms which once inhabited the globe. Unlike all those extinct religions, it has its sacred books, and I doubt not that to this written word it greatly owes its preservation. These books have been written at intervals representing vast periods of history. The Vedas, at once the most ancient and the most pure and lofty, date as far back, possibly, as the time of Moses, and contain many true and sublime ideas of a Divine Being without any trace of the peculiarities of Brahmanism—nay, declaring positively that ' there is no distinction of castes.' The great collection of the Puranas was compiled in the middle ages of our era, and forms the real everyday 'Bible' of the everyday religion of Hindoos, the Vedas being now known to and read by only a few learned pundits, and having from the first been a forbidden book to all except the priesthood. Now, these Puranas are one mass of follies and immoralities, of dreaming pantheism, of degrading and disgusting idolatry.

"Mr. Wheeler, in his recently published volume, the first of his 'History of India,' thus writes of the great epics of Maha Bharata, or the great war of Bharata, and the Ramayano, or 'Adventures of Rama,' with their present influence on the Hindoos. It is his opinion, I may state, that while the events recorded in these epics belong to the Vedic period, their composition belongs to the Brahmanic age, when caste was introduced, a new religion established, and the Brahmans had formed themselves into a powerful ecclesiastical hierarchy, and when, instead of the old Vedic gods and forms of faith, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva took their place. These epics are, practically, to the Hindoos, religious poems, and consequently are the most powerful and popular props to Brahmanism. 'Few Hindoos,' writes Mr. Wheeler, 'may perhaps be acquainted with the whole of these epics, and none have ventured to subject them to a critical analysis and investigation ; yet their influence upon the masses of the people is beyond calculation, and infinitely greater and more universal than the influence of Bible over modern Europe. The leading incidents and scenes are familiar to the Hindoos from childhood. They are frequently represented at village festivals, whilst the stories are chanted about at almost every social gathering, and indeed form the leading topic of conversation amongst Hindoos generally, and especially amongst those who have passed the meridian of life. In a word, these poems are to the Hindoos all that the Library, the Newspaper, and the Bible are to the European; whilst the books themselves are regarded with a superstitious reverence, which far exceeds that which has ever been accorded to any other revelation real or supposed. To this day it is the common belief that to peruse or merely to listen to the perusal of the Maha Bharata or Ramayana, will insure prosperity in this world and eternal happiness hereafter.' Now, making every allowance for (what appears to me to be) the exaggerated terms in which Mr. Wheeler describes the comparative influence of the Bible and these 'Scriptures,' there can be no doubt that, as far as India is concerned, he is correct.

"This religion, as embodied in its Sacred Books, affords the widest scope for the indulgence of every phase of human thought, sentiment, and passion; furnishing as it does in the Vedic hymns and poetry an atmosphere so rare, and presenting such shadowy heights of speculation, as to tempt the most ambitions wing to put. forth its powers to gain their summits ; and furnishing in the Puranas the vilest mire, where the filthiest and most obscene may wallow. Among its disciples, the dreamy ascetic, labouring to emancipate his spirit by pure meditation and the destruction of the material flesh, and the profound scholar, rare though he be, nourishing his intellectual life by the abstract themes and endless speculative questions suggested by his creed, may meet with the disgusting faqueer or yogi, with the ignorant millions who care for nothing but a round of dead superstitious observances or with the cunning or depraved crew who indulge in the vilest practices as the natural results of their heathen principles.

"Lastly, it is in its social aspects, as already hinted, that Brahmanism manifests its intense, comprehensive, and tyrannous power. Its system of caste presents to us a feature in the organization of human beings unparalleled in history. It must not be mistaken for a mere aristocratic arrangement or accidental to or lying outside of Brahmanism, but it is an essential element of its very being. It is quite true, as I have said, and the fact is of importance, that the Vedas know nothing of it ; but then the people know not the Vedas, and those who do conceal or pervert their teaching. According to the existing and, as long as Brahmanism lives, unalterable belief of the people, the streams of caste, flowing side by side but never mingling, are traced up to the very fountain of Deity; or, to change the simile, each great caste is believed to be a development of the very body of Brahma the Creator, and is mystically united to him as parts of his very flesh and bones. Hence no one can become a Hindoo in religion who is not one by birth; nor can any member belonging to this divine body break his caste without therefore becoming dead, as a limb amputated from living communion with the source of life, and therefor be thrown away as a curse, a reproach— a polluted, horrible thing, to be hated and disowned. Marvellous, indeed, are the power and endurance of such an organization as this, that can dominate over all those political and social changes which, in other respects alter the relative position of its possessors as to wealth or rank, whether in the army or in the civil service.

