Lectures on the Tinnevelly Missions/Chapter IV
Having described the Field and the Work, I now proceed to give a brief estimate of the Results of our labours in Tinnevelly. The work being one in which I have taken part myself, it may be supposed to be difficult for me to give au impartial estimate of its results. It is my wish, however, and shall be my endeavour, to be impartial to tell, not how things ought to be, but how things are ; and thero are so many undoubted proofs of progress apparent in the South Indian Missions, but especially in those of Tinnevelly, that the difficulty of being impartial, and putting in the shadows where they are required, is really not so great as might be supposed.
It used to be said, that it was impossible to convert the Hindus, and they who said so, the Anglo-Indians of a former gene ration, did their best to fulfil their own prophecy by preventing Missionaries from labouring in India. Now that the possibility of the conversion of the Hindus has been proved by the conver sion of a considerable number of them, of almost every caste, the point of attack has been changed, and it is asserted that there are no sincere Christians amongst the Hindus, so that the conversions that take place from time to time are of no value. Some of the persons who make this assertion have been in India themselves ; but there are many Englishmen in India who know no more of our native Christian congregations, or of the social and inner life of either heathens or Christians, than if they had never been out of England. They are content to remain profoundly ignorant of what Missionaries are doing, and of the real condition of the native Christian community. They adopt the language which passes current in "society," and English society in India is thoroughly pervaded with the notion that every race should keep to its own creed, and that it is an ungentlemanly thing for a man to change his religion. This is a notion which high-caste heathens take much care to encourage. Their own religion makes no pro selytes, and accepts none; consequently, they regard those who have adopted a foreign religion, especially if they are guilty of the addi tional crime of being of lower caste than themselves, as " the filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things;" and hence, Euro peans who occupy official positions in India, who are surrounded by high-caste subordinates, and breathe every day of their lives an atmosphere of high-caste blandishments, too often mistake the prejudices instilled into their minds by Brahmans for results of their own observation. It is also a significant fact, a fact which, so far as I know, admits of no exceptions, that when English gentlemen of this class are awakened to spiritual life, they make the discovery that there is a reality in missionary results, and a sincerity amongst native Christians, notwithstanding their defects, which they had not expected to find. They may find, it is true, a dark side to the picture, as well as a bright one ; but they in variably admit it to have been a gross mistake to suppose, as they did, that the picture had no bright side at all.
In this country missionary labours and successes are some times exposed to the opposite danger of being over-estimated. It sometimes seems to be supposed that all our converts must have been converted not only from idolatry to Christianity, but from sin to God ; that they must all have been renewed in the spirit of their minds, and become real, spiritual Christians. A missionary station is not depicted in colours taken from daily life, but is fancied to be a sort of Garden of Eden a chosen spot of consecrated ground in which there is no ignorance, no super stition, no strife, no immorality I had almost said, no human nature. This view of the case is equally erroneous with the former, though originating in a more friendly feeling, and it is hard to say which species of exaggeration does the cause of Missions most harm. The fact is, that the work of God in heathen lands does not differ essentially from the same work at home. In Tinnevelly as in England good has to struggle with evil, truth with error, light with darkness : nowhere on earth shall we find the characteristics of heaven. They are in error who dwell upon the dark side of the picture, and ignore the bright side ; and they are equally, though more amiably, in error, who fix their eyes exclusively upon the bright side, and ignore the dark.
The work of Misions in Thmevelly is a real work, with real difficulties and real encouragements, and it only claims to be judged by the principles on which every similar work is estimated in Christian countries.
In endeavouring to form a fair estimate of the results which have really been accomplished, we are sometimes met at the outset by the statement that all our native Christians belong to low and degraded castes. The great majority of Hindu converts belong undoubtedly to the lower classes of society : in the country they are small farmers and farm labourers, not unfrequently slaves ; in the cities they are mostly domestic servants of Euro peans. But though this is the case of the majority, it is not the case with all ; and even if it were, what then ? It would only follow that in India, as in ancient Greece, not many wise, not many noble, not many mighty are called, but that God had chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith.
