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Title: A Tour of the Missions
Observations and Conclusions
Author: Augustus Hopkins Strong
Release Date: December 8, 2008 [eBook #27452]
Language: English
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A TOUR OF THE MISSIONS
Observations and Conclusions
by
AUGUSTUS HOPKINS STRONG, D.D., LL.D., Litt.D.
President Emeritus of the Rochester Theological Seminary
Author of "Systematic Theology," "Philosophy and Religion," "Christ
in Creation," "Miscellanies," "Chapel-Talks," "Lectures on the
Books of the New Testament," "The Great Poets and Their
Theology," "American Poets and Their Theology"
Philadelphia
The Griffith and Rowland Press
Boston Chicago St. Louis New York
Los Angeles Toronto Winnipeg
MCMXVIII
Copyright, 1918, by
Guy C. Lamson, Secretary
Published March, 1918
A PERSONAL FOREWORD
The forty years of my presidency and teaching in the Rochester
Theological Seminary have been rewarded by the knowledge that more than
a hundred of my pupils have become missionaries in heathen lands. For
many years these former students have been urging me to visit them.
Until recently seminary sessions and literary work have prevented
acceptance of their invitations. When I laid down my official duties,
two alternatives presented themselves: I could sit down and read through
the new Encyclopædia Britannica, or I could go round the world. A friend
suggested that I might combine these schemes. The publishers provide a
felt-lined trunk to hold the encyclopædia: I could read it, and
circumnavigate the globe at the same time. This proposition, however,
had an air of cumbrousness. I concluded to take my wife as my
encyclopædia instead of the books, and this seemed the more rational
since she had, seven or eight years before, made the same tour of the
missions which I had in mind. To her therefore a large part of the
information in the following pages is due, for in all my journey she was
my guide, philosopher, and friend.
Our tour would not have covered so much ground nor have been so crowded
with incidents of interest, if it had not been for the foresight and
assistance of the Reverend Louis Agassiz Gould. He was a student in our
seminary forty years ago, and after his graduation he became a
missionary to China. Though his work abroad lasted only a decade, his
interest in missions has never ceased, and he is an authority with
regard to their history and their methods. I was fortunate in securing
him as my courier, secretary, and typewriter, and his companionship
enlivened our table intercourse and our social life. But he was bound
that we should see all that there was to be seen. Without my knowledge
he wrote ahead to all the missions which we were to visit, and the
result was almost as if a delegation with brass band met us at every
station. We were sight-seeing all day, and traveling in sleeping-cars
all night. Though I had notified the public that I could preach no more
sermons and make no more addresses, I was summoned before nearly every
church, school, and college that we visited, and fifty or sixty
extemporized talks were extorted from me, most of them interpreted to
the audience by a pastor or teacher. My letters to home friends were
often written on the platforms of railway stations while we were waiting
for our trains, and after six months of these exhausting labors I still
survived.
These preliminary remarks are intended to prepare the reader for a final
statement, namely, that the papers which follow were written with no
thought of publication. They were simply a record of travel, set down
each week, for the information of relatives and friends. I have been
urged to give them a wider circulation by putting them into print. In
doing this I have added some reflections which, for substance, were also
written at intervals on my journey, and these, with sundry emendations
and omissions, I have called my "Conclusions." I submit both
"Observations" and "Conclusions" to the judgment of my readers, in hope
that my "Tour of the Missions" may lead other and more competent
observers to appreciate the wonderful attractions and the immeasurable
needs of Oriental lands.
I cannot close this personal foreword without expressing to my former
students and the many friends who so hospitably entertained us on our
journey, my undying sense of their great kindness, and my hope that
between the lines of my descriptions of what I saw they will discover my
earnest desire to serve the cause of Christ and his truth, even though
my impressions may at times result from my own short-sightedness and
ignorance. Only what I have can I give.
Augustus H. Strong.
Rochester, August 3, 1917.
CONTENTS
I. A WEEK IN JAPAN 1-11
An ocean truly pacific brings us to a rainy Japan 3
The novel and the picturesque mingle in our first
views of Yokohama 3
Visit to the palace of a Japanese millionaire 4
A museum of Japanese art and a unique entertainment 4
Our host, an orthodox Shinto and Buddhist 5
Conference of missionaries and their native helpers 5
The pastor of the Tokyo church invites us to
his home 5
Reception at the Women's College of Japan, and an
address there 5
A distinguished company of educators at dinner 6
We give a dinner to Rochester men and their wives 7
A good specimen of missionary hilarity and
fellowship 7
The temple of Kamakura and its great bronze Buddha 7
The temple of Hachiman, the god of war 8
Supplemented by the temple of Kwannon, the
goddess of mercy 8
Japan enriched by manufacture of munitions 8
A native Christian church and pastor at Kanagawa 9
Immorality, the curse of Japan, shows its need of
Christianity 10
Wonders of its Inland Sea, and great gifts of its
people 10
II. A WEEK-END IN CHINA 13-22
Hongkong, wonderful for situation and for trade 15
Swatow, and our arrival there 15
Chinese customs, and English collection of them 16
The mission compound of Swatow, one of our noblest 16
Dr. William Ashmore, and his organizing work 17
William Ashmore, his son, and his Bible translations 17
A great Sunday service in a native New Testament
church 18
The far-reaching influence of this mission, manned
by many Rochester graduates 18
Our expedition to Chao-yang, to see the heart of
China 18
Triumphal entry into that city of three hundred
thousand inhabitants 19
Impressed by the vastness of its heathen population 20
Mr. Groesbeck, the only minister to its needs 21
An address to the students of his school 21
A great procession conducts us to our steamer at
Swatow 21
Shall we be saved if we do not give the gospel to
the heathen? 22
III. MANILA, SINGAPORE, AND PENANG 23-32
A Yellow Sea, and white garments 25
American enterprise has transformed Manila 25
Filipinos not yet ready for complete
self-government 26
Visit to Admiral Dewey's landing-place, and also to
Fort McKinley 26
The interdenominational theological seminary and
its influence 26
Printed and spoken English is superseding native
dialects 27
Singapore, one of the world's greatest ports
of entry 27
British propose to hold it, in spite of native
unrest 27
Heterogeneous population makes English the only
language for its schools 28
Germans stir up a conspiracy, but it is nipped in
the bud 28
British steamer to Penang, an old but safe method
of conveyance 28
Kuala Lumpur, the capital of the Malay Confederated
States 29
Penang furnishes us with a great Chinese funeral 29
Its immense preparation and cost show worship of
ancestors 29
Mourners in white, with bands of hired wailers 31
Glorification of man, but no confession of sin or
recognition of Christ 32
IV. THREE WEEKS IN BURMA 33-46
Burma, the land of pagodas 35
The Shwe Dagon of Rangoon is the greatest of
these 35
Its immense extent and splendor 35
The religion of Burma is Buddhism, a religion of
"merit," so called 36
Pagoda-building in Burma, coeval with
cathedral-building in Europe 36
The desolation in which many pagodas stand shows
God's judgment on Buddhism 36
Burma is consecrated by the work of Adoniram
Judson, and his sufferings 37
Our visit to Aungbinle, and prayer on the site of
Judson's prison 37
Met and entertained by missionaries, our former
pupils 37
Fruitful Burma and its Buddhism attracts
famine-stricken India with its Hinduism 38
Baptist missions in Burma antedate and excel both
Romanist and Anglican 40
Far outstripping these in the number and influence
of converts 40
The work of our collegiate and other schools is
most encouraging 41
The Baptist College at Rangoon and the theological
seminaries at Insein 42
The lieutenant governor invites us to meet Lord
Chelmsford, viceroy of India, at afternoon-tea 44
A royal reception, with great conglomerate of races 44
A demonstration of loyalty to the British Crown 45
The dinner of our Rochester men at the house of
Rev. Mr. Singiser, including representatives of
the Mission Press and the Baptist College 45
Our final reception at Dr. D. W. A. Smith's, on
Mrs. Smith's birthday 46
V. MANDALAY AND GAUHATI 47-56
Mandalay, in Burma, the type of Buddhism; Gauhati,
in Assam, the type of Hinduism 49
Visits to Maulmain and Bassein, in Burma, preceded
both these 49
King Thebaw's palace, at Mandalay, a fortress built
wholly of wood 50
The Hill of Mandalay and its pagoda, four pagodas
in one 50
We ascend eight hundred steps by taking extemporized
sedan-chairs 51
Four successive platforms and four images of Buddha 51
Waxwork figures at the top depict the vanity of life 52
The Kuthodaw in the plain below seen from this
height 52
Four hundred and fifty pagodas in one, each with
its Buddha and his law engraved on stone 52
The descent from Mandalay Hill more hazardous
than the ascent 53
Buddhism compared with the religion of Christ 53
Gauhati, the capital of Assam, has also its temple
on a hill 54
This temple illustrates Hinduism as Mandalay
illustrates Buddhism 54
Its immoral cult claims to have an immoral origin
in the wife of the god Siva 54
Its priestesses a source of corruption to the
British college and the whole country 55
Vain attempts to interpret Hindu myth and worship
symbolically 55
The need of Christian teaching as to sin and
atonement 56
VI. CALCUTTA, DARJEELING, AND BENARES 57-64
Calcutta, the largest city of India, so named from
Kali, goddess-wife of Siva, the Destroyer 59
The temple of Kali, its priestesses and its worship,
an infamous illustration of Hinduism 59
The temple of the Jains represents Hinduism somewhat
reformed 60
The real glory of Calcutta is its relation to
modern missions 60
The work of William Carey, and his college and
tomb at Serampore 60
Our ride northward to Darjeeling, and our view of
the Himalayas 61
A temple of Tibetan Buddhists on our mount of
observation 61
Benares, the Mecca and Jerusalem of the Hindus 62
A hotbed of superstition and devotion 62
Its Golden Temple, its bathing ghats and burning
ghats on the sacred Ganges 62
Our voyage of inspection in the early morning 63
Thousands bathing and drinking in the same muddy
stream 63
Smallpox and plague in western lands traced back
to this putrid river 64
Some of the temples have toppled over, being built
on sand instead of rock 64
VII. LUCKNOW, AGRA, AND DELHI 65-76