''But Brahmanism does more than make each man a member of this compact mass. Having fixed him there, it holds him fast, and governs him as a mere thing in which no personality, and consequently no will, is recognised, save that measure which is required to consent to the destruction of his being, or its subordination, at least, to a system of mechanical rules that fashion his whole inward and outward life. As far almost as it is possible to conceive, that life is in everything and every day the obedient slave of ' religion;' not, of course, in the sense which we attach to the expression—that of all things being done, endured, or enjoyed in a right spirit, or according to the rule of eternal righteousness towards God and man—but according to fixed authoritative rules, professing to embrace the whole life, obedience to which is as mechanical as can be yielded by a human being. For to the religious Hindoo all that is to be believed and done on earth is revealed, and as such is obligatory. All the arts and sciences ; the methods of every trade; the manifold duties incumbent on the architect, the mason, the carpenter, or the musician, and on the member of the family or community—what ought to be done upon ordinary days and on holy days; in youth, in manhood, and in old age; in health and sickness, and in the hour of death; and what ought to be done for those who are dead. Rules are prescribed to him as a sinner or a saint, in joy or in sorrow ; directing him how to act towards superiors, inferiors, and equals; towards priests and princes; towards all men on earth, and towards all the gods on earth and in the heavens. No polype, in the vast gelatinous mass which contributes to the building up of a great island from the deep, can be more a part of that mysterious whole than an orthodox Hindoo is of this marvellous religious brotherhood. His individuality is lost. His conscience, will, and affections are in the strong grasp of habits and customs sanctioned by Divine authority, consecrated by the faith of his race, and made venerable by a hoary antiquity. And, what might seem very strange to us if we could not point to parallel phases of human nature within even the Church of Christ, this slavery is not disliked or felt to be a heavy burden—a ' bondage to the elements of the world'—but, on the contrary, is clung to with a desperate tenacity. The elements which give this undying vigour to caste may possibly be found not chiefly in sloth and indifference, or in the supposed deliverance which it affords from the irksome sense of personal responsibility, but in its recognition of two great principles in social life, which, though in this case perverted, are adjusted by the Christian creed and a true Christian Church; the first, that our place in the world is assigned to us by Divine sovereignty; and the second, that the co-operation and sympathy of a brotherhood are essential to our usefulness and happiness in the world, whatever be the secret of its strength, it is profoundly interesting to gaze on this gigantic system existing like the Great Pyramid— each stone in its place, firmly cemented into the vast whole, towering over the arid plain, defying hitherto the attacks of time, which destroys all that is perishable—an object of wonder because of its magnitude and power of endurance, yet hollow-hearted withal, and preserving only the dust of ages.

' And yet even this tremendous system of caste is not wholly antagonistic to the efforts of the Christian Church. Its very strength may at last prove its weakness. If on the side of wrong it 'moveth all together if it move at all,' it may do so also on the side of right. Let the wall be so far sapped that it must fall, it will do so not by crumbling down in minute fragments, or even in separate masses, but as a whole. If the great army mutinies against Brahmanism, it will desert, not in units, but en masse.

"It is with this system that we have in the meantime to deal ; and it may well nerve a Christian's courage, and make him examine his weapons, test his armour, and carefully calculate his resources of power and patience, of faith and love, ere he enters, with a zeal which can be vindicated and a hope that will not be put to shame, on the grand enterprise of substituting pure Christianity in its place. I hesitate not to express the opinion that no such battle has ever before been given to the Church of God to fight since history began, and that no victory if gained, will be followed by greater consequences. It seems to me as if the spiritual conquest of India was a work reserved for these latter days to accomplish, because requiring all the previous dear-bought experiences of the Church, and all the preliminary education of the world, and that, when accomplished—as by the help of the living Christ it shall!— it will be a very Armageddon; the last great battle against every form of unbelief, the last fortress of the enemy stormed, the last victory gained as necessary to secure the unimpeded progress and the final triumph of the world's regeneration!