Few of the English resident in India ever have the opportunity of seeing any native Christians but those who belong to the class of domestic servants, and they sometimes complain of members of that class in unmeasured terms. It is a common saying amongst the English in India, that Christian servants are worse than heathen ones ; and though I regard this assertion as false and calumnious, yet I admit that the character of persons of that class is often unfavourably affected by their position. Tried by any standard whatever, the character of the Christian members of any caste will more than bear a comparison with heathens belonging to the same caste, but if persons belonging to different castes or classes are compared, the comparison is unfair. The domestic servants of Europeans in the Madras Presidency gene rally belong to the caste of Pariars a caste which has been degraded by long-continued oppression, and which is one of the fevr castes that are accustomed to use intoxicating liquors. Pariars sometimes boast that they belong to " Master's caste," and many European masters have discovered to their cost that their Pariar servants entertain no superstitious scruples respecting meats and drinks. Unquestionably, therefore, this caste appears in some particulars at a disadvantage in comparison with some of the more temperate, more polished castes, and those of this caste who have become Christians have peculiarly strong tempta tions and many evil customs to contend with. It is an aggrava tion of the difficulty that the majority of European masters measure their servants by a stricter rule than they apply to persons who are not in their employment, and rarely take any interest in their moral and spiritual welfare, beyond maligning all native Christians when any of their domestics commit an offence. It should be remembered, on the other hand, that nineteen-twentieths of the native Christians in the Madras Presidency belong to classes considerably higher than the Pariars in the social scale ; they reside in the rural districts, and never come in contact with Europeans at all, either as domestic servants, or in any other capacity. In Tinnevelly, in particular, there are thousands of native Christian ryots who have never yet seen any European layman. In the course of my fourteen years' connexion with Tinnevelly, my own district was visited only thrice by Europeans who were not Missionaries ; and in such circumstances it is obvious that none but the Missionaries are in a position to form or to express any reliable opinion respecting the character o/ our native Christians, or even respecting their condition in life and social influences.
If it is to be regretted that the majority of our native Chris tians belong to the lower circle of castes, it is for a reason that lies deeper than anything yet mentioned.
If a man gives up anything for Christ, he receives from Christ sevenfold more in spiritual gifts and graces; he rises rapidly to the stature of a perfect man in Christ. On the contrary, if he is so situated that -he is called upon to give up little, either because he has little to give up, or because he meets with little opposition, and more especially, if he gains, on the whole, in a temporal point of view, by becoming a Christian not indeed in a pecu niary sense, for that can rarely happen, but as regards protection' from oppression, or any similar advantage the probability is that he will acquire little elevation of spirit, or enlargement of heart, and little experience of the power of faith. Individuals may, indeed, be met with, even under such circumstances, who will rise to Christian eminence ; but if there be a community in this position, like the bulk of our native community in Tinne- velly, in the first ages at least of its Christianity, that com.- munity may be expected to exemplify the truth of this state ment. On the other hand, there is nothing new in this in the history of the Christian Church, for it has ever been a character istic of Christianity, that it has delighted to preach the Gospel to the poor ; and it has ever been another of its characteristics, that it has elevated the temporal as well as the spiritual condition of those who have embraced it. It is also necessary to bear in mind, that though the majority of our native Christians belong to the poorer classes, all do not. There is a small, but steadily- increasing portion of the native Christian community in India, consisting chiefly of the high caste youth converted to Christianity in connexion with the educational department of Missions, who may be regarded as Hindu Christian gentlemen. The social rank of some members of this class is as respectable as their attainments in English scholarship ; and as they have invariably renounced caste and kindred for Christ's sake,- they have attained thereby to " great boldness in the faith" and " a good degree" in Christ's school. Such persons bear the same relation to the less educated, less distinguished majority, that the ornamented capital of a column does to the simple, solid shaft ; and not only do they furnish a reply to the objection that our native Christians belong to the lower castes alone, but they tend to raise the tone of character and feeling throughout the entire body. They are " the first- fruits unto Christ" from the higher classes of the Hindus, and they lead us to expect in due time a rich harvest of accessions from those classes to the Christian cause.
In proceeding to furnish an estimate of the results of missionary labours in Tinnevelly, I begin with temporal results, such results being the first that strike the eye of persons visiting our stations. The whole of the civilization of Northern Europe being due to Christianity, we cannot doubt the power of the Gospel to civilize a community ; it is evident too, on comparing Protestant com munities with Roman Catholic, that the civilizing power of the Gospel is in proportion to its freedom from corruption. On turning to Tinnevelly, and comparing the temporal condition of the native Christians with that of the heathens, we cannot but be struck with the visible improvement which the Gospel has effected.
In passing from village to village you can tell, without asking a question, which village is Christian, and which is heathen. You can distinguish the Christian village by such signs as these the straightness and regularity of the streets, the superior con struction and neatness and cleanness of the cottages, the double row of tulip-trees or cocoa-nut palms, planted along each street for ornament as well as for shade, and the air of humble re spectability which everywhere meets your view all so different from the filth and indecency, the disorder and neglect, which assure the visitor that a village is heathen. You notice also, as you pass through, a marked difference in the people themselves especially in the women. The Christian women are more decently attired, and more intelligent-looking than their heathen sisters ; and instead of hiding themselves on the approach of an European stranger, they come out and give him, as he passes, the Christian salutation.
In every case with which I am acquainted, villages which have held fast and valued the Christianity they received, have risen, sometimes in the first generation, always in the second, to the enjoyment of greater prosperity and comfort, and to a higher position in the social scale, than any heathen village of the same caste.