On Mohammedan ground, and the scene of the
great mutiny 67
Elements of truth in the Moslem faith make missions
more difficult 67
The defense of Lucknow, one of, the most heroic
and thrilling in history 67
The only flag in the British Empire that never
comes down at night 68
English missions and education are guaranties of
permanent British rule in India 69
The Isabella Thoburn College, under Methodist
control 69
We see the "mango trick" under favorable
circumstances 70
Agra, and the Taj Mahal, a wonder of the world,
seen both at sunrise and at sunset 70
The Pearl Mosque and the Jasmine Tower, surrounded
and protected by the Fort 71
A flowering out of art, like that of
cathedral-building in England 72
Moslem architects "designed like Titans, and
finished like jewelers" 72
Delhi, the capital of India before the reign
of Akbar 72
The British respect ancient tradition by
transferring their central government from
Calcutta to Delhi 73
The progress of India under British rule in the
last fifty years 73
Indian unrest due in part to English mistakes in
educational policy 74
The Friday prayer service in the great mosque of
Delhi 75
VIII. JAIPUR, MT. ABU, AND AHMEDABAD 77-87
The native states of India distinguished from the
presidencies and the provinces 79
Their self-government a reward of loyalty in the
mutiny 79
The rajas influenced by Western thought 79
Jaipur, the capital of a native state, called "The
Pink City" 80
"A rose-red city, half as old as Time" 81
The maharaja's town-palace and astronomical
observatory 81
A visit to Amber, the original metropolis, and his
summer residence 81
An elephant ride up the hill while hanging over the
precipice 82
The road to Mt. Abu, a wonderful piece of
engineering 84
We reach Dilwarra, the greatest temple of the Jains 84
Their reformed Buddhism recognizes Buddha as
only one of many incarnations 85
The temple is almost a miracle of art, and
illustrates the genius of the East 85
Ahmedabad, a uniquely prosperous manufacturing
and commercial city 86
Factories needed by India more than farms 86
Missions need employment for converts, to save
them from famine 86
IX. BOMBAY, KEDGAON, AND MADRAS 89-99
Bombay, second in population in the Indian Empire 91
Hindus outnumber Moslems and Parsees 91
The Caves of Elephanta, excavated in honor of
Siva, god of reproduction as well as of
destruction 91
His temple a cathedral, hewn inside of a mountain 92
The lingam, or phallus, gigantic, carved out of
stone, in the innermost shrine 93
Its worship a deification of man's baser instincts 93
The Towers of Silence represent Parseeism 93
The dead are exposed in them to be devoured by
vultures 93
Construction of the towers and details of
the process 93
Compared with Christian burial in hope of
resurrection 94
Kedgaon, a happy contrast and relief 94
The center of the work of Pundita Ramabai 94
The story of her life a romantic and thrilling one 94
The pitiable condition of child-widows in India
touches her heart 95
In time of famine she furnishes a refuge for two
thousand four hundred of them 95
The wonders of her plant, in schools, hospital,
printing office, factory, and farm 96
A great scholar of the Brahman caste, she is
recognized as the most influential woman in India 96
Madras, the third largest Indian city, gives us our
first tropical heat 97
A center of mission work for the Telugus and their
tribal conversion 97
New Year's Day reception at Lord Pentland's, the
governor of the Madras Presidency 98
Followed by a reception from the Rochester men,
my former pupils 99
X. THE TELUGU MISSION 101-113
Madras, next to Calcutta and Bombay in thrift and
importance 103
Baptists have done most for the Telugus, as
Congregationalists most for the Tamils 103
Statistics of our mission are most encouraging 103
Self-government, self-support, self-propagation,
require time 104
Conference at the house of Doctor Ferguson brings
together men from four separate fields 104
The theological seminary at Ramapatnam, in charge
of Doctor Heinrichs 105
Our reception by teachers and students, and value
of their work 105
Ongole and the work of Doctor Baker, the successor
of Doctor Clough 107
Laying the corner-stone of gateway to the new
hospital 107
Country tour into the heart of Telugu-land, and
open-air preaching to the natives 107
Vellumpilly, where 2,222 were baptized, and Sunset
Hill, where Doctor Jewett prayed 109
Kavali, and the work of Mr. Bawden for a hereditary
criminal class 110
Industrial education side by side with moral and
religious 110
Nellore, our first permanent station in South India 111
Its high school, under Rev. L. C. Smith; its
hospital, and its nurses' training-school 112
Mr. Rutherford, successor to Dr. David Downie,
and Mr. Smith--all of them Rochester men 112
XI. THE DRAVIDIAN TEMPLES 115-124
The Dravidians are the aborigines of India 117
The Aryan conquerors appropriated their gods, and
Siva married Kali 117
Massiveness and vastness characterize their
temples, but also Oriental imagination and
invention 118
The temple at Tanjore, with its court eight hundred
by four hundred feet 118
Its multitude of chapels, each with its image in
stone of the lingam, or phallus 119
Its central image of a bull, the favorite animal of
Siva 119
Its tower, or gopura, is the grandest in India 119
Its sculptures of gods and goddesses wonderfully
realistic 119
Its appurtenances tawdry, childish, and immoral 120
Yet Tanjore was the home, and is the tomb, of
Schwartz, the first English missionary to India 120
The raja's library of Oriental manuscripts 121
Madura, the center of Dravidian worship, one
hundred miles farther south 121
Temple built about two great shrines for the god
Siva and his wife Minakshi 121
Five great pyramidal towers and a court eight
hundred and thirty by seven hundred and thirty feet 121
The "Golden Lily Tank," and "The Hall of a
Thousand Pillars" 122
Dark alcoves and a festival night, the acme of
Hindu religion 122
The palace of Tirumala and his Teppa Kulam tank,
one thousand feet on each side 123
The noblest sight of Madura is its American
Congregational Mission 123
Under Dr. J. X. Miller, its schools and seminaries
are revolutionizing southern India 124
XII. TWO WEEKS IN CEYLON 125-135
Ceylon not a part of India, but a Crown Colony of
Britain 127
Colombo, a European city, and English the best
means of communication 127
Buddhism, crowded out of India, made its way
southward 127
A sacred tooth of Buddha is preserved at Kandy 127
Wesleyan Methodist College and English Baptist
College at Colombo 128
The Ananda College, a theosophical institution,
unfavorable to Christianity 128
A refuge in Nurwara Eliya, six thousand two hundred
feet above the sea 129
Switzerland without its ruggedness, and terraces of
tea-plants lining the approaches thither 129
Forests of rubber make a sea of verdure 130
The Missionary Rest-house at Kandy 131
The famous Buddhist temple, and its evening worship 131
Its library the only sign of intelligence 131
Church of the English Baptists welcomes us 132
The botanical gardens, wonderful for their variety
of products 132
Anurajahpura and its ruined pagoda, a solid conical
mass of brick 133
One thousand six hundred pillars of stone, the
foundations of an ancient monastery 133
Cremation of a Buddhist priest, and our reception
by the high priest of the remaining temple 134
XIII. JAVA AND BUDDHISM 137-146
Java, the jewel of the Dutch Crown, has
thirty-five millions of people 139
The "culture system" makes it immensely productive 139
Mistakes of Holland in matters of government and
education 140
A back-bone of volcanic mountains furnishes
unsurpassed railway views 140
Endless fields of rice and sugar-cane on hillside
and plain 141
A passionate people reveal themselves in their
music, their shadow-dances, their use of the
Malay dagger 141
The new policy of the Dutch government shown in
the botanical gardens 142
More scientific and practical than those of Ceylon,
they minister to all the world 142
Doctor Lovink, Dutch minister of agriculture,
conducts us 143
The temple of Boro Budor, restored after ruin, the
greatest wonder of Java 143
Five times as great as any English cathedral 143
Sculptures in alto-relievo that would stretch three
miles 144
A picture-gallery of the life of Buddha 144
Buddhism has no personal or living God, and no
atonement for sin 145
Boro Budor, slowly disintegrating, has no power to
combat either Mohammedanism or Christianity 145
XIV. THE RENAISSANCE IN INDIA 147-161
This essay, a summary of the book of Professor
Andrews, formerly of Delhi, now associated with
Sir Rabindranath Tagore 149
But with additions and conclusions of my own 149
The Renaissance in Europe needed a Reformation
to supplement it, and a similar renaissance in
India requires a similar reformation 150
History of religious systems in India begins with
the Rig-Veda, and is followed by the Upanishads 152
Hindu incarnations are not permanent, and the
Trimurti is not the Christian Trinity 153
The Krishna of the Puranas is a model of the
worst forms of vice 154
Deification of God's works fixes the distinctions of
caste, and the degradation of woman 154
Christianity is needed to unite the Hindu and the
Moslem 155
Signs of an approaching reformation in the weakening
of class barriers and the spiritual interpretation
of the old religions 156
The Brahmo-Somaj and the Arya-Samaj aim to
bring Hinduism back to the standards of the
Vedas 158
The Aligarh Movement among the Mohammedans,
and the Aligarh College in Delhi 158
Swami Vivekananda, and his denial that men are
sinners 159
The Theosophical Society and Mrs. Besant, a
hindrance to missions 160
Justice Renade, in his social reform movement, sees
in Christianity the one faith which can unite all
races and all religions in India 160
In Christ alone India's renaissance can become a
complete reformation 161
XV. MISSIONS AND SCRIPTURE 163-178
Some critics deny Jesus' authorship of the "Great
Commission" 165
We must examine "the historical method," so called 165
As often employed, it is inductive but not deductive,
horizontal but not vertical 166
Deduction from God's existence normally insures
acceptance of Christ 168
Deduction from Christ's existence normally insures
acceptance of Scripture 169
Scripture is the voice and revelation of the eternal
Christ 169
The exclusively inductive process is not truly
historical 170
Both Paul and Peter gained their theology by
deduction 171
Since experience of sin and of Christ is knowledge,
it is material for science 173
The eternal Christ guarantees to us the _unity_ of
Scripture 174
Also the _sufficiency_ of Scripture 175
Also the _authority_ of Scripture 176
The "historical method," as ordinarily employed,
proceeds and ends without Christ 177
It therefore treats Scripture as a man-made book,
and denies its unity, sufficiency, and authority 177
It sees in the Bible not an organism, pulsating with
divine life, but only a congeries of earth-born
fragments 177
XVI. SCRIPTURE AND MISSIONS 179-198
The "historical method" finds in Psalm 110 only
human authorship 181
And contradicts Christ himself by denying the
reference in the psalm to him 182