"In these statements regarding Brahmanism I have said nothing of its effects upon the morals of the people, although this is a most important aspect of it, not only as producing habits congenial to human depravity, but as raising the most formidable obstacles against the reception of Christianity even as a pure and uncompromising system of morals. Not that we would charge the actual vices of a people to their religion, unless, as in the case before us, these could be proved to be the necessary and legitimate consequences of faith in its teaching, and of obedience to its enjoined observances and practices. As far, indeed, as the observation of the ordinary traveller goes, I am bound to say, as the result of our own very limited experience, that nothing meets the eye or ear in any way offensive to good manners throughout India, not even in its temples, unless it be in symbols for worship to which I cannot allude, and the influence of which on the worshippers it is difficult for any stranger to determine, not knowing even how far their significance is understood by the multitude. I must therefore refer to others better acquainted with India to say what its moral condition is as flowing positively from its religion. But I have no doubt whatever myself, from all I have heard, that, except where affected by European influence, it is, among both Hindoo and Mahommedans, as a rule, far below what is generally supposed. In spite of that amount of morality, and the play of those affections among friends and the members of the family, without which society could not hang together; and while I refuse to believe that there are not among such a mass of human beings, some true light and life received from Him who is the Father of light, in ways we wot not of and may never discover; yet I have no doubt that the description of heathendom as existing in the latter period of Roman life, and as described by St. Paul in the beginning of his Epistle to the Romans, is true to a fearful extent of India. Facts, besides, have come out in trials showing how 'religion,' so called, may become the source of the most hideous abominations, for which it is righteously chargeable. Immortal man is seldom so degraded as not to seek some apparently good reason, and in the holy name of 'religion' too, for doing the worst things. Thus the Thug strangles his victim as he prays to the goddess of murder; and the member of a hereditary band of robbers consecrates his services to the goddess of rapine.

"But enough has been said to give some Idea of Brahmanism, and we are thus better prepared to entertain the question as to the means by which it can be destroyed, and Christianity, with its truth, holiness, brotherhood, and peace, take its place.

"As to the question of means, I assume that, as a Church of Christ, we are at liberty to adopt any means whatever, in consistency with the spirit of the Gospel and the holy ends we have in view, "which, according to our knowledge as derived from the Word of God, interpreted by sound judgment and experience, we believe best calculated to accomplish those ends. The example of the Apostles as recorded in the Book of Acts, that missionary history of the early Church, and in the letters of the great missionary St. Paul, however precious to us and invaluable as a repository of facts and principles, can never bind us to adopt the very same methods in our day In India, if it were even possible for us to do so, as were adopted by the Apostles in the Asia Minor or Europe of their day, unless it can be shown that the fields in both cases are so far similar as to admit of a similar mode of cultivation in order to secure that crop which Christian missionaries of every age desire and labour to obtain. St. Paul had nothing like the heathenism of India, in its social aspects or vast extent, to deal with. But we shall be fellow-labourers with him if we understand his 'ways,' 'manner of life, and possess his spirit. Let us only, as far as possible, endeavour to share what, without irreverence for his inspired authority, I may venture to call his grand comprehensive common-sense—his clear eye in discerning the real plan of battle and all that was essential to success—his firm and unfaltering march to the centre of the enemy's position, in the best way practicable in the given place and time—his determination to become all things to all men, limited only, yet expanded also, by the holy and unselfish aim of 'gaining some,' not to himself, but to Christ; and, in doing so, we shall not miss the best methods of Christianising India. Right men will make the right methods.

"In reviewing the various mission agencies at work in India, we may at once lay aside the consideration of minor methods—such, for example, as that of orphanages, male and female : for whatever blessings may be bestowed by them as charitable institutions, or whatever advantages—and there are many such—may be derived from them as furnishing Christian teachers for male, and, above all, for female schools; and colporteurs or catechists, to aid missionaries ; or as providing wives for Christian converts, who could neither seek nor obtain any alliances from among the 'castes;' —nevertheless, these institutions, however multiplied and however successful, cannot, in my opinion, tell on the ultimate conversion of the bulk of the Hindoos proper, more than so many orphans taken from Europe would do if trained and taught in the same way. I am not to be understood as objecting to orphanages, more especially when they are, as with us, generously supported by the contributions of the young at home, and not paid for out of the general funds of the Mission. Yet I would not have you attach undue importance to the baptism of orphans as telling upon Hindooism, or to weigh their number—as, alas ! I have heard done in Scotland—against those connected with our great educational institutions, to the disparagement of the latter as compared with the former. It seems to me that it would be just as wise as if, in seeking to convert the Jews, we imagined that the baptism of any number of orphan Jews within a charitable house of refuge would tell as much on Judaism as the education of a thousand intelligent young Rabbis in a Christian college, if such a blessing were possible, in the intensely bigoted towns of Saphet or Tiberias.