My own village of Edeyenkoody furnishes an illustration of this. For some years after my arrival the houses of the people continued to be, as all Shanar houses had always been, unfit for civilized human beings to live in : in the course of time, however, one of the villagers resolved to build a better house for himself, and gradually the movement extended and became fashionable, until at length almost every person in the village, from the richest to the poorest, has built for himself a new house ; and the new houses the people have thus built for themselves are twice or thrice as large as the houses they were content to live in before, besides being much loftier, airier, and more respectable-looking, with little verandahs in front, and various other arrangements which used to be seen only in the houses of high-caste people in the towns. There is still undoubtedly room both for architectural improvement and for sanitary improvement ; nevertheless, the changes that have already taken place are a good omen for the future, especially seeing that they have been carried into effect by the people themselves, of their own accord, and at their own expense, and are directly the results of Christian influences.
Christianity has given the people higher ideas of their capa bilities and duties, even with respect to their present life ; it has taught them self-respect, and some degree of self-reliance : it has not made them, perhaps, more industrious, for in their own quiet, apathetic way, almost all Hindus are tolerably industrious already ; but it has made them more enterprising, more energetic ; it has knocked off the fetters wherewith their intellects were bound, and bid them go forth free ; and thus it has opened before them an unlimited prospect of progress and improvement.
It may seem a low view of matters to say that it is a character istic of Christianity that it teaches people to be cleanly ; and yet, if it be true, as is proverbially said, that " cleanliness is next to godliness," it is a circumstance worth mentioning, that an in creased attention to cleanliness has invariably accompanied the reception of the Gospel in Tinnevelly. The higher classes of the Hindus have always been very cleanly, for daily ablutions are a part of their religion; but the lower classes are very filthy in their habits, and Shnars of the poorer sort are, perhaps, filthier even than castes that are lower than themselves in the social scale, which is owing to the nature of their employment, the men being climbers of the palmyra, and the women and children boilers of palmyra sugar.
When dealing with people of this and similar classes, who had agreed to place themselves under Christian instruction, I have often thought of the appropriateness of Jacob's address (Gen. xxxv. 2), " Now, therefore, put aM-ay the strange gods that are among you, and be ye clean (or bathe), and wash your garments." In the history of our Christian communities in Tinnevelly this putting away of idols and washing of the garments have always gone hand in hand, so that, though there may be room for improvement still, the external appearance of our people, especially when assembled in church, is so much more respectable than that of their heathen neighbours, they are so much cleaner and brighter-looking, that they would inevitably be supposed by a stranger to be of higher caste than they are.
This improvement, like every improvement of an outward and visible character, is especially apparent in our young people. I wish I could take you, my dear reader, to Edeyenkoody on a Sunday, and enable you to se6 for yourself the degree in which our young people are improved. Though you cannot speak a word of the native language, and are unable to ask any person a question, yet, if you only use your eyes, you cannot but be con vinced that Christianity has proved a remarkable blessing to the rising generation. There they are, sitting in the front rows on either side ; and they are evidently, as a class, in advance of the older people. You see them better dressed and cleaner-looking, to begin with : then also they are evidently more intelligent; generally they have softer and more amiable looks ; they have books in their hands, and when a question is put by the preacher, it is from them that the answer generally proceeds ; they have the praises of God in their lips ; and there is an air about them which bespeaks them to be the Church's children, "born in her house." They owe these signs of superiority to the education they have received, for they have been brought up from the beginning in Christian knowledge and Christian habits, whereas most of the older people whom you see sitting behind, were converted from heathenism late in life, and have rarely lost the stains and rust of their original condition.
The progress of the Christian community will be very satisfac tory, if each generation gets as far ahead of the previous one as the rising generation has already outstripped the past. We cannot expect in a single generation all the results, whether temporal or spiritual, which we aim at. We have learnt that God "visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation." Now, neither the fourth nor even the third generation of native Christians worthy of the name, has, as yet, come and gone ; at most we are dealing now only with the second generation of Tinnevelly Christians. It is to be expected, there fore, that some of the results of the poison of a hundred previous generations of heathenism should still remain, and that the Christianity of India, how far soever superior to heathenism, should appear more or less marred or vitiated ; but if each generation rises superior to the one that went before, we shall have every reason not only to be content, but to thank God, and take courage.
We may arrive at a safe conclusion respecting the reality and sincerity, on the whole, of the Christianity of Tinnevelly, from the liberality with which the native converts contribute to religious and charitable purposes. This is everywhere a tolerably fair criterion, if not of piety towards God, at least of love to man and religious zeal. People will not give their money for the ex tension of a system in which they do not believe, or in which they take no interest. This is a rule on which we may place special reliance in India, for the Hindus are notoriously a penurious, hoarding people : generally a Hindu is as reluctant to give his money as he is to shed his blood ; and one scarcely ever hears of a debt being paid before the payment of it is enforced. This being the case, if Hindu converts, and especially if converts from demonolatry a system of gloom and hate, in which the charities of life have no place have learnt to open their hearts and hands and contribute liberally to the support of religious and charitable Societies, it must be concluded that the Gospel has really taken root amongst them, and begun to bring forth fruit ; nor will the force of this argument be much weakened by the fact that, in Tinnevelly, as elsewhere, the amount of a particular donation is sometimes determined, not by the importance of the object, but by the amount which neighbours have given ; and that there, as in the primitive Churches and amongst ourselves, it is occasionally necessary to say, " Let every man do according as he is disposed in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver."