A document can have more than one author, shown
in art as well as literature 183
Predictions of Christ in the Old Testament
convinced unbelieving Jews 184
The "historical method" finds no prediction of
Christ in Isaiah, and so contradicts John 184
Effect of this method upon the interpretation
of the New Testament 185
It gives us no assurance of Christ's deity, and
ignores Old Testament proofs that he is Prophet,
Priest, and King 185
Value of the "historical method" when not exclusively
inductive 186
Effect of this method, as often employed, upon
systematic theology 187
If Scripture has no unity, no systematic theology
is possible 187
Unitarian acknowledgment that its schools have no
theology at all 189
Effect of this method upon our theological
seminaries to send out disseminators of doubts 189
Effect of this method upon the churches of our
denomination to destroy all reason for their
existence 191
Effect of this method upon missions to supersede
evangelism by education and to lose all dynamic
both abroad and at home 193
This method was "made in Germany," and must be
opposed as we oppose arbitrary force in government 195
The remedy is a spiritual coming of Christ in the
hearts of his people 197
XVII. THE THEOLOGY OF MISSIONS 199-212
Is man's religious nature only a capacity for
religion? 201
The will is never passive, the candle is always
burning 201
Moslem and Hindu alike show both good and bad
elements in their worship 201
Here and there are seekers after God, and such are
saved through Christ, though they have not yet
heard his name 202
First chapter of Romans gives us the best philosophy
of heathenism 203
Heathenism, the result of an abnormal and downward
evolution 204
The eternal Christ conducts an evolution of the
wheat, side by side with Satan's evolution of the
tares 204
All the good in heathen systems is the work of
Christ, and we may utilize their grains of truth 205
Illustrated in Hindu incarnations and Moslem faith
in God's unity and personality 205
Christ alone is our Peace, and he alone can unite
the warring elements of humanity 206
A moral as well as a doctrinal theology is needed in
heathendom 208
But external reforms without regeneration can
never bring in the kingdom of God 209
The history of missions proves that heart must
precede intellect, motive must accompany example 210
The love of Christ who died for us is the only
constraining power 210
Only his deity and atonement furnish the dynamic
of missions 211
XVIII. MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES 213-223
Missionary work results in a healthy growth of
the worker 215
The successful missionary must be an all-round man 215
He secures a training beyond that of any university
course 216
That training is spiritual as well as intellectual 216
It tends to make him doctrinally sound as to
Christ's deity and atonement 217
Or convinces him that he has no proper place on a
mission field 218
A valuable lesson for our societies and churches at
home 218
New Testament polity, as well as doctrine, is tested
by missions 219
Our mission churches are becoming models of
self-support, self-government, and
self-propagation 219
The physical environment of the missionary needs
to be cared for 219
The large house, many servants, and an automobile,
are great and almost necessary helps 220
All these can be obtained cheaply, and should be
provided 220
Other denominations furnish better equipment than
ours 220
Yet the days of missionary hardship are well-nigh
past 221
Missionary trials are mainly social and spiritual;
and there are enough of these 221
But faithful work, in spite of hope deferred, will
be rewarded at last 222
I
A WEEK IN JAPAN
The Pacific Ocean was very kind to us, for it answered to its name, and
was pacific beyond all our expectations. Sixteen days of smooth seas and
lovely weather brought us by way of Honolulu to Yokohama. Only the last
day of our voyage was dark and rainy. But though the rain continued
after our landing, Japan was picturesque. On four out of our six days we
drove about, shut up in water-tight buggies called "rickshaws." They
were like one-hoss-shays, through whose front windows of isinglass we
looked out upon the bare legs of our engineer and conductor, who took
the place of the horse for twenty-five cents an hour.
There were other sights on these rainy days--endless processions of
slipshod men on wooden clogs, clattering their way through the narrow
streets, while they protected themselves from the watery downpour by
flat oil-paper umbrellas; other strong-limbed men acting as wheel-horses
to draw or push incredible weights of lumber; and saving themselves from
the wet by bushy coats of straw that made them look like porcupines;
women, little and big, carrying babies on their backs, occasionally a
girl, aged anywhere from four to eight, loaded with a baby aged two;
shops, shops, shops, one-storied, artistic, fantastic, with signs on
which Ah Sing and Ah Tong have mingled Chinese characters and English,
and which inform you that the proprietors can furnish you with the
_sake_ of Japan or the gasoline of the Standard Oil Company; these
things convince you that you are in the midst of a crowded population
struggling for subsistence and ready to work, a population of
inexhaustible vitality and enterprise.
Our first rainy day was distinguished by a visit to the palatial mansion
of a Japanese millionaire. Mr. Asano, the President of the Steamship
Company that brought us thither, had invited the whole lot of
first-class passengers to afternoon tea at his house in Tokyo. That
house is a veritable museum of Japanese art. It reminded us of the
collections of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan. There was a great retinue of
servants, and we were escorted upon arrival to one of the topmost rooms,
where we were served with tea and presented with symbolic cakes by a
dozen gorgeously bedecked young girls, who proved to be the children and
grandchildren of our host. This, however, was only a preparatory
welcome, for it was followed by the real reception in a great
audience-room below, where Mr. and Mrs. Asano, together with their
eldest son and daughter, gave us cordial greetings. A couple of hundred
of our fellow passengers were gathered there and were partaking of light
refreshments, with claret, tea, and mineral waters, while an expert
Japanese juggler amused them with his feats of sleight of hand. The
tapestries and paintings of this house were exquisite products of taste
and skill, and the total effect was that of great wealth accompanied by
true love for the beautiful. But it was the mansion of an orthodox
Shinto and Buddhist, for in every large room there was an alcove with
the sitting figure of a bronze Buddha.
A more distinctly Christian entertainment for that same rainy day was
our reception by the Conference of Baptist missionaries and workers at
the new Tabernacle in Tokyo. They had been called to meet Doctor
Franklin and Doctor Anderson, who had been sent by our Foreign
Missionary Society to consult with them as to our educational policy in
Japan. We reached the Conference on its last day of meeting, and we had
a most valued opportunity of observing its method of procedure. Half of
those present were Japanese workers who did not understand English, and
it was a new experience to address them when every word had to be
interpreted. The social intercourse that followed was delightful, for it
enabled us to greet our former pupils in considerable numbers. We then
took lunch at the house of Doctor Axling, the pastor of the Tokyo
church, while Doctor Tenny is President of the Theological Seminary. The
little Japanese missionary home, with its tiny secluded garden, its
paper partitions, and its mingled reminders of an American household,
were things long to be remembered. Not less to be noted was the
gratitude for our visit which was shown by our hosts. We had regarded
ourselves as the persons honored and entertained. We learned that
missionaries in a heathen land wonderfully appreciate the sight and the
companionship of friends from their distant home.
Even more unexpected was our reception at the Women's College of Japan.
Since I had been more than thirty years a trustee of Vassar College,
and for some years chairman of its board of trustees, Mrs. Strong and I
were the guests of honor, and I was the first speaker called upon.
Before me were five hundred young women in more somber dress than
prevails at Vassar. All rose to welcome me at the beginning of my
address, and all rose again to thank me at its conclusion. Most of these
students understood only Japanese and needed an interpreter. Doctor
Zumoto, the accomplished editor of the Japanese "Herald of Asia,"
translated my address into his own language after I had finished, having
taken notes while I spoke. Until the very end I had the impression that
this was a Christian college, and I innocently made the Lord Jesus the
center and substance of my remarks, declaring that the renaissance of
learning in Japan needed to be supplemented by a reformation of
religion. Only when the evening was over did I learn that the
institution was not only undenominational, but also non-religious,
having Buddhist as well as Christian professors. Doctors Anderson and
Franklin were also guests, and when they followed me, they made the same
mistake and made Christian addresses. But the Japanese management is
very polite and very liberal, and even in the dinner that followed our
_faux pas_ did not provoke a word of criticism. The guests at that
dinner served by the students were from the most prominent educational
institutions of Japan. We highly appreciated the honor done us, and did
not regret that in our ignorance of the situation we had given to that
distinguished audience the true gospel of Christ.
Another dinner of a very different sort was that which we ourselves gave
at the Grand Hotel of Yokohama to the Rochester men. To my surprise
twenty-four persons sat down, but this number included at least ten of
the wives. Chiba and Axling, Tenny and Topping, the Fishers, father and
son, Clement, Brown, Benninghoff, Takagaki, Kawaguchi, all except the
last with their wives, made up the list. I was proud of them, for they
are leaders of thought and of education in Japan. Only Doctor Bearing's
absence on furlough in America, a furlough ended only by his lamented
death, prevented us from inviting him, though he was not a Rochester
man. Reminiscences of seminary life were both pathetic and amusing at
that dinner. One thing impressed itself upon my mind and memory: Our
missionaries have not lost their sense of humor. Under all their burdens
of anxiety and responsibility they have retained their sanity, their
hopefulness, and their good fellowship. The hilarity of our gathering
was the bubbling over of cheerful dispositions, and the safety-valve
gave evidence that there were large reserves of steam. Missionaries are
not a solemn set. They are only a good set of human beings made in the
divine image, for is it not written that even "He that sitteth in the
heavens shall laugh"?
