Nineteenth Century Missions 57
NINETEENTH
CENTURY MISSIONS
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis1812. sions (A.B.C.F.M.) at Bombay.
Adoniram Judson, in Burma.
C.M.S. at Madras.
Wesleyan Missionary Society, in South India. English 1813.
1814.
1816.
Baptist Mission, at Benares.
C.M.S. begins the North Travancore Mission.
English Baptist Mission, at Delhi.
C.M.S. sends missionaries to Tinnevelly.
General Baptists in Orissa.
S.P.G. takes over S.P.C.K. missions in South India.
Alexander Duff at Calcutta. Church of Scotland Mis1818.
1820.
1822.
1825.
1830. sion.
S.P.G. at Cawnpore.
A.B.C.F.M. at Madura.
American Presbyterian Mission opens at Ludhiana.
Basel German Mission in Malabar.
American Baptist Telugu Mission.
American Baptist Mission in Assam.
John Anderson opens an English school in Madras.
Irish Presbyterian Mission in Gujrat.
Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Mission in the northeast of Bengal.
C.M.S. Telugu Mission.
S.P.G. at Secunderabad, Nizam's Dominions.
American Evangelical Lutheran Mission at Guntur.
The Free Church of Scotland, Nagpur.
Gossner's German Mission at Ranchi.
The Zenana Bible and Medical Mission.
S.P.G. in Delhi.
C.M.S. at Peshawar.
American Arcot Mission.
American United Presbyterian Mission at Sialkot.
Methodist Episcopal Mission, Bareilly.
1833.
1834.
1835.
1836.
1837.
1841.
1842.
1844.
1846.
1852.
1854.
1855.
1856.
Thus, nearly every large mission now laboring in India laid its early foundations in the Pre-Mutiny Period. But it must be
INDIA AND THE CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT
said that at this period the laborers connected with many of these missions were few, their efforts tentative, and progress slow.
Two special lines of missionary work that commenced in this period must also be mentioned. In the year 1822, Miss Cooke of the C.M.S. began zenana work among the women and girls in Calcutta. As the first single lady to enter India as a missionary she became the forerunner of the great zenana missions of modern times. In 1934, there were 2,451 women missionaries (not wives) in India, Burma and Ceylon, giving their lives for the regeneration of India's womanhood.
The year 1830 marks the commencement of higher educational work by missions. In that year, Dr. Alexander Duff of the Church of Scotland Mission opened the first Anglo-Vernacular school for non-Christian youths. His devotion to his high purpose, coupled with a rousing missionary enthusiasm, was a great stimulus to the missionary cause. His biography should be read by all students of Indian missions. Here is a short extract from the thrilling appeal he once made to the fathers and mothers of Scotland:
There is not a valley nor dell nor burning waste from one end of India to the other, that is not enriched with the bones, and not a rivulet or stream that has not been dyed with the blood of Scotia's children. And will you, fathers and mothers, send out your children in thousands in quest of this bubble fame, this bubble wealth, this bubble honor and perishable renown, and prohibit them from going forth in the army of the great Immanuel, to win crowns of glory and imperishable renown in the realms of everlasting day?
Such a man's enthusiasm and personality could not fail to make their mark on the history of missions in India. The results of Duff's work may be said to be four:
1. At a time when the introduction of Western science threatened to shatter all the old conceptions of life and basis of morality, he and his comrades convincingly proved before the eyes of all India that the West had not only
NINETEENTH
CENTURY MISSIONS
a barren materialism to offer India, but rather a conception of life resting upon idealistic principles and finding in the Bible the highest truth and noblest morality.
2. He left his abiding mark upon the educational policy of the Government of India.
3. His missionary method inaugurated the great work of educational missions.
4. The last and the greatest result of Duff's work was the conversion to Christianity of young men of brilliant gifts, wide scholarship, and unmistakable religious sincerity from the highest classes of Hindu society. These converts were not many. Duff's biographer only mentions twentysix families. But they were indeed great souls! Krishna
Mohan Banerjea, Gopinath Nundy, Anando Chundar Mozumdar and Lal Behari Dey are the glittering stars in the firmament of the Indian Christian world.