In Tinnevelly religious and charitable Societies have been es tablished in each of our districts for almost every purpose we wish to accomplish ; and those Societies depend for support, not upon Europeans, for there are no Europeans resident in the rural districts, but upon the native Christians themselves. In my own district, for instance, I had a Church Building Society, and a Society for the Relief of the Christian poor, both independent of other districts, besides an Association connected with the Tinne velly Tract and Book Society, and one connected with the Bible Society; and since I left Tinnevelly another Society has been com menced, in my own as in most other districts, for the diffusion of the Gospel by native itinerants amongst the neighbouring heathen.
I am unable to state the precise sum- total of the various charitable contributions raised in Tinnevelly, amongst the native Christians of all the districts connected with both Missions, but the best estimate I have been able to form is that it amounts to 1,1 00. sterling a-year. I can state with certainty the exact amount raised in my own district ; and in this, as in other things, there was so much emulation at work, that there was little difference between one district and another, allowance being made for difference in numbers and worldly circumstances. Leaving out of account whatever contributions I may have re ceived from Missionaries and other European friends, I find that the native Christians of my own district contributed 12QL to their various societies and charities, during the two years that elapsed before I left Tinnevelly. This sum also, handsome as it is, must be estimated at far more than its apparent value ; for the value of money depends, not upon its weight or tale, but upon its relation to food. At the Gold Diggings a pound will scarcely purchase half as much of the necessaries of life as in England ; consequently, a donation of a pound given to a Mel bourne Society must be reckoned as one of ten shillings only. On the other hand, the value of money is much greater in India than in England. As estimated by the average price of rice in India, compared with the average price of wheat in England, I reckon the value of money in India to be seven to one six to one perhaps in some districts, at least seven to one in Tinnevelly : that is, one pound will purchase seven pounds' worth of food ; consequently, a donation of one pound to a Tinnevelly Society must be reckoned as one of seven pounds. By food, I under stand, of course, such food as is necessary to natives of the place, whose constitutions are adapted to the climate. Some things are regarded as necessaries of life by Europeans, which most Hindus have not yet learnt to regard even as luxuries. Thus, it is necessary for an European in India to have an airy house to live in, to have the means of locomotion without exposure to the sun, and also to sit on chairs, not cross-legged on the floor, and to eat with knives and forks, not with the fingers. It is necessary for an Englishman, except for some brief emergency, to have with him wherever he resides the principal appliances of civilized life, and all those appliances, of whatever sort they are, are more ex pensive in India than in England ; so that the estimate I have given is inapplicable to Europeans. Looking, however, exclu sively at the wants of the native at his natural wants and at the very limited range of his artificial wants, the estimate of the value of money which I have deduced from the price of grain is certainly a correct one, and a similar conclusion may be drawn from a comparison of the rate of wages paid in India and in England respectively, to agricultural labourers.
A good agricultural labourer in Tinnevelly will think himself well paid at a shilling a week ; and, if he has no family, he will proba'bly manage to live at the rate of sixpence a week, and thus lay by half his wages. A man with an income of ten shillings a week is regarded as a gentleman ; but I was not fortunate enough to have any such gentlemen in my congregations. All my own people belonged to the class of small very small farmers, hired palmyra-climbers, and farm-servants, or slaves ; and though most of the farmers were owners of the lands they cultivated, I do not think there was a single native Christian in the district, whose income averaged more than five shillings a week.
It is necessary to bear these things in mind, in forming an estimate of the liberality of our native Christians. If we must multiply by seven to find the equivalent value of their incomes, we are bound also to multiply by seven to find the English equi valent of their contributions to charitable Societies. Estimated by this rule, the 1201. contributed in two years amount to 840, and this being the case, it must be admitted, I think,, that the religious sincerity of the mass of our Tinnevelly Christians has been proved by an unanswerable argument. "W ithout confound ing liberality in almsgiving with Christianity, it is evident that Christianity must have taken deep root amongst our people to produce the fruit of such liberality as I have described. May I not say, indeed, on comparing that liberality with the average amount contributed to religious and charitable Societies in many parishes in this old Christian country, that in the sandy plains and pal myra forests of Tinnevelly, Christendom is furnished with a new illustration of the prophetic axiom, " there are last that shall be first?" I have said that we have public meetings in Tinnevelly, as in this country, in aid of our various religious and charitable asso ciations, and certainly those public meetings are remarkably well attended. Not long ago, if you observed bands of villagers men, women, and children dressed in their holiday attire, and all threading in the same direction the pathways through the fields, you \vould naturally have concluded that they were going to attend some heathen festival, and that the plantains, baskets of sugar-candy, and other articles of produce they were carrying with them, were intended to be laid at the feet of the idol. In many extensive districts in the South it would now be unsafe to form this conclusion. You would probably find, on inquiry, that the people you saw were all going to attend a sangam a public meeting connected with one of our Societies and that the articles they were carrying with them were intended to swell the col lection at the public meeting.