The next day was the brightest of the bright. We took advantage of it to
visit the great temple of Kamakura, and to inspect the greatest artistic
monument of Japan, the bronze image of Buddha. It is a sitting statue,
with folded hands and eyes closed, as if absorbed in mystic
contemplation of his own excellence as a manifestation of deity, and
careless of the sorrows and sins of the world. The great bronze image
is fifty feet high, but it is hollow. We entered it, climbed up by
ladders to its shoulders, and looked out of windows in its back. Its
hollowness seemed symbolic, for it has only the outward semblance of
divinity and is deaf to all human entreaties. On that same day we
visited the temple of Hachiman, the god of war, most spacious and
impressive in its park-like surroundings of ancient trees and noble
gateways, but fearful in its accompanying images of revenge and
slaughter. Humanity needs compassion in the Godhead. The Japanese have
felt this, and they have invented a goddess of mercy, Kwannon by name.
Her shrine is the richest in Japan. It constitutes one of the greatest
attractions of the capital. Millions visit it every year, and the
offerings of its worshipers support a whole colony of Buddhist priests.
The avenue leading to the temple is lined with shops where mementoes of
the goddess may be purchased, as in Ephesus of old silver shrines might
be bought in honor of the great goddess Diana. It is the old story of
buyers and sellers in the Jewish temple. It was most pathetic to see a
well-dressed and handsome woman bend herself almost double before the
image, clap her hands to call the attention of the goddess, and then
fold them in prayer, possibly for the child that had hitherto been
denied her. It is well understood in this temple that, until the clink
of coin is heard in the collection-box, it is vain to suppose that even
the goddess of mercy will listen to a prayer.
The god of war reigns in Japan, rather than the goddess of mercy. War is
more profitable. The sale of munitions to the Russian Government is
enriching Japan, as our sales to the Allies are enriching us. The love
of gain is an obstacle to the success of the gospel, here as well as in
America. Nothing but a mighty influence of the Holy Spirit can convince
Japan of sin, and bring her to the feet of Christ. The work of our
missionaries, however, is permeating all the strata of society. Western
science and Western literature are so bound up with Christianity that
Japan cannot easily accept them without also accepting Christ.
We wished to see mission work in a country field, and we begged Mrs.
Fisher to go with us to Kanagawa, a suburb of Yokohama, where an
educated milkman is pastor, and where the Mary Colby School of Christian
girls attends the worship of his church. The reverence and sincerity of
the service impressed us. The warmth and abandon of the singing put to
shame our Western quartet choirs. Here is a pastor who prefers to
supplement his meager salary by selling milk on week-days, rather than
give up the satisfaction of seeing his church entirely self-supporting.
It seemed to me the model of a good ministry, and the prophecy of a
multitude of New Testament churches in Japan, manned and financed and
governed by the Japanese themselves. So long as we of the West furnish
both the preachers and their salaries, the Japanese will not learn to
depend upon their own administration or their own giving, and we will
not have churches organized on correct principles and so rooted in the
soil that they can stand the shocks of time and endlessly propagate the
gospel. May "the little one" in Kanagawa "become a thousand"!
Japan is a country where "every prospect pleases, and only man is vile."
Immorality is its curse. There is little drunkenness indeed, and
gambling is strictly prohibited. But the relations of the sexes are
almost wholly unregulated. Patriotism and filial devotion take
exaggerated forms, and girls can lead a life of shame in order to
provide means for the education of their brothers. General Nogi and his
wife can commit suicide when his sons are killed in battle, and the
whole country can regard it as so noble a deed that the general's desire
to extinguish his family name is not permitted to prevent the adoption
of it by another. The Japanese are a nation of wonderful natural gifts.
Honor, enterprise, submission, accessibility to new ideas, powers of
imitation and invention, make them the leaders of the Orient. Steamships
of twenty-two thousand tons, and equal to any Atlantic Cunarders, yet
built in their own dockyards by shipwrights who twenty years ago knew
nothing of their trade, are a proof of extraordinary plasticity and
ability. Civilization and Christianity may find new expression, if the
Japanese are subdued by the Cross of Christ.
My interest in missions has been doubled since I came in contact with
the practical work of our missionaries. We have able and devoted
representatives on this foreign field, and I believe that God will make
them mighty to dethrone Buddhism, and to crown Christ Lord of all. Yes,
"every prospect pleases." When I sailed through the Inland Sea of Japan,
two hundred and forty miles long, studded with hundreds of islands small
and great, islands often surmounted with glistening white temples or
fortifications, I thought our Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence, and
even the Isles of the Greek Ægean, were not to be mentioned in
comparison. The landlocked harbor of Nagasaki, with its encircling
hills, is finer than our Golden Gate of the Pacific. Fuji-yama,
snow-capped and symmetrical, seen against the crimson sunset sky, is
more beautiful even than Mount Ranier when seen from Tacoma, or Vesuvius
when seen from Naples. Japan is a land for poetry and song, a land to
awaken the loftiest patriotism, a land to inspire and lead the world.
Provided, ah yes! provided, it can be converted to Christ, and made his
servant. The Japanese is a natural orator; he has organizing ability of
the highest order; he is accessible, yet independent. Now is the time to
make him a preacher of the gospel to all the East. China and India have
already felt the influence of his military and political progress. Let
us, by pouring in the light of Christianity, make him also their leader
in true religion!
II
A WEEK-END IN CHINA
Hongkong is a city wonderful for situation and for trade. It has a
landlocked harbor encircled by precipitous hills and large enough to
float the navies of the world. It is the second largest port on earth
for exports and imports, over six hundred million dollars' worth in a
year. It is a meeting-place of the East and the West, a fortress of
Britain in China, a conglomeration of people, a center of influence for
Japan and for India, an object-lesson in sanitation, education, and
municipal government. The dominating religion is that of the Church of
England, and the Hongkong University, though endowed in part by wealthy
Chinese, follows English models and has a staff of English professors.
I mention Hongkong only to make more clear my description of Swatow, its
northern neighbor. The situation of Swatow is very like that of
Hongkong. A noble harbor encircled by steep hills, it is one of the
chief ports between Hongkong and Shanghai, and only a single night's
steamer-ride from Hongkong. Its attraction to us lay in the fact that it
is more Chinese than Hongkong, a principal seat of Presbyterian and
Baptist missions, and not so dominated as is Hongkong by the Church of
England. As Hongkong is an island, so our Baptist Mission Compound is on
an island, separated from the city of Swatow by the bay on which
hundreds of sampans and fishing-boats with lateen sails are always
riding, and at whose wharves many a great steamship is loading or
unloading freight. When our vessel arrived, we were quickly surrounded
by a multitude of smaller craft, manned by clamorous tradesmen selling
wares or seeking employment. The commissioner of British customs, who
was our fellow passenger, most courteously invited us to share his
motor-launch, and when we had landed on the other side of the bay he
sent us up the hill to the mission compound in two of his sedan-chairs,
each one borne by two stout men in picturesque uniform: and wearing the
insignia of the customs office.
A word about the English customs may be interesting. To satisfy English
creditors, and later, to pay interest on indemnities for the Boxer
uprising, China mortgaged the larger part of her duties on foreign
imports. Sir Robert Hart was appointed Inspector General, to superintend
this collection of duties. He introduced system and honesty, where
before there had been only disorder and peculation. From twenty to
thirty million dollars are in this way collected every year. Swatow is
the third port in the amount thus obtained, itself furnishing two to
three millions of the aggregate result. But this putting her collection
of customs into the hands of foreigners, though it has taught China her
own wastefulness and the superiority of Western finance, is a burden so
humiliating that it cannot always continue. When China fully awakes, she
will realize her strength and will reclaim what her weakness ceded to
Great Britain.
Our mission compound is one of the noblest in the East. It is due to
the foresight and executive ability of Dr. William Ashmore, Senior. He
began his missionary work in Bangkok, Siam, but was transferred by our
Missionary Union to Swatow, with the view of opening China to our
missionary efforts. He had Irish blood in his veins. He was witty and
eloquent, fervid and passionate. But he was also a man of grit, and a
hero of the faith. He wanted a quiet base of supplies from which he
could send out expeditions into the heart of China. He had no means of
any account. But he saw the possibilities in these steep and barren
hillsides opposite Swatow, and for six hundred dollars he bought a tract
which he gradually turned into a garden, with twenty mission buildings
and residences so thrust into the rocks and so overhanging one another,
that the whole plant seems a miracle of engineering. Like a fortress, it
commands the city of Swatow across the bay, very much as Governor's
Island commands New York. From its church and its schools have gone out
a score of evangelists and native pastors, to turn Swatow and the whole
country within a radius of a hundred miles into a present seed-plot and
a future garden of the Lord.
William Ashmore, Senior, died seven years ago. But he left a son of the
same name, who is a Chinese scholar of wide reputation, a sound
theologian, and a leader greatly beloved. He has nearly completed a
translation of the Bible into the colloquial Chinese--a felt need of
many years. At his house, so wedged into the rocky hillside that a
typhoon might seem equal to washing it down into the bay, we were most
hospitably entertained. Here we spent a memorable Sabbath Day. At the
church service, at least five hundred church-members and pupils of the
various schools were gathered, and I addressed them on "Faith, as Both
a Giving and a Taking"--a giving of one's self, and a taking of Christ
to be ours. Doctor Ashmore interpreted my talk to the audience,
sentence by sentence. The whole service was to me an inspiring
illustration of New Testament order and simplicity, for my address and
the sermon of Doctor Ashmore which followed had been preceded by free
participation of members of the church, in which one happy father arose
to give thanks for the birth of a girl-baby, after five sons had been
given him--a great change from the time when new-born girls were
despised and often thrown out into the street. This reverent
congregation, worshiping God in freedom and sincerity, seemed the
prophecy of a redeemed China. This congeries of schools, from
kindergarten to theological seminary, with Ashmore, Capen, Page, and
Waters for instructors, and Groesbeck, Speicher, Lewis, Foster, and
others for evangelists, has already permeated a whole province with
Christian teaching. It needs an institutional plant in the city, where
it already has a noble location, and it also needs a motor-launch to
carry its students to the field across the bay, where they can find
opportunity to win the multitude to Christ.