"Nor need I discuss here what has been or what may be accomplished by the dissemination of the Bible and an effective Christian literature, and other similar details of mission work, the excellence of which is obvious and admitted, but I will confine myself to what have been called the preaching and the teaching systems, protesting, however, against this erroneous classification, and accepting it only as the best at hand.

"When we speak of preaching the Gospel to the natives of India, I exclude those who have received an English education, for as regards preaching to them there can be no doubt or question. Nor by preaching do I mean the giving of addresses in churches to native congregations, but addressing all who will hear, whether in the streets, bazaars, or anywhere else. And unquestionably there are difficulties in the way of thus preaching which are not, I think, sufficiently weighed by friends of missions at home. We must, for example, dispel the idea that an evangelist, when addressing persons in the streets of a city in heathen India, is engaging in a work—except in its mere outward aspects—like that of an 'evangelist' preaching in the streets or fields at home to those ignorant of the Gospel—although, in passing, I may express my conviction that even at home such efforts are more unavailing than is supposed, where there has been no previous instruction of some kind. Outdoor preaching in India, as it often is at home, is almost universally addressed to passing and ever-changing crowds, not one of whom possibly ever heard such an address before, or will hear even this one calmly to the end, or ever hear another. In no case, moreover, will the educated and influential classes listen to such preaching. Consider, also, the most utter impossibility of giving, in the most favourable circumstances, by those means, anything like a true idea of the simplest facts of the Christian religion; while to treat of its evidences is, of course, out of the question. Should the evangelist adopt another method by directly appealing to the moral instincts of his hearers, to the wants of their immortal nature, to their conscience, their sense of responsibility, or to their eternal hopes and fears, seeking thus to rouse the will to action, where, we ask, are all those subjective conditions, necessary for the reception of the truth, to be found in hearers saturated through their whole being since childhood with all that must weaken, pervert, deaden, and almost annihilate what we assume must exist in them so as to respond at once to truth so revealed?

"These difficulties are immensely increased when we learn, moreover, that there is not a single term which can be used in preaching the Gospel, by the evangelist who is most master of the language and can select the choicest words and nicest expressions, but has fixed and definite though false ideas attached to it in the familiar theological vocabulary of his audience: nor can it be transposed by his hearer, without long and patient efforts, into the totally opposite and Christian ideas attached to the same term. We speak of one God; so will he: but what ideas have we in common of His character and attributes, or even of His personality and unity? We use the words sin, salvation, regeneration, holiness, atonement, incarnation, and so will he, but each term represents to him an old and familiar falsehood which he understands, believes, and clings to, and which fills up his whole eye, blinding it to the perception of Gospel truths altogether different although expressed by the same terms. The uneducated thus not unfrequently confuse even the name of our Saviour, Yishu Khrishta, with Ishi Khista, a companion of their god Khristna! If you fairly consider such difficulties as these, even you will also cease to wonder at the almost barren results from preaching alone to the genuine Hindoo as distinct from low caste or no caste— and that the most earnest men have failed to make any decided impression on the mass, any more than the rain or light of heaven do on the solid works of a fortress. One of the noblest and most devoted of men, Mr. Bowen, of Bombay, whom I heard thus preach, and who has done so for a quarter of a century, informed me, in his own humble, truthful way—and his case is not singular, except for its patience and earnestness—that, as far as he knew, he had never made one single convert.

"But while, in trying to estimate the most likely means of communicating a knowledge of Christianity to the Hindoos, I would have you fairly consider the difficulties in the way of preaching only, I would not have you suppose that I condemn it as useless, even although it has made few converts among thinking Hindoos apart from the co-operative power of education. I recognize it rather as among those influences which in very many ways prepare for the brighter day of harvest, by prompting inquiry, removing prejudices, accustoming people to the very terms of the Gospel, causing new ideas of truth to enter their minds in some form, however crude and defective, and by giving impressions of the moral worth and intellectual power of earnest and able missionaries who have come from afar, and who seek with so much unselfishness, patience, and love to do good to their fellow-men. By all these means we must also ever strive and hope to gain immediate results, as some preachers have done, in the conversion of sinners towards God. Let us rejoice in believing that in proportion as education of every kind advances, it prepares a wider field for the preacher, if the seed he sows as 'the Word' is to be 'understood' so as to be received ' into the heart.'