The last meeting I attended in Tinnevelly, the meeting of the Tract, Book, and Bible Association connected with my own district, was held at Edeyenkoody, a few weeks before I left. It was held in the middle of the day, and all who attended the meeting had to give up some portion of their day's work those who came from a considerable distance an entire day's work in order to enable them to attend it. There had been heavy rain also for several days before the meeting was held, there was rain on the day of the meeting, and there was rain upon the meeting itself, for the large temporary church in which the meeting was held was in a leaky condition. Notwithstanding these various discouragements, there were upwards of 800 persons of all ages present on the occasion, all of them native Christians connected with the district. Surely this looks as if the people generally, however defective they may be in some things, had learned to take an interest in the spread of Christianity.
On the occasion referred to, some fifteen men, agricultural slaves, belonging to a village eleven miles off, came to bid me good-by after the meeting was over. I saw that there were none of the women of their village with them, and rather wondered at this; for there, as here, there is generally a larger number of women than of men present at such meetings. I asked them why this had happened. They answered, " The river was swollen ; so the women were obliged to turn back, but we swam." " Oh, you swam the river, did you 1 " I said. " Yes," said they ; " and we wish to set off at once, for we want to cross the river again before it is quite dark." Thus, those poor people walked in all twenty-two miles that day, and swam a river twice, in order to enable them to attend the meeting! Making all due allowance for difference in climate and in mode of life, I think I may fairly say that the practical interest those poor Hindu rustics took in the propagation of Christian truth, though not directly a proof of their piety, was at least a proof that in them the good seed had found a good promising soil, in which fruits of faith and labours of love were likely to grow apace.
I come now to more directly spiritual results of the reception of the Gospel. It is admitted that Christian profession and Scriptural knowledge, docility and liberality, though excellent things after their kind, may fall ahort of spiritual life. It is desirable, therefore, to inquire whether, and to what extent, our native Christian community in Tinnevelly has been endowed with spiritual life from on high. Amongst our native Christians such spiritual life as operates mightily in " works of faith, and labours of love, and patience of hope," is certainly rare and I fear, it must be added, it is rare in this country too. It is a gift of special grace, possessed not by the " many " who are " called," but by the "few " who are " chosen." If we look around us, and scrutinize the condition of even the best-managed and most enlightened parishes in England, we shall discover in them a mixture of good and evil; we shall find the best portion of every community the smallest. If we look into the description of the spiritual condition of the primitive Churches given us in the New Testament, we shall discover even in them a very mixed state of things chaff mingled with wheat in the Gospel thrashing- floor, bad fish mingled with good in the Gospel net ; we shall discover the existence of a similar mixture, in ever varying pro portions, in every century of the history of the Church. Every where nominal Christianity has accompanied real Christianity, and everywhere real Christians have been a " little flock." This state of things was clearly predicted by the Divine Founder of Christianity himself.
Look, for example, at our Lord's prophetic parable of the sower. According to that parable, one portion only of the good seed of the word " brings forth fruit unto perfection," three-fourths of all the seed that is sown are lost. One portion falls by the wayside, and is trodden under foot ; another portion falls on a good, but a shallow soil, and though it springs up speedily, it speedily whithers away ; a third portion is choked with thorns ; a fourth portion alone finds a good soil, the soil of " a good and honest heart," a heart specially prepared by Divine grace for the reception of the good seed, and it is in that soil alone that the good seed not only takes root, but grows, and brings forth fruit " in some sixty, and in some an hundred-fold."
Now, no exception to this state of things is furnished by Indian Missions in general, or by our Tinnevelly Missions in particular. We miorht wish, indeed, that all our native Christians had embraced Christianity purely and solely from a conviction of its Divine origin, and of the suitableness of its blessings to their spiritual wants, without being influenced by its collateral, tem poral advantages; we might hope also that they would never forget " the wormwood and the gall" of their inherited heathenism, or " the exceeding great love of their Master and only Saviour " in dying for their redemption; we might hope that all who abandoned heathenism would also abandon sin, that all who were converted to Christianity would also be converted to God, that all who became Christians in a heathen country would become real Christians, really renewed in the spirit of their minds, filled with real love and zeal, Christians likely, to rise speedily to "the stature of perfect men in Christ;" this and much more we might hope for, and even expect ; but the reality, though quite in accordance with what Scripture and our European experience in dicate, is little in accordance with such bright expectations. The many, in our Tinnevelly Missions, walk, as the many have ever walked everywhere, in the broad easy way of worldly compliances, and they who adorn the doctrine of God their, Saviour, are the few. On looking round us in Tinnevelly, we shall find no lack of merely nominal Christianity ; and yet here I must draw a dis tinction between what we call nominal Christianity in Tinne velly, and much that is called^by that name in England, but which appears to me to have no right whatever to the name.