Even Swatow is partly Anglicized. We wished to see old China, heathen
China, and Brother Groesbeck gave us the opportunity. Only twenty miles
from Swatow lies the city of Chao-yang, where this pioneer missionary
has for eighteen years been stationed. Chao-yang is a larger city than
Swatow; the Chinese count it as containing a population of three hundred
thousand. It is the converging point of all the trade that reaches
Swatow from a hundred miles to the south and the west. Yet all this
trade is conducted through a narrow canal, so congested with boats that
there are innumerable delays. Even when the boats reach the waters of
the bay, the remaining channel is shallow for lack of dredging, and
launch-progress is very slow. We had ocular proof of this latter evil;
but we at last reached the dock.
Then came a reception entirely new to our experience, and one which we
can never forget. Eighty young men from the mission school met us, all
in white uniforms with sashes of blue. We passed through their lines,
forty boys on each side baring their heads as we passed. Then a
procession was formed. A brass band, with bugles and resounding drums,
led the way. The student escort followed. After the long rows of boys
came an honor-squad of Chinese soldiers, shouldering their guns and
bearing the Chinese and the American flags. This portion of the escort
had been furnished by the Chinese governor, who in this way certainly
showed his friendly regard for the American mission. We concluded the
procession, sitting in our sedan-chairs, each of our party of four borne
upon the shoulders of four men. The band struck up, a great explosion of
firecrackers ensued, and we began our journey of a mile and a half to
the gates of the city, and then two miles and a half farther through its
crowded streets, until we reached the mission buildings and the
residence of Mr. and Mrs. Groesbeck on the other side of the town. The
Chinese are great on ceremonial, and all this reception had been
arranged by the students themselves, in honor of Mr. Groesbeck's teacher
and his teacher's wife. Needless to say that I was astounded at such a
reception, for Augustus Cæsar never made an imperial entry in Rome more
thrilling than the triumphal entry which Augustus Strong made that day
into the great city of Chao-yang.
Mr. Groesbeck said that no public notice had been given of our coming.
Yet the whole population of three hundred thousand seemed to have come
out to meet us. Imagine a street two and a half miles long, but only ten
to fifteen feet wide, thronged with water-carriers and beasts of burden
compelled to give way to our great procession! Every nook and corner of
the way, the fronts of the one-storied shops and the entrances to the
cross-streets, were all a perfect sea of faces--rows of children little
and big overtopped by rows of half-naked men, with scores of women
peering wistfully from windows in the rear--faces by thousands and tens
of thousands, till it seemed as if the whole population of the planet
had emptied itself into Chao-yang. I looked upon hundreds of splendid
forms of men, naked above the waist, and carrying heads worthy of notice
from any sculptor, none of them hateful, all of them impressed and
wondering, and they seemed to me the embodiment of China crying out for
God. When we were only half-way through the city, the endless masses of
humanity had so impressed me that I could not restrain the tears. The
sight was simply overwhelming. And all this the parish of one man! It
is to save this great city, now almost wholly given to idolatry, that
Mr. Groesbeck asks for money to build in its very center an
assembly-room and an institutional church, and that Doctor Lesher asks
for a hospital building to facilitate his medical work.
I made an address to those eighty boys that evening, as they stood at
attention before me. Half of them were still heathen, but their fathers
had sent them to this Christian school, believing that they needed a
better religion than that of Confucius or of Buddha. I urged them to
become soldiers of Christ, and to follow him as their Commander. I did
not conceal from them the fact that such following might involve
opposition and earthly loss. But I promised them that, if they suffered
with Christ, they would also reign with him.
We returned from Chao-yang very sober and thoughtful, for our visit had
been a revelation of appalling needs. Swatow seemed a paradise after
such a visit. The smiling faces of so many Christians, and the signs of
a truly Christian civilization, inspired me with new hope for the
future. But our time had come for leaving China, at least temporarily,
and India was at once to be visited. Our departure from Swatow was
almost as spectacular as our entry into Chao-yang. There was no military
guard, and there were no firecrackers, but there was a fine brass band
of academy boys, to lead our procession of sedan-chairs, as we passed
through the long lines of scholars who had gathered with their teachers
to bid us farewell. The schools were all represented. First came the
little kindergartners, then pupils of the grammar school, the girls'
school, the women's school, the Bible-women's training-school, the boys'
academy, and finally, the theological seminary. They numbered more than
three hundred in all. Some of the teachers accompanied us to the
steamer. We parted from them with regret, but we were thankful that they
could remain to prepare the way for a new religion, education, and
civilization in China.
My week-end in China leaves me with a new sense of the vastness of the
heathen world, and of its absolute dependence upon Christ, as its only
possible Saviour. The question whether the heathen will ever be saved if
we do not give them the gospel, is not so serious a one for us as the
other question whether we ourselves will ever be saved if we do not give
them the gospel.
III
MANILA, SINGAPORE, AND PENANG
Each of these cities might seem to be the New Jerusalem, if you were to
see only its European part and the dress of its inhabitants. Their
European residents are all arrayed in white. Not all of them are saints,
however. The white is purely external and compulsory. Heat is a great
leveler, and we are nearing the equator. When we approached Manila we
were in the tail of a typhoon, but the danger was past. Indeed, since we
left San Francisco, we have encountered no storm, have had only smooth
seas, and have witnessed continually what Æschylus called "the
innumerable laughter of the ocean waves."
It was pleasant to perceive that American enterprise and administration
have transformed Manila, the capital of the Philippine Islands, from a
medieval into a modern city. Its newly constructed streets and
pavements, water-works and drainage, electricity and the trolley, have
turned this old and dilapidated Spanish town into a place of order and
beauty. Its parks and gardens, its municipal buildings and hospitals,
are an object-lesson to all beholders. The walls of the fort still
remain, but the moat has been filled up. The Roman Catholic Cathedral
shows the large designs of a former priesthood to capture the people by
architecture and ceremonial. But Protestant churches, missions, and
schools, are coming to have the first place in popular esteem. The
former palace of the Spanish governor is now the meeting-place of the
democratic legislature, and the Jones Bill, recently passed by our
Congress, but now locally known as "the Bill Jones," has given hopes of
a complete and speedy Filipino independence.
Our observation of the place, and our intercourse with residents of
Manila, lead us to doubt the wisdom of our immediate relinquishment of
authority over these islands. Eager as are the Filipino leaders for
self-government, they have not yet learned the art of self-restraint.
The recent trouble in the great hospital illustrates this. Its American
superintendent has resigned his office, for the reason that his Filipino
staff and subordinates conspired to make discipline and sanitary
regulations impossible. They desired to manage the institution
themselves, when they were incompetent to enforce cleanliness and order.
What happens in hospital work happens also in all branches of civil
administration. It will take a whole generation to raise up officials
who can be trusted to do their work for the public good, rather than to
provide comfortable and remunerative positions for themselves.
We visited the spot, five miles away, where our American troops, under
Admiral Dewey, landed to besiege the town. We motored to Fort McKinley
also, where our soldiers still command the situation. But our main
interest was in the mission schools and in the interdenominational
theological seminary. In these educational institutions all the
instruction is in the English language. They are Americanizing as well
as evangelizing the population. The establishment of universal and
compulsory school attendance will in a few years turn a Spanish-speaking
into an English-speaking people, and will unify the education and the
civilization of the islands. Nothing indeed is more remarkable in the
Orient than the gradual superseding of the native dialects by the
printed and spoken English. In the great country of India, it is to be
remembered, English is the required language in school and court, as
well as in every government office. Even the Romanizing of written
Chinese and Japanese will make vastly easier the political unity and the
religious evangelization of China and Japan.
When we reached Singapore, we found ourselves in one of the world's
greatest ports of entry. It is also one of the keys to the Orient, as
Sir Thomas Raffles perceived more than a century ago. Its splendid
government buildings and its strong fortifications show that the British
propose to hold it to the end. The recent incipient revolt, which was
fortunately nipped in the bud when it seemed to the conspirators on the
verge of success, and which was punished by the summary execution of
thirty or forty rebels without the news of it getting into the papers,
showed that Germany had much to hope for and Britain much to fear from
the unrest of these heterogeneous populations. I had a vivid reminder of
all this at the Methodist Episcopal Mission, where I found over sixteen
hundred scholars in attendance, and where I addressed five hundred of
them at their morning prayers. One of the chief difficulties of
Christian work in Singapore is the aggregation and mixture of races.
Seven different nationalities are represented in the schools. The
Tamil, the Malay, and the Chinese are the most numerous, and of these
the Chinese take the lead. Fifty thousand Chinese immigrants enter the
port of Singapore every year, mainly because there is employment for
them in the rubber plantations of the Straits Settlements. The
congestion of population in China drives them southward to Singapore,
and from Singapore they swarm northward to Burma, southward to Java, and
westward to India.
This mixing up of the many different nationalities makes it impossible
for the missions in Singapore to teach their pupils in any other
language than the English. This requisition of English seems to some of
the people a slur upon their own tongue, and a sign of British
ascendency. They are jealous of the English, even while they perceive
their own dependence upon them. Only British justice and watchfulness
can keep in check the disposition to revolt on the part of some classes
with which the government has to deal, especially when these classes are
stirred up by German spies and German money. Thus far all seditious
attempts have been put down, and the traveler learns to bless the wisdom
of British administration, and to rest secure and confident under the
folds of the Union Jack.
We left Singapore for Penang with some regret, for the reason that large
steamers must be exchanged for small steamers. The one we took was
exceedingly good and modern. Another on which we embarked somewhat later
seemed to have come down from the days of Noah and the ark. But British
steamers, however old and small, are clean and safe. You "get there"
all the same. On our way to Rangoon our first stop was at Port
Swetterham, from which we motored twenty-seven miles to Kuala Lumpur,
the capital of the Federated Malay States--federated under the British
Crown. Here is a city of Malays and Chinese, with British government
buildings, Mohammedan mosques, Buddhist temples, an English cathedral,
and a Methodist church. Our road thither led us through seemingly
endless forests of rubber trees and of coconut palms. The profusion of
tropical vegetation was both novel and impressive. These Federated Malay
States furnish the world with more than half its supply of rubber, and
many English and American investors are growing rich from the soaring of
prices induced by the war.