"It must, I think, be admitted that, up to the period at which Christian education was introduced as an essential element of missionary labour among the Hindoos, every attempt to make any breach in the old fortress had failed. A remarkable illustration of this fact is frankly given by the Abbé Dubois. He was an able, accomplished, earnest, and honest Roman Catholic missionary, who had laboured for a quarter of a century, living among the people, and endeavouring to convert them. He published his volume in 1822, and in it gives the result of his experience, summed up in a single sentence—' It is my decided opinion that, under existing circumstances, there is no human possibility of converting the Hindoos to any sect of Christianity.' He illustrates and confirms this conclusion by the peculiarities of the Hindoo religion, and by the history of all missionary efforts down to his own day, including those of Xavier and the Jesuits. He also gives it as his opinion that, 'as long as we are unable to make an impression on the polished part of the nation or the heads of public opinion—on the body of the Brahmins, in short—there remain but very faint hopes of propagating Christianity among the Hindoos; and as long as the only result of our labours shall be, as is at present the case, to bring into our respective communions here and there a few desperate vagrants, outcasts, pariahs, house-keepers, beggars, and other persons of the lowest description, such results cannot fail to be detrimental to the interests of Christianity among a people who in all circumstances are ruled by the force of custom and example, and are in no case allowed to judge for themselves.' It is no answer to this picture that it describes the failure of Romanism only; for it holds equally true of every other effort made in the same direction and among the same people. The Abbé had no hope whatever of the difficulty ever being mastered ; but thought the people, for their lies and abominations, were 'lying under an everlasting anathema.'

"It was shortly after this time that Christian education, although it had to some extent been adopted previously in Western India by the Americans, was systematically and vigorously begun in Bengal in the Church of Scotland as the best means of making an impression upon all castes, the highest as well as the lowest. This educational system, associated as it has become with the name of Scotland, is one of which our Church and country have reason to be proud, and will ever be connected with the names of Dr. Inglis as having planned it, and Dr. Duff as having first carried it out. It is surely a presumption in its favour that every mission from Great Britain which has to do with the same class of people, has now adopted, without one exception, the same method as an essential part of its operations.

"Let me now endeavour to explain to the members of the Church what we mean by the education system, as it is called, with some of the results at which it aims.

"First of all, a secular education, so termed, though in this case inaccurately, is given in our missionary institutions equal to that given by any seminary in India. The importance and value of this fact arises from another—that education, especially in the knowledge of the English language and its literature, is the highroad to what is all in all in the estimation of a Hindoo—Preferment. The opening up of lucrative situations, and of important civil offices in the gift of Government, and the passing a University examination by every applicant for them, are thus linked together. The privilege, moreover, of being presented as a candidate for these examinations is confined to those schools or institutions, missionary or others, which are 'affiliated' to the University or Board of Examiners in each Presidency town, which can be done only when they have proved their fitness to give the required education, and are willing to submit to Government inspection as far as their mere secular teaching is concerned. It is for this kind of education, and for these ends alone, that the Hindoo youth enters a mission school. I need hardly say that he has no desire to obtain by so doing any knowledge of Christianity; his willingness to encounter which, arising not from any courage—of which he has little or none—but from self-confidence in his ability to despise, if not its' arguments, at least its influence. When a mission school is preferred to a Government one, it is probably owing to the fact that lower fees are charged in the former; and, as I am also disposed to think, from the life and power and superior teaching necessarily imparted by educated missionaries when they throw their whole soul into their work, inspired by the high and unselfish aims which they have in view. Be this as it may, right missionaries can, by means of the school, secure a large and steady assemblage, day by day, of from 500 to 1,000 pupils, representing the very life of Hindoo society, eager to obtain education.

'While to impart this education is itself a boon, and an indirect means of doing much real good, yet by itself it is obviously not that kind of good which it is the distinct function of the Christian missionary to confer. His work is to teach men a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and so to reconcile them to their God. Hence instruction in the Bible as the record of God's will revealed to man specially through Jesus Christ, is an essential part of his work, and distinguishes his school from every other. The acceptance on the part of the pupil of this direct Christian instruction, accompanied by all that can be done by the missionary to make it find an entrance into the pupil's heart, and to keep possession of it, is a sine qua non of his being received into the school, and is taken by him with his eyes open.