In this old Christian country, especially in our crowded cities, many of those who call themselves " Christians," never enter a place of Christian worship, never bow the knee to God in prayer, never open God's word, know nothing of God except as a name to swear by. Such persons have no right even to the name of Christians, and when they are called by that name it can only mean that they are not Mahometans or Buddhists. In Tinne- velly such persons would not be called Christians at all ; their names would be erased from our Church-lists, and Christianity would not be discredited by the supposition that they are hers. When we speak of nominal Christianity in Tinnevelly, we speak of something which has a certain right to the Christian name. Our nominal Christians come to church, they send their children to school, they have abandoned their idols, they have formally placed themselves under Christian instruction, and under our pastoral care ; they have come within the sound of the Gospel, and within the range of holy influences ; they contribute to the funds of our various Societies ; they submit to a discipline in a remark ably docile manner; many of them have applied for, and received baptism, some of them come regularly to the commu nion ; in short, a considerable number of our " nominal Chris tians" would be reckoned very good Christians, and very good church-people too, in some parishes in England ; and if we call them "nominal" Christians merely, it is because we have not seen in them what we have longed to see " the power of godliness," the new life of real, spiritual Christianity and find it necessary to distinguish them from that much smaller, but much more interesting class of native Christians, who show that they are animated by the spirit of Christ.
I am not disposed to think lightly of the value of such nominal Christianity as I have described. A great and very important work has been done, when so many as 43,000 people in one pro vince of heathen India have been brought thus far, though it should be thus far only, towards the heavenly Zion. The altar has been built, the wood is piled upon the altar, the offering which St. Paul speaks of " the offering up of the Gentiles," has been placed upon the wood, and it only remains for the fire of Divine grace to descend and kindle the whole into a flame.
I am aware that there are some persons who think the ex tension of a nominal Christianity amongst heathens as no benefit at all, but a positive evil, and who withhold their sympathy from any system of Missions but that which professes only (with very doubtful success, however,) to " gather in the elect." I not only think that idea erroneous, but I regard it as a mischievous error. A religion which is merely nominal and external will not, it is true, save any man's soul ; but if our country were not a nominally Christian one, inhabited by a church-going, Bible-taught people, how much more seldom would real religion be met with 1 Suppose that large numbers of our unspiritual, unconverted countrymen were to abandon the profession of Christianity, cease attending church, throw away their Bibles, withdraw from the company of their Christian fellow-countrymen, and return in a body to th heathenism of their Saxon forefathers, would this apostasy be better or worse than their nominal Christianity ? would there be a greater or a less probability of real religion eventually making progress amongst them ? or would not they who now regard the extension of nominal Christianity in India as a doubtful benefit or as a positive evil, speak loudly and warmly of the importance of even an external profession of Christianity 1 If this case is correctly put, why should we have one law for Europeans and another for our dealings with a people who are lower in intellect, in civilization, and in religious development, and who are there fore more likely, in their progress to real religion, to pass through the stage of nominal religion ? Instead, therefore, of that morbid dread of the extension of nominal Christianity which some good people evince, it should simply be our desire and prayer that "the power of godliness" may become co-extensive with the "form" of it, and that the "dry bones" of heathenism may not only be clothed with sinews, and flesh, and skin, but vivified and raised up by the Divine " breath. ' It is greatly to be deplored that any persons, whether Europeans or Hindus, should remain content with the empty form, without the substance of godliness ; and it should therefore be regarded as a special consolation, that we who have laboured in Tinnevelly as Missionaries and as pastors, who " speak what we do know, and testify what we have seen," are able to testify that there is in Tinnevelly, not only much of a vague general profession of religion, but an encouraging amount of genuine piety. In each of our little congregations God has "a seed to serve Him." There is " a little flock," would that I could say they are not a little flock ! of persons who appear to be " called, and faithful, and chosen followers of the Lamb ; and such persons show the reality of their religion by the regularity of their attendance on the means of grace, by their zeal in the acquisition of religious knowledge, by the quiet consistency of their lives, by their devout confidence in God's care, by their conquest over their caste-preju dices, by the largeness of their charities, and in a variety of other ways which are quite satisfactory to their pastors' minds. The existence of this class of persons, though they are still a minority everywhere, is an immense encouragement to the Christian Mis sionary ; for it proves to him that the Gospel has not waxed old has not become effete, as some people affirm but is still, as in primitive times, "the power of God, and the wisdom of God" to the salvation of every one that believeth : it proves that Chris tianity is not merely a new dogma, or a new society, but new love, new life ; not merely a new patch upon an old garment, or a new garment upon " the old man," but the creation of " a new man" in Christ Jesus.