Penang, however, furnished us with our greatest sensation. It was a
Chinese funeral. In this city of two hundred thousand inhabitants, a
millionaire Chinese banker had died. He was a Buddhist as well as a
Confucianist, but also a loyal and patriotic supporter of charitable
institutions, and of the British rule. He had given to the British
government a number of aeroplanes to facilitate its military operations,
and a large sum of money for its war-loan. When he died, the customary
worship of ancestors, which is a part of Chinese religion, as well as
gratitude for his past gifts, prompted his family to plan a sumptuous
funeral. It is said to have cost them thirty thousand dollars. We
arrived in Penang just in time to see the show. All the way from
Singapore, indeed, we were accompanied on our steamer by a fine brass
band, which was only one of three brass bands hired to furnish music
for the funeral service.
My powers of description fail, when I attempt to tell the wonders of a
funeral procession fully a half mile long. It was headed by a symbolic
float of waxwork figures, in which a colossal horse, prancing on its
hind legs, seemed just about to soar into the air. The horse was held in
by four angelic forms following and holding in their hands scepters of
royalty. This apparition reminded me of the horses and chariot in which
Elijah ascended to heaven, and it seemed to indicate that the deceased
had departed with all the honors heaven and earth could bestow. A band
of music accompanying the float, and playing solemn but not mournful
strains, gave color to this interpretation. A retinue of sedan-chairs,
decorated with all the colors of the rainbow, came next in order. These
sedan-chairs were empty of occupants, and contained long strips of red
paper on which were written the names and merits of the millionaire's
ancestors, to be read by Buddhist priests at the grave. The chairs were
each the gift of some relative or friend of the departed. They
symbolized the welcome given him by those who had gone before him to the
better land. A second band of music was followed by a body-guard of
British soldiers in khaki, deputed by the British governor to show his
estimate of the character and loyalty of the deceased.
Then came the hearse, if hearse it could be called. It was really an
enormous catafalque, decorated with gold tinsel and costly embroideries.
Peacocks and birds of paradise were depicted on its silken hangings. A
dozen men, in elaborate robes of blue, carried this gaudy structure upon
their shoulders, while other gorgeously attired attendants bore great
ribbon-banners of satin, say twenty feet long by four feet wide and of
the most brilliant colors, inscribed with Chinese characters and making
known the virtues of the departed. But the most curious part of the
procession, was yet to come. Preceded by the third band of music were
the offerings of food and drinks which were to furnish sustenance to the
spirit in the world into which he had now entered. There were six
roasted sucking-pigs, laid in order, on portable tables, with baskets of
rice, oranges, bananas, all kinds of fruit and confectionery, and cups
of tea and wines. These were carried to the cemetery, to be presented to
the departed spirit at the grave, then jealously guarded for an
interval, finally in part given to the officiating priests, and in part
consumed at a feast held by the surviving members of the family. The
costlier the offerings, the better would the feast be enjoyed. There was
no lack of priests in this ceremonial. They were young and clean-shaven,
and looked as if they had enlisted for this very service. I thought I
could discern a sly twinkle in their eyes, as they inspected the
preparations for the feast, before the march began.
The mourners must not be forgotten. Among the Chinese, white, and not
black, is the appointed sign of mourning. The four wives of the deceased
and the members of his family were accordingly dressed in the coarsest
of white sackcloth, with ashes sprinkled over their faces, and they
walked behind the hearse, howling. It was a piteous spectacle, reminding
one of the professional and hired wailers in Palestine, where "the
mourners go about the streets," uttering dismal lamentations which can
be bought for money. Far be it from me to suggest that such was the
lamentation which we heard that day, for there is reason to believe that
in this case the deceased was respected and beloved.
This ceremonial had required long and elaborate preparation. The death
indeed occurred last July; the body had been embalmed; it had lain in
state and open to public inspection for four whole months; the funeral
did not take place until November. A vast amount of detail had been
attended to and provided for. Great packages of silken umbrellas had
been stored to shield the heads of guests and servants. All the bearers
of sedan-chairs, scores in number, were clad in silken uniforms; there
were banners, and inscriptions, and lanterns, galore. Everything was
done to impress the Chinese multitude with the greatness of the
occasion. But it was all a glorification of man and of his virtues.
There was no confession of sin, nor assurance of pardon; no
proclamation of a divine Redeemer; no promise of life and immortality
in Christ. Heathen religions are man's vain effort to win heaven by
merits of one's own. Only Christianity is God's revelation of salvation
"without money and without price," through the sacrifice and death of
his only Son. This is the gospel which Confucianist and Buddhist, Hindu
and Mohammedan, need to-day, and which, thank God, our missionaries are
giving them.
IV
THREE WEEKS IN BURMA
Burma is the land of pagodas. These places of worship are the most
striking feature of every landscape. Their bell-shaped domes,
startlingly white, or so covered with gold-leaf as to shine resplendent
in the sunlight, crown many a hilltop and constitute the chief beauty of
the towns. The pagodas are usually solid structures of brick, with
facings of plaster, and they are buildings at which, rather than in
which, worship is offered. There are exceptions, however. The more
ancient of these edifices, like the Ananda at Pagan, have inner chambers
enshrining gigantic statues of Buddha, with corridors around the
chambers, quite comparable to the aisles of English or French
cathedrals. But the greatest of all the Burmese pagodas, the Shwe Dagon
of Rangoon, is a solid mass of brick, with no interior cell, yet
enormous in size, erected on a broad platform one hundred and sixty-six
feet from the ground, towering to an additional height of two hundred
and seventy feet, and crowned with a jewelled "umbrella" at the total
elevation of four hundred and thirty-six feet above the teeming streets
of the city below. The main platform from which the pagoda proper rises
is an immense court nine hundred feet long by six hundred and
eighty-five feet wide, and crowded with minor pagodas and shrines. This
great esplanade is approached from the four points of the compass by
long covered arcades, lined with shops in which offerings of every
description can be bought. On the marble floor of the main court and
before the minor shrines these offerings are presented by scores of
worshipers prostrating themselves before statues of Buddha of every
size. And yet the great conical or bell-shaped dome of the pagoda is
its chief attraction, for this is covered with gold-leaf from its base
to its summit, and its shining splendor salutes the traveler from miles
and miles away.
The religion of Burma is Buddhism. Buddhism is a religion of "merit," so
called, and the surest way to acquire "merit" is by building a pagoda.
Repairing an old pagoda will not answer the purpose; hence many an old
pagoda goes to ruin, side by side with a new one coated with whitewash
or gold-leaf. Curiously enough, the epoch of pagoda-building was almost
coincident with that of cathedral-building in England and France, that
is, from A. D. 1000 to 1200. When one sees at Pagan an area along the
Irrawaddy River eight miles long and only two miles wide, with nearly
five thousand pagodas, multitudes of them small and in ruins, but many
still standing great and splendid in their proportions, it seems
impossible to doubt that a certain genuine religious impulse, however
blind and mistaken, led to their erection. There they stand, mere relics
of a magnificent past, but now erect in the midst of desolation, with
only scattered huts about them, where once there must have been a dense
population, rich and lordly. The fate of these towering monuments of
idolatry and superstition, now for the most part given over to the moles
and the bats, shows what God can do for pagodas, and encourages us to
believe that missionary effort will be mighty through God to the pulling
down of similar more modern strongholds, together with all the high
things that exalt themselves above the knowledge of his truth.
This leads me to speak of the great missionary work that is now
honeycombing and undermining the foundations of heathenism in this
pagoda-land. We came to Burma to see what God has wrought. The labors
and sufferings of Adoniram Judson appealed to us even in our
childhood. We wished to see how the mustard-seed which Judson sowed in
faith has grown up to bear fruit. So we went to Aungbinle, where for
twenty long months Judson was imprisoned and tortured. There we seemed
to hear God's word to Moses: "Take off thy shoes from off thy feet,
for the place where thou standest is holy ground." We were reminded
also of the burning bush, which was ever burning but not consumed.
Great forward movements in history are born in suffering. Through
death to life, and the cross before the crown--that was the way of
Christ, and it will be the way of his followers. We gathered, a small
group of missionaries and visitors, in the little chapel that has been
built upon the site of that old prison, and we prayed, with a lot of
dusky villagers and children before us, that God would yet more
gloriously prosper the work of missions.
We had every advantage in our investigations in Burma. Thirteen of my
former pupils are now missionaries in that land. For many years they
have been inviting me to visit them. Nine missionaries met us at the
dock, as we landed from Singapore and Penang. They have made our visit
delightful by their affectionate and boundless hospitality. Morning,
noon, and night have been full of sightseeing, of visiting mission
churches and schools, of "chotas," or little breakfasts, of "tiffins" or
substantial lunches, or afternoon-teas and dinners at the close of the
day. The social and kindly spirit of it all has turned what otherwise
would have been wearisome into a succession of pleasant experiences. But
there has been work, and there has been hard thinking also. Making three
addresses a day, longer or shorter, for three weeks in succession, is no
sinecure. I am sometimes called an "octogeranium," but I have not been
permitted to waste my sweetness on the desert air. It is a wonder to me
that I have survived so much stress and rushing, but I am compelled to
say that good appetite and good sleep have made me feel in better health
and spirits than for many months before.
What I have seen has gladdened my eyes and warmed my heart. Closer
contact with mission work and mission workers has broadened my ideas,
given me more sympathy, more zeal, and more hope. The vastness of these
heathen populations, their appalling needs, together with their infinite
possibilities, have dawned upon me as never before. Burma has sixty
millions of people. It is a most fruitful land, never visited by the
famines which ravage India proper, the land west of the Bay of Bengal.