"Mere teaching, however, whether secular or Christian, does not adequately express what is included in the idea of education as aimed at by the intelligent and efficient missionary. His object is, by these and all other means in his power—by argument and appeal—by that whole personal influence emanating from head and heart, from lip and eye—to educate the Hindoo mind out of all that is weak, perverted, false and vain, into truth and reality as embodied in Christian faith and life. To do this involves, as I have tried to explain, a work requiring time and patience, the nicest handling, and the greatest force. To quicken a conscience almost dead; to waken any sense of personal responsibility almost annihilated; to give any strength to a will weak and powerless for all manly effort and action; to open the long-closed and unused spiritual eye, and train it to discern the unseen, 'Him who is invisible;' to inspire with a love of truth, or with a perception, however faint, of the unworthiness and vileness of falsehood, a soul which has never felt the sense of shame in lying, and seems almost to have lost the power of knowing what it means;—this is the education which the missionary gives as preparatory to and accompanying the reception of Christianity. He has to penetrate through the drifting sands of centuries in order to reach what he believes lies deeper down, that humanity which, however weak, is capable of being elevated as sure as the Son of God has become the Son of Man ! In seeking to do this there is no part of his work, the most common or the most secular, which cannot be turned by the skilful workman to account. 'Every wise-hearted man in whom the Lord puts wisdom and understanding' will thus 'know how to work all manner of work for the service of the sanctuary. While everything is thus made subservient to the highest end, most unquestionably the Gospel itself, by the very ideas which it gives, through doctrine and precept, history and biography—above all, through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ—regarding the character of God and man, is, by its own divine light, the most powerful means of opening and educating the eye which is itself to see and appreciate this light. The Gospel, therefore, must ever accompany, as master and guide, every other kind of instrumentality employed in an educational Christian mission.

"Another object originally contemplated by these institutions was to raise up a native ministry from among the converts, who should be able to carry on the work of evangelization among their brethren as no foreigners or temporary residents in the country could possibly do, and thus ultimately to obtain from among the people themselves that supply of missionaries which should permanently meet the wants of the country. The advantages of such a class are so obvious that I need do little more than allude to the subject. When India is Christianised it must be by her own people. We are strangers and foreigners, and, as far as we can discover, must ever be so. Nature decrees, 'Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further. Immigration and permanent settlement are for us impossible. Our work towards India must therefore be from without, and in order to quicken and develop from within her own individuality in a Christian form. At present we are singularly and almost profoundly ignorant of the inner life of the people of India, almost as much as if we had visited a different race in a different planet. We come into outward contact with them, but oceans of thought, feeling, association, habits, and beliefs, separate us mentally, socially, and spiritually, until we can meet in the fellowship of a common Christianity as well as of a common citizenship. It is thus evident that we must ultimately rely upon native evangelists and pastors to educate the masses of the natives in the Christian religion, and to form them into a Christian Church. Every method, therefore, which can be devised for the raising up and thoroughly educating such men, suited to meet the various ranks and castes of Hindoo and Mohammedan society, the most learned as well as the most ignorant, should engage the most earnest attention of the Christian Church. At present we are but feeling our way towards this all-important end.

"You will now very naturally inquire how far our school system has succeeded. after having had a fair trial, in adding converts and native evangelists to the Christina Church. The results of Dr. Duff's missionary schools may be taken as the most favorable example. He had the honour not only of beginning the system in Calcutta, but of carrying it on for the long period of thirty-live years; for although he left the Church of Scotland and joined the Free Church in 1843, yet he continued his mission in other buildings with unabated vigour and unwearied zeal. He was assisted, moreover, by a staff of missionaries who, in learning and ability, were worthy of their distinguished leader; so that the system, it must be confessed, has had the fairest possible trial, without interruption or weakness. Its agency, too, has always been strong and effective. The number of its principal and branch stations in Bengal is 12, with 51 Christian agents, including 4 ordained European missionaries; an average attendance of upwards of 3,000 scholars, male and female. Two ordained native evangelists are employed, and 5 agents are engaged in vernacular preaching in the Mofussil, or in 'the country.' Now, the number of converts since the beginning of the mission until the present year has been 206. Not one, as far as I can discover, is reported for last year. As to ordained missionaries, three only have been contributed by the institution since its commencement. The same general results have been obtained from the in-stitulion at Madras and Bombay, hitherto conducted by as able, accomplished, and devoted missionaries as have laboured in India. The names of the late John Anderson of Madras, and of the venerable and learned Dr. Wilson, of Bombay, whom God has spared to labour, will ever be associated with the history of missions in India.