The existence of a considerable amount of real Christian piety amongst our native Christians, may be inferred from the number of our communicants. In almost every portion of our Tinnevelly Missions, the proportion apparent between the communicants and the baptized part of the Christian population is very remarkable. Amongst a Christian population of about 43,000 souls, about a third of whom are still unbaptized, the communicants amount, in round numbers, to 5,000. This gives a proportion of about one communicant to every six baptized persons throughout the province. In some villages with which I am acquainted, the pro portion is one in five ; and if there are not at least one in eight of the baptized inhabitants of a village communicants, that is, if there are not at least 100 communicants in a village of 800 baptized inhabitants we are accustomed to think the religious condition of that village deplorably low. We should form, it is true, an erroneous impression of the religious prosperity of Tinnevelly if we looked at these facts from a purely English point of view. The Hindus, and other semi- civilized races, have so much less mental independence and self- reliance than the English, and when disposed to act right are so much more teachable, tractable, and submissive, that a pastor's recommendation carries greater weight, and his influence produces greater effect than is ordinarily the case in English congregations. Hence, if we take an English congregation and an Indian one, which are equal in numbers, and equal, as far as man can judge, in the aggregate amount of their piety and zeal, we shall gene rally find a considerable inequality in the number of the com municants.
In estimating the value of facts like this, differences in mental temperament are certainly to betaken into account; nevertheless, we should not be doing justice to our Missions if we did not attribute a considerable share of the difference to the system pursued. Our people may be more docile than the English, but our system also is better. . It is not the custom in any of our missionary stations, as it generally is in England, for people to come to the Lord's Table when they please, and keep away when they please, without any reference to character or preparation, coming unprepared and going away unblessed. We have a " godly discipline," and a regular system of instruction and training, similar to that which in this country precedes Confirmation, but generally a good deal stricter. At all our stations in Tinnevelly, on the Saturday preceding the administration of the Holy Com munion, we are accustomed to hold " a preparation," or preparatory meeting, which all who wish to partake of the Communion, are expected to attend. From a distance of four or five miles people attend this meeting almost as a matter of course, but people who live at greater distances are indulged with subsidiary " pre parations " nearer home. At these meetings the Missionary con verses with the intending communicants, catechizes them, explains to them whatever requires to be made clear, prays with them if need be, warns and exhorts them, or comforts and strengthens them, privately and endeavours in every way he can think of, to prepare them for the reception of the Holy Communion with a right faith, a reverent mind, and a lively hope. It might be expected that the strictness of this system would deter com municants, and yet, so far from deterring them, nothing seems so effectually to increase their number ; for persons who would not think themselves fit to come to the Communion itself, feel no scruple about attending the communicants' class, and thus they are gradually led on " from strength to strength," till in due time they venture to come to the Table of the Lord.
During the last six months that elapsed before I left Tin- nevelly, wishing to leave behind me something that might be useful in my absence, I reduced to a connected shape the prayers, iustructions, and meditations which I had been accustomed to supply to my people, month by month, at the preparatory meetings, and gave the whole for publication to our Tinnevelly Book Society. The book was adopted and published by the Book Society, and an edition of 3,000 copies of it printed at the Church Mission Press in Palamcottah. May I not say that this is a fact which speaks volumes t In a province where devils were the principal objects of worship, " where Satan's seat was," 3,000 copies of a book intended for the guidance and edification of Christian communicants have been called for, and have been printed and sold. Surely this may be regarded as proving that Christian piety must have made real progress. Allowing a certain abatement for the mental temperament of the people, and for the results of systematic preparation, what remains is so considerable and encouraging, as to warrant our saying, " what hath God wrought ' "
In my own district the number of communicants was at first very small. For two years, amongst about a thousand native Christians there was only one person, in addition to a few catechists and schoolmasters, to whom I felt myself at liberty to administer the Communion. Those were days of darkness and dreariness indeed, and I well remember sometimes saying to myself, " Lord, I am left alone." But it was God's will that I should not always be left alone. After the schools came into full operation, and especially after the pupils who had been educated in our Female Boarding School began to take their places in our various congregations, as Christian wives and mothers, a great improvement began to take place, and by and by I found myself surrounded with a band of men and women but especially of women whose hearts God appeared to have touched.