The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 opened a new period in the history of Christianity in India. It tested by persecution the reality and the character of the faith of the converts. It proved to be a call to the conscience of Christendom. New consecration, vigor, and purpose were infused into every missionary society laboring in India, as they saw of what stuff their converts were made. The Mutiny also "struck the knell of the East India Company's rule in India," and the Queen's proclamation avowed the principles of religious liberty. Thus all the older societies advanced in every direction.
New missions also came. The United Free Church Mission began work in Rajputana in 1860. The Canadian Baptist Mission on the Telugu coast, and the English Friends' Mission came in 1874. The Cambridge Delhi Mission began its work in 1877 and the Oxford Mission to Calcutta in 1880. The Christian Alliance Mission commenced work in Bombay in 1889. A large number of smaller organizations also stepped in to occupy, some1 See Richter, A History of Missions in India, pp. 173-84.
5—INDIA
INDIA AND THE CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT
times the unoccupied, often the partially occupied, and sometimes even the fully occupied, territories all over the country. Several interdenominational organizations have also come in to the aid of the missions. The Christian Literature Society came in 1857 as a memorial of the Mutiny. The Young Men's Christian Association, the Young Women's Christian Association, the Young
People's Society of Christian Endeavor, the India Sunday School Union all have been planted in the land and are bringing forth fruit, both directly and indirectly, for the cause of the evangelization of India.
Altogether at the end of 1933 there were 163 foreign and fifteen indigenous missionary societies, with 4,580 missionaries and tens of thousands of Indian workers engaged in winning India to Christ.
What impact these many missionary agencies are making on the life of India may be seen from the summary of their activities as found in the latest edition (1934-35) of the Directory of Christian Missions. Apart from those lines of work which may be called directly evangelistic, the Christian enterprise is responsible for educational, medical, industrial and social activities which when considered in the aggregate will compel the admiration of any unprejudiced observer.
There were in 1931, thirty-eight mission colleges in all India.
The students receiving a collegiate education in these colleges numbered 12,322. There were also 287 secondary schools and 417 middle schools under Christian supervision. In all these institutions religion is taught through the Christian Scriptures, and the highest ideals of conduct and religion are presented to young
India through example and precept. The number of primary schools for which missions and Churches are responsible must run to several thousands. Besides these that impart a general education, there are 107 Christian industrial institutions providing various vocational courses to young men and women.
The care of the sick, the infirm, and the defective has as may
NINETEENTH
CENTURY MISSIONS
be expected, always claimed the attention of the followers of Christ. There are in India no less than 487 Christian hospitals and dispensaries engaged in the service of the sick; sixty leper hospitals, eleven tuberculosis sanatoria, fourteen schools for the blind, and the deaf, and dumb, forty-one widows' homes, and ninety-nine orphanages. Christian missionaries are responsible for at least thirty-five industrial centers giving work to many thousands of men and women, and boys and girls who otherwise would have a very precarious living. There are sixty-one agricultural settlements on which the landless have been settled, and hundreds of men and women from notorious criminal castes reclaimed and helped to make an honest and decent livelihood.
The amount of national service that this catalog of activities represents can be easily imagined. India can ill-afford to lose such an important factor in the forces that labor for the up-building
Indian national life.
Vill.
Che VMorern CvrIOD!
HE modern period may be said to begin in the year 1910.
That year saw the great gathering at Edinburgh of representatives of the missionary societies of all the most important non-Roman Churches operating throughout the world.
The World Missionary Conference brought into existence a Continuation Committee which later developed into the International
Missionary Council. The chairman, John R. Mott traveled through most mission fields throughout the world and organized National
Missionary Councils. A series of provincial conferences were held in India under Dr. Mott's presidency, culminating at a national conference at Calcutta in December 1912. The National
Missionary Council of India, Burma, and Ceylon thus came into existence and its first session was held in 1914. In the year 1923, it was renamed the National Christian Council, as signifying the joint and equal participation of representatives of Indian Churches with the representatives of the missionary societies in the consideration of all problems affecting the Christian movement in India. Similar national organizations have come into existence in China, Japan, Korea, the Near East, Siam, the Philippine Islands,
Netherland Indies, and the Congo.
The Council is constituted on the principle that questions of doctrine and ecclesiastical polity lie outside its province and that "the bodies entitled to determine missionary policy are the missionary societies and the Churches in the mission field." It is, strictly speaking, an advisory and consultative body; but has won for itself the recognition of both the Government of India and [ 62 ]