It enshrines a religion which, with all its ignorance and superstition,
is more free from gross immorality than that which prevails on the other
side of the bay. Its people are the most heterogeneous of any upon
earth. Though the proud Burman native is still the dominant power, he
has now to compete with the rising intelligence of the Karens, the
sturdiness of the Chinese, and the subtlety of the Hindus. These last
two peoples have in late years in large numbers migrated hither.
Mohammedan mosques are rising side by side with the older Buddhist
pagodas. The Parsees are numerous and influential, and theosophists
are not rare. Rangoon is probably the capital city of Buddhism, for
here at any rate is its most splendid temple. And Rangoon is a sort of
melting-pot of all races. Burmans and Chinese are intermarrying, and
are producing a most vigorous offspring. Sikhs and Malays, by their
peculiar dress, make picturesque the streets. I know of no greater
mixture of races, unless it is in the city of New York, where we have
more Jews than there are in Jerusalem, and more Italians than there
are in Rome. Here in Rangoon, however, all these peoples preserve
their distinctive characteristics of dress and language, so that
racial differences are more apparent.
The Roman Catholics and the representatives of the Church of England
have made great efforts to capture Burma. They have established noble
plants in the way of church edifices, hospitals, and schools. The
leper asylum of the Romanists is an impressive and worthy provision
for the housing and treatment of hundreds thus afflicted. The
cathedral and school of the Anglican Church show a most praiseworthy
estimate of the needs of this great province of the British Empire,
and breakfasting with Bishop Fyffe, the metropolitan of Rangoon, gave
us a pleasing impression of his kindly Christian spirit. The
Methodist Episcopal Church has also its representative here, and all
of these evangelizing agencies are supplemented by the work of the
Y. M. C. A., the Y. W. C. A., and the Salvation Army. Yet it is not
too much to say that the Baptists have first place in Burma, both in
church-membership and in education. We were the first Christian
denomination upon the ground; we have leavened the country with our
influence; our Mission Press has furnished the Bible in several
different languages to the people of Burma; our schools are the most
advanced in grade and the most numerously attended; our churches are
most nearly self-governing and self-supporting. We have great reason
to thank God and take courage.
All this is the growth of a single century. It was in the year 1813 that
the Judsons arrived in Burma, and it was six years after that the first
Burman convert was baptized. In 1828 the first Karen convert followed
Christ. These two were the first-fruits from the two leading races of
Burma. Since their baptism there has sprung up a flourishing Christian
community which embraces representatives both of the indigenous races of
Burma and of the immigrant peoples from India proper, from China, and
from other lands. The Baptist churches in Burma to-day, as their
official representatives inform us, enroll members gathered from
eighteen different nationalities, besides members of the Anglo-Indian or
Eurasian type. "The entire Christian community in Burma, according to
the Government Census of 1911, numbers 210,081; of which number, 122,265
are Baptists, while 60,088 are Roman Catholics, 20,784 are Anglicans,
1,675 are Methodists, and the remainder are distributed among smaller
sects. That one Protestant convert of 1819 has become an army of one
hundred and fifty thousand."
We must add to this numerical statement the facts that a corps of
Christian leaders has been trained and put into service; that native
Christians have found their way into influential positions as
magistrates, township officers, teachers of schools, inspectors of
police, and clerks in all departments of the government. Christian men
are prominent in business and professional circles, as traders,
contractors, brokers, physicians, lawyers; and the Christian character
is everywhere recognized and honored. A church, to a large degree
self-propagating, has been planted in Burma. A complete system of
missionary education has been organized. Modern philanthropic work for
the relief and prevention of physical ills has been transplanted to
Burma. The Sunday School, the Christian Endeavor Society, the temperance
movement, are common methods of Karen and of Burmese church activity. An
extensive Christian literature has been provided, in addition to the
printing of the Bible in all the main languages of the country. In fact,
a Home Mission Society, for the evangelization of the natives in the
remoter sections of the country, is in active operation. When we
remember that all this is the product of a hundred years, in a land
where only a little while ago Christianity was a persecuted religion, we
praise God for the result.
I must mention two features of my visit which claim special attention. I
refer to the work of the collegiate and other schools, and to the
hospitality of non-Christian gentlemen. We have inaugurated in Burma a
graded system of education, under government inspection, and leading to
full university training. Nothing in my travels interested me more than
to see hundreds of boys and girls of Burmese and Karen families, in
which girls have hitherto been unable to read or write, singing
Christian hymns from books with the music and words before them. The
great need of France, as the Emperor Napoleon once said, was good
mothers. It is equally true of Burma, and little children carry back
into idolatrous homes their love for Christ, and their juvenile protest
against heathenism. I addressed several audiences of a thousand each,
where the full half were girls and women, no longer secluded and
ignorant, but prepared to assume responsibility as the mothers and
trainers of a new race of Burmans. In these schools, exclusive of the
seminaries and Bible schools, there are enrolled more than 30,000
pupils, who pay annual tuition fees of more than $80,000. The Morton
Lane School at Maulmain, the Eurasian School at the same place, the
Kemendine School in Rangoon, the Girls' School at Mandalay, have each of
them about three hundred scholars, and they are sending out influences
which will in a few years revolutionize the civilization and the
religion of Burma. Other schools of not so high a grade are doing
equally faithful work. Our Baptist College at Rangoon is caring for the
higher grades of education, and is preparing hundreds of young men for
teaching and for government service. It was inspiring to address a
thousand of its scholars, under the direction of Principal David
Gilmore, D. D., formerly of Rochester. The endowment of such an
institution in this heathen land would be an achievement worthy of some
Christian millionaire in America. And the same thing may be said for our
Burman Theological Seminary at Insein under Dr. John McGuire, and our
Karen Theological Seminary under Dr. W. F. Thomas.
That walls of partition are breaking down under the influence of
Christianity, was made plain to us by invitations to take breakfast with
a noted Parsee barrister, and to take afternoon-tea with a wealthy
Mohammedan gentleman, both of them citizens of Rangoon. The courtesy and
intelligence of these hosts of ours will always be a delightful memory,
while their novel and beautiful homes revealed to us what art and nature
can do when united in other than Christian surroundings. Our Parsee
barrister had obtained his education largely in England, and the
Mohammedan gentleman had enjoyed intercourse with the best of our
American missionaries. The Moslem friend still maintained a sort of
seclusion for his wife, and only the ladies of our party visited her in
her private apartments. But when we rose to depart, he surprised us all
by asking that we offer prayer, and he endorsed the prayer that was
offered by uttering a hearty "Amen." As we stood ready to go, it was
easy to pray for a blessing upon the house and the family which we were
leaving behind us. Respect for Christianity, and a conviction that
Christian education is the great need of the future, are already
permeating the higher classes of Burman society.
The climax of our stay in Burma was reached when Lord Chelmsford, the
viceroy of India, visited Rangoon, and the lieutenant governor invited
us to an afternoon-tea in his honor. The pandal, or reception pavilion,
erected at the dock where the viceroy landed and where he was received
with a salute of thirty-one guns, had been filled that morning by the
élite of Burman society, fifteen hundred in number, and the address of
welcome had drawn from the viceroy a fitting response. All Rangoon was a
wonder of decoration. Arches with Saracenic domes built by the Moslems,
pagodalike structures built by the Buddhists, Parsee towers, and Hindu
temples, appeared at many street-crossings, and one long avenue was
lined on either side with elevated rows of benches upon which were
seated thousands of children from the schools. The viceroy passed in
triumphal procession between files of soldiery, with cavalry for a
body-guard and a dense mass of humanity thronging the sidewalks, looking
on and cheering. At night, the streets and public buildings were
brilliantly illuminated, and the great pagodas glittered like gems from
top to bottom, encircled with rings of electric lights.
We reached the Government House, the scene of the afternoon lawn-tea,
through clouds of dust raised by four lines of vehicles that struggled
for precedence. At last we emerged in the grounds before the stately
edifice where the lieutenant governor resides, and we were presented to
Lord and Lady Chelmsford. The viceroy and his wife were simple and
gracious in manner, and they made us feel that we were conferring as
well as receiving honor. A group of forty dancing-girls, in antique
Burmese costumes, were giving a performance on one part of the emerald
lawn, while on another white-robed servants were setting before the
guests all manner of refreshments. So, amid music and feasting, the
day ended. With the oncoming darkness the viceroy and his lady retired
to their apartments in the great government residence, and at the same
time the whole company joined in singing "God Save the King!" It was a
striking close to our experiences in Burma, for fully half of the
guests that day were Hindus and Mohammedans, each one of them arrayed
in gorgeous garments and decorated with jewels. It left in our minds
the fixed impression that the hold of Great Britain upon Burma and
indeed upon all India is largely due to the Christian character of
British rule, and that missionary work of evangelization and of
education is to be given large credit for India's present universal
loyalty to the British Crown.
This chapter would not be complete without special mention of the dinner
of our Rochester men. We number thirteen of them in Burma, and they fill
very important places in the work of missions. Two are graduates of our
university, but not of our seminary--Mr. F. D. Phinney, the
superintendent of our Mission Press, and Dr. David Gilmore, the acting
principal of our Baptist College. With the wives who graced the company,
seventeen persons sat down at table. Singiser presided; McGuire gave us
welcome; Dudley, Cochrane, Rogers, Hattersley, Crawford, added spice to
the occasion. The rewards of a teacher sometimes come late, but they are
very sure. When I saw that gathering of missionary workers, and
remembered Geis, Cope, and Streeter, who were prevented from coming, I
felt that my labor had not been in vain in the Lord, since Burma is
being transformed by Rochester.
And I shall never forget a final reception given us at an afternoon-tea
by Dr. D. W. A. Smith, the president emeritus of the Karen Theological
Seminary at Insein, and by his estimable wife, to whom I had had the
privilege of presenting a memorial album, on behalf of all the
teachers and missionaries, on the occasion of her seventy-sixth
birthday. Doctor Smith and Mrs. Smith are honored and beloved by all
who know them. Like myself, he has served the cause of theological
education for forty years, and has now retired for partial rest. I am
glad that my name can be in any way connected with his, for I am sure
that his works will follow him.