"Looking only to such results as can be expressed by mere statistics, those I have given may possibly be recognised as proofs of failure by one ignorant of India, on comparing them with those gathered from other fields of missionary labour. I might, however, easily show the value of those results, and defend them from the charge of insignificance, by showing the quality and influence of the converts who form the native churches connected with that mission and with other mission schools in India, and thus prove the greatness of the victory by the difficulty of the battle, and the strength and importance of the position which it has thus secured with reference to the final conquest of the land; or I might even compare the number of those converts with the number of missionaries employed, as proving a success equal to that of any other mission in similar circumstances. But putting aside these and many other elements of a success which, in my opinion, is unquestionable and remarkable, even as tested by statistics, I could most conscientiously defend it on a lower but sufficiently solid and hopeful ground. Were its work confined to the walls of the institution, and had it as yet never made a single convert, would it, I ask, in this case, however painful and disappointing it might be to the ardent and hopeful missionary or to the Church, be unworthy of our continued confidence and unfaltering support? I can anticipate but one reply by those who have at all comprehended the actual condition of Hindoo society, even as I have tried to describe it, and the nature and difficulty of the work to be done before its heathenism can be given up, and a genuine living Christianity substituted in its place. For realise if you can what the effect must be, as preparing the way for Christianity, of thousands of youth nearly every year sent forth into society to occupy positions of trust and influence from all the mission schools in India; not a few of their pupils truly converted to God, and all well instructed in Christianity, in its evidences, facts, and moral teaching; the minds of all considerably enlightened, their knowledge and means of knowledge vastly increased, and their whole moral tone and feelings changed and elevated! I am compelled to reiterate the idea that the work thus done by the mission school is not the taking down a brick here or there from the beleaguered wall, but that of sapping it from below, until, like the walls of Jericho, and by the same Almighty power, though differently applied, it falls in one great ruin to the ground while at the same time it is preparing the ground, digging the foundations, and gathering materials for building up a new living temple to the Lord.

"In regard to the rising up of a native ministry, that too may be pronounced a failure, if those who have been ordained are counted merely and not weighed. But that the different mission schools in India have raised from among their converts a must intelligent, educated, and respected body of native clergy, cannot be denied. I remember a caste native gentleman of wealth and education speaking of one of those clergy, and saying to me, 'that is a man whose acquaintance you should, if possible, make. He was of my caste, and became a Christian; but he is a learned and thoroughly sincere man, and people here honour him.' This said much for both Hindoo and Christian. Nor do I think such cases so rare as people at home or abroad are apt to imagine. It is, no doubt, greatly to be desired, that we had many more such men—hundreds, or even thousands, instead of a few dozen or so; but the diffi-i culties are at present great, not only in finding the right kind of men, but, when found, in supporting them where as yet no congregations exist, and in inducing them to be the subordinates of foreign missionaries with comparatively small salaries, when so many better paid and more independent positions can be found in other departments of labour. For while there are many cases of unselfish and disinterested labour among native pastors, yet the demands of others for 'pay and power' make the question of native pastors in towns embarrassing at times to the home Churches. But, in spite of those difficulties, good men have been and are being ordained, and we can at present see no more likely source of obtaining them, for the cities at least, than by our missionary educational institutions. Before closing this part of my subject and proceeding to offer a few practical suggestions as to present duties with reference to our Missions, permit me to repeat a conviction which I stated at our great missionary meeting at Calcutta as to our keeping steadily before the mind of the Churches at home and abroad the vast importance of a native Church being organized in India. By a native Church I do not certainly mean—what, in present circumstances, we thankfully accept —native Churches in ecclesiastical connection with the different European and American missions. It surely cannot be desired by any intelligent Christian. I might use stronger language, and assert that it ought not to be tolerated by any reasonable man unless proved to be unavoidable, that our several Churches should reproduce, in order to perpetuate in the new world of a Christianized India, those forms and symbols which in the old world have become marks, not of our union as Christians, but of our disunion as sects. We may not, indeed, be responsible for these divisions in the Church, which have come down to us from the past. We did not make them, nor can we now, perhaps unmake them. We find ourselves born into some one of them, and so we accept of it, and make the most of it as the best we can get in the whole circumstances in which we are placed. But must we establish these different organizations in India? Is each part to be made to represent the whole ? Is the grand army to remain broken up into separate divisions, each to recruit to its own standard, and to invite the Hindoos to wear our respective uniforms, adopt our respective Shibloleths, learn to repeat our respective war cries, and even make caste marks of our wounds and scars, which to us are but the sad mementoes of old battles? Or, to drop all metaphors, shall Christian converts in India be necessarily grouped and stereotyped into Episcopal Churches, Presbyterian Churches, Lutheran Churches, Methodist Churches, Baptist Churches, or Independent Churches, and adopt as their respective creeds the Confession of Faith, the Thirty-nine Articles, or some other formula approved of by our forefathers, and the separating sign of some British or American sect? Whether any Church seriously entertains this design I know not, though I suspect it of some, and I feel assured that it will be realised in part, as conversions increase by means of foreign missions, and be at last perpetuated unless it is now carefully guarded against by every opportunity being watched and taken advantage of to propagate a different idea, and to rear up an independent and all inclusive native Indian Church. By such a Church I mean one which shall be organized and governed by the natives themselves, as far as possible, independently of us. We could of course claim as Christians and fellow subjects, to be recognised as brethren and to be received among its members, or, if it should so please both parties, serve among its ministers, and rejoice always to be its best friends and generous supporters.