On the whole, therefore, I conclude, from my own experience as well as from the experience of my Missionary brethren in Tinnevelly, that real piety towards God does exist amongst our people, and is the same in kind, if not in degree, with what we observe in more highly-favoured communities. We cannot expect Hindu piety to be identical in all respects with English piety, but we may expect, and we actually find, that Hindti piety is as sincere and real, after its own fashion, as English, and as much superior to the merely nominal religion by which it is sur rounded. Many a person in Christian England, though without God in the world, and without a particle of love for the Saviour who died for him, exemplifies by his high sense of honour and gentlemanly integrity, what the indirect influences of many ages of Christianity can effect : place beside him a recent convert from heathenism, and though the latter has been awakened to spiritual life by a vital spark from on high, and be sincerely desirous of following his Saviour, it is well if he does not suffer in our estimation from comparison with one who has so greatly the advantage of him in point of external circumstances. In estimating the sincerity of the real Hindu Christian, we should compare him, therefore, not with the nominally Christian English man, still less with the real English Christian, the highest style of man, but with the nominally Christian Hindu, or with the subtle, cringing, apathetic, conscienceless heathen himself, the inheritor of the concentrated poison of a hundred generations of heathenism. The Gospel does not all at once eradicate natural disposition and national failings. Our Indian converts, though they have become Christians, have not become Englishmen ; they remain Hindus still, and that means much. But whatever their failings may be, a counteracting impulse has been brought to bear upon them, and they have yielded themselves to that impulse, so that I have no fear respecting the final result. Both " the leaven" and " the lump" may be inferior to what we have now in England ; but the difference between the Indian leaven and the Indian lump is equally marked and decided, and we may regard it as equally certain that in due time the lump will be pervaded by the leaven. The Indian leaven itself also is probably destined to improve in strength and virtue.
It is well known that many of the tribes of Northern Europe were converted to Christianity by the sword, or by other methods not more creditable to any party concerned in the conversion, and that the Christianity thus introduced was deeply tinged with the superstitions and errors of the times ; yet in a few centuries the Christian leaven wrought so mightily as to purify itself from the impurities and corruptions which had originally been combined with it, and to form in the northern nations a manliness and truthfulness of Christian character, previously unknown in the world. Reasoning from analogy, in a district where the people have received the Gospel from, on the whole, a higher order of motives, where the faith introduced is that which was " once de livered to the saints," without superstitious admixtures, and where the Holy Scriptures are freely distributed, and the Scrip tural education of the young is universal, we have surely reason to expect that the heavenly leaven will, sooner or later, work in a not less effectual manner, and with not less happy results.
When a person learns, on first becoming acquainted with Tin- nevelly, that the greater number of the native converts em braced the Christian religion either from secular motives, or from a mixture of motives, partly secular, partly religious, and when he notices the imperfections and faults which are apparent in the majority, he may conclude as some have naturally, but too hastily concluded, that all the religion of the province is unreal. In this instance, as in many others, a little knowledge leads to an erroneous conclusion, a more thorough knowledge reveals results that are as satisfactory and encouraging as the circumstances of the case will admit of.
The real state of things may be illustrated by a beautiful analogy drawn from the betel gardens of India. The betel leaf is the smooth, pungent, aromatic leaf of a climbing plant, somewhat resembling the pepper-vine, which, is almost universally chewed by Orientals, not as a narcotic, but as a mild agreeable stimulant. The betel-vine is a delicate and tender plant, which, requires much water and much shade ; and, accordingly, it is trained, not up a naked pole, like the hop, but up the stem of a rapidly growing, straight, slim, leafy tree, called in Tamil the agatti, which is planted thickly in rows throughout the betel garden, so as both to give the betel the support it needs, and to screen it from the scorching rays of the sun, by the continuous shade of its inter mingling branches. At a distance, and to a casual observer, the agatti alone is apparent, and it might be supposed that we were looking at an agatti garden, not at a betel garden ; but inter spersed among the agattis, planted in the same soil, and fed by the same water, is another and more precious plant, whose wind ing tendrils and smooth green leaves attract our notice when we have entered the garden, and begun to look closely around. It is only for the sake of screening and sweetening the betel that the agatti is grown, and when the betel-leaf is ripe, the agatti which supported and defended it is cut down, and either applied to some trivial use, or cast into the fire. Thus it is in our missions in Tinnevelly, and in the visible Church in general, which in every country is a betel garden, in which " the many " who are " called," attract more notice than " the few " who are " chosen," though they are of infinitely less value, and in which " the few " grow up amongst " the many," undistinguished from them except by the close observer, and are trained up for heaven, in green, and fruitful humility, under their protecting shade.*
It is quite certain that God has not left Himself in Tinnevelly, or in any other place where his word has been preached, and his Church planted, without witnesses to the saving efficacy of his truth. Whilst He causes " the Gospel of the kingdom " to be " preached in all nations for a witness unto them," it is evidently his design that it should not ordinarily or always be a witness against them ; for He has been pleased in so many instances to accompany it with " the demonstration of his Spirit and of power," as to prove to all nations that Christianity is from God, and a remedy for the spiritual diseases of the Hindus, as well as of all other races of men.