"In all this we would only have them to do to us as we should feel bound to do to them. Such a Church might, as taught by experience, mould its outward form of government and worship according to its inner wants and outward circumstances, guided by history and by the teaching and spirit of Christianity. Its creed—for no Christian society can exist without some known and professed beliefs —would include those truths which had been confessed by the Catholic Church of Christ since the first; and, as necessary to its very existence as a Church it would recognise the supreme authority of Jesus Christ and His apostles. It would also have, like the whole Church, its Lord's-day for public worship, and the Sacraments of Baptism, and the Lord's Supper. Thus might a new temple be reared on the plains of India unlike perhaps any to be seen in our western lands, yet with all our goodly stones built up in its fabric, and with all our spiritual worship within its walls of the one living and true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. A Church like this would, from its very nationality, attract many a man who does not wish to be ranked among the adherents of Mission Churches.

It would dispose, also, of many difficulties inseparable from our position, whether regarding baptism or the selection and support of a native ministry. And, finally, it would give ample scope, for many a year to come, for all the aid and efforts which our home Churches and Missionaries could afford by schools and colleges, personal labour, and also by money contributions, to establish, strengthen, and extend it.

"Moreover it seems to me that India affords varied and remarkable elements for contributing many varied gifts and talents to such a Church as this. The simple peasant and scholarly pundit, the speculative mystic or self-torturing devotee, the peaceful South-man and the manly North-man; the weak Hindoo who clings to others of his caste for strength, and the strong aborigines who love their individuality and independence;—one and all possess a power which could find its place of rest and blessing in the faith of Christ and in fellowship with one another through Him. The incarnate but unseen Christ, the Divine yet human brother, would dethrone every idol; God's word be substituted for the Puranas; Christian brotherhood for caste; and the peace of God, instead of these and every weary rite and empty ceremony, would satisfy the heart. Such is my ideal, which I hope and believe will one day become real in India. The day, indeed, seems to be far off when 'the Church of India,' worthy of the country, shall occupy its place within what may then be the Christendom of the world. A period of chaos may intervene ere it is created; and after that, how many days full of change and of strange revolutions, with their 'evenings' and 'mornings,' may succeed, ere it enjoys a Sabbath rest of holiness and peace ! But yet that Church must be, if India is ever to become one, or a nation in any true sense of the word. For union, strength, and real progress can never hence-forth in this world's history either result from or coalesce with Mohammedanism or Hindooism, far less with the cold and heartless abstractions of an atheistic philosophy. Hence English government, by physical force and moral power, must, with a firm and unswerving grasp, hold the broken fragments of the Indian races together, until they are united from within by a Christianity into aliving organism, which can then, and then only, dispense with the force without. The wild olive must be grafted into the ' root and fatness' of the good olive-tree of the Church of Christ; and while the living union is being formed, and until the living sap begins to flow from the root to every branch, English power must firmly bind and hold the parts together. Our hopes of an Indian nation are bound up with our hopes of an Indian Church ; and it is a high privilege for us to be able to help on this consummation. The West thus gives back to the East the riches which it has from the East received to be returned again, I doubt not, with interest to ourselves.

"But when shall there be a resurrection in this great valley of death  When shall these dry bones live! Lord, thou knowest, with whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day ! Let us have faith and patience. There may at first be but a noise and a shaking, and then the bones of the poor broken-up and disjointed skeletons of humanity may come together, and after a while sinews and flesh may cover them, and yet no breath be in them ! But these preparatory processes are not in vain. A resurrection-day of his and power will dawn in the fulness of time, and the Lord of Life will raise up prophets, it may be from among the people of India, who will meekly and obediently prophesy as the Lord commands them; and then the glorious result will be witnessed from heaven and earth which we have all prayed and laboured and longed for; the Spirit of Life will come, and these dead bodies will live and stand on their feet an exceeding great army'. 'I beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the Throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; and cried with a loud voice saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the Throne, and unto the Lamb.' 'Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.'"

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