V
MANDALAY AND GAUHATI
These two places are types of two different religions, the Buddhist and
the Hindu. Mandalay in Burma is the representative of Buddhism; Gauhati
in Assam illustrates Hinduism. The hill of Mandalay is crowned by a
pagoda so unique and splendid that it draws pilgrims from every part of
Burma; the hill at Gauhati is similarly attractive in Assam. I have
thought that a description of the two, and of the worship at each of
them, might serve to fix in memory the differences between these leading
religions of the British Empire in India.
Mandalay was the terminus of our third excursion into the more remote
parts of Burma. From Rangoon as a center of operations, we went first to
Bassein, where our Burman and our Karen schools for boys and girls are
beautifully located. Bassein is one hundred and ninety-two miles west of
Rangoon. Maulmain, our second object of interest and visitation, is one
hundred and seventy-one miles distant from Rangoon on the south and
east. Here our great missionary, Adoniram Judson, began his work, and
here are two of our chief schools for girls.
Mandalay is farther removed from Rangoon than are either Bassein or
Maulmain. It lies three hundred and eighty-six miles to the north. It
was a former capital of Burma. It contains the palace of King Thebaw,
the foundations of which are reputed to have been laid upon human
sacrifices, and from which the king was driven after a long and fierce
British assault. Ancient tradition decreed that only sacred edifices
should be built of brick. Thebaw's palace is therefore of wood, though
it is gorgeous with carving and gilt. Surrounded by a wide and deep
moat, there is a walled enclosure of more than a mile square, whose
gateways are picturesque in the extreme, and which to all but modern
cannon would be an impregnable fortress.
But it is the Hill of Mandalay that most excites the traveler's wonder
and admiration. Upon its summit, commanding a far-reaching view of the
winding river and of endless paddy-fields, with mountains in the
distance, stands a pagoda which is in many respects more remarkable than
the great Shwe Dagon pagoda at Rangoon. This one at Mandalay might
indeed be called four separate pagodas, on successive heights, and
connected with one another by a straight stairway in part hewn out of
the solid rock and in part built of masonry. The stairway consists of
eight hundred and twenty-two steps, in four different series, each
series leading to a broad open platform on which rises a separate temple
with a colossal image of Buddha in its center.
From below, this long stairway, with its railing of brick or concrete
and its quartet of gilded pagodas shining in the sun, is a picturesque
and unique object. The crowning pagoda seems almost impossible of
access. It is set upon such a height, however, for the purpose of making
the ascent to the altar difficult, and so of adding to the "merit" of
its worshipers. The stairway, even when cut in the rock, has often
forty or fifty steps so narrow, that the ascent from platform to
platform is actually precipitous. The entire series of steps, from the
bottom of the hill to the top, is roofed over with sheets of
corrugated iron, until the whole looks like a covered way to the
clouds. Going up seemed an exciting adventure. My physician had
forbidden my climbing, and my wife declared that she could not attempt
the walk. The problem became serious.
The difficulty was removed by bringing from the missionary's house two
solid teak-wood armchairs, to serve us after the sedan fashion. Long
poles of bamboo were lashed underneath them, and, after we had seated
ourselves, eight men, four for each chair, lifted these poles, with
their superimposed American pilgrims, upon their shoulders. Then began a
triumphal march, which at every step of the ascent threatened to become
a funeral march. The bearers all had bare feet, feet twice as long as
the steps were broad, so that they practically went upward on their
toes. A single misstep would have caused disaster--nothing less than an
avalanche of coolies, chairs, and pilgrims. But my secretary guarded me,
the missionary guarded my wife, and we went up in safety.
Going upward some two hundred steps, we rested upon a platform with a
pagoda which enshrined the statue of a Buddha perhaps twenty feet in
height and covered with gold-leaf from top to toe. Any worshiper can
prove his faith by clapping a bit of gold-leaf upon the statue. The
result is that the hands and feet of Buddha are thick with encrusted
gold. He holds out his hands in seeming invitation. Two hundred feet
more brought us to a second platform and a second pagoda in which Buddha
also appears; but now he is in the attitude of teaching. Still another
ascent, and we come to a pagoda in which Buddha stands, a towering form
fifty feet in height, with his finger extended in expectation toward the
plain. And a final ascent brings us to a colossal Buddha, now reclining,
as if his work were done and he were entering upon the bliss of Nirvana.
At this last stage there is also a series of waxwork figures which
symbolize the vanity of life and of human desire. Four forms represent,
first, the babe at its mother's breast; secondly, the youth full of
vigor; then the older man haggard with care; and finally, the corpse,
upon whose vitals the birds of the air are preying.
From the summit of this Mandalay Hill, another pagoda, almost as famous,
is to be seen. I mean the Kuthodaw, in the plain below. This is four
hundred and fifty pagodas in one, all but one of them little edifices,
each with a small sitting statue of Buddha within it. An even more
remarkable thing is that each of these diminutive pagodas has also
within it a portion of the Buddhist scriptures, engraved upon a solid
block of stone, and all of these together make up the Tripitaka, upon
which the Buddhist pins his faith. In the center of the grand enclosure
stands a beautiful white pagoda, with wreaths of gold about its graceful
spire. The long rows of little temples, with their attempt to preserve
the holy book in an enduring form, are a monument to the faith of King
Thebaw's uncle who planned it. Few people, however, read the writing
upon the stones. For any practical result it is necessary to have the
law of the Lord written upon the tables of the heart.
The descent from Mandalay Hill was even more hazardous than the ascent,
for we were in continual danger of slipping from our chairs and knocking
over the bearers. We were profoundly grateful when we reached the level
ground again and found that we had survived. Our experiences with
Buddhism were instructive. The saffron robes of the omnipresent priests
and monks undoubtedly cover much laziness and much willingness to depend
for a living upon others. But every Burman boy expects to spend some
time, though it may be only a week or a month, in a monastery. There he
usually learns to read, though his main work is that of memorizing
certain portions of the Buddhist scriptures. So far as I have been able
to learn, there are no positive immoralities connected with Buddhistic
worship. The example of Buddha has in it some worthy elements, such as
the renunciation of earthly and sensual ambitions. But Buddhism, for all
that, is a pessimistic religion. It denies to man the existence of a
soul, and it gives him no hope for anything but practical extinction.
Buddha no longer lives to help his worshipers. In the struggle with sin,
there is no atonement for the transgressions of the past, and no
prospect of perfection in the future. Hence the preaching of Christ,
crucified for our sins and ever present with his people, is to the
Buddhist a revelation so novel and so entrancing, that it captivates and
transforms him. Christianity humbles pride, but it saves the soul. It
shows the impossibility of obtaining salvation by merit of our own, and
our absolute dependence upon the grace of God. Christianity awakens
gratitude, and leads to unselfish devotion. It turns a Saul into a Paul,
and makes him a missionary and a hero.
Gauhati is the present capital of Assam, as Mandalay was once the
capital of Burma. Like Burma, Assam is overrun by Hindus, who seek
employment in the tea-plantations and in every other species of labor.
These Hindus have brought their religion with them, and in Assam the
animistic religions of the natives very commonly give way to the more
poetic and philosophic faith of the Hindus. In Gauhati the Hindus have
established a temple which attracts thousands of pilgrim worshipers from
all parts of Assam and indeed of India, as the pagoda of Mandalay
attracts pilgrims from all parts of Burma. The Gauhati temple, like that
at Mandalay, is set upon a beautiful hill not far from the town,
approached only by a long and stony climb, though with many a rest-house
on the way. This temple and its worship so illustrate Hinduism, that a
slight account of its origin and beliefs seems to be necessary.
The god Siva had a goddess for a wife. Displeased with her
unfaithfulness, he seized her, and with her as his captive he flew
through the air, and as he flew, he cut her in pieces. The middle
portion of her body fell to the earth on this hill, and consecrated
forever this spot near Gauhati. In the temple and grove of this hill the
goddess is worshiped by such rites as will please one of low and
licentious tastes. In fact, the rites of this temple are said to be the
most obscene of any in the British possessions. There are reputed to be
a thousand "virgins," who subsist in and upon the temple. The extent to
which they are virgins may be judged by the number of fatherless
children clinging to their robes or carried about. These "virgins," as
is well known, are "married to the god of the temple"--which may mean
married either to the priests of the temple, or to the worshipers of the
temple. I asked a missionary whether these "virgins," after their term
of service, could contract an ordinary marriage. I was answered that the
girls were "married to the temple for life." One of these unfortunate
women led by the hand a beautiful little daughter. On being asked who
the father was, the mother replied: "How should I know? I am a
temple-woman." So the gratification of illicit passion becomes a
religious act. The residents of Gauhati are free to visit the temple,
and so, alas! are the eight hundred students of the English college only
two miles away. Who can measure the corrupting influence of this temple
upon the lives of the people over a wide area in Assam?
A student of the college, who was also a priest of the temple, met one
of our party on his visit. This student-priest was a young man of more
than ordinary intelligence. He endeavored to palliate the evil of the
temple-worship, and to clothe its acts with spiritual significance. He
pointed to the spot where goats and buffaloes were offered in sacrifice,
and he claimed that this offering was made in expiation of sin. Such an
explanation of Hindu sacrifices is altogether futile. The sense of guilt
is so dull in Hinduism, that sin is little more than external and
physical impurity, and may be simply failure to conform to a prescribed
act of ceremonial worship. The true meaning of sacrifice for sin has, in
India, been derived solely from Christian preaching. This particular
student had many an opportunity to hear such preaching, and the
knowledge of atonement which he tried to mix with his Hindu theology was
probably gained from missionary sources. It was an illustration of the
incidental and indirect ways in which Christian missions are permeating
these Oriental lands, and are forcing these old religions to adopt some
of the fundamental ideas of Christianity. These ideas are misunderstood
and misstated, so that they become in large part forms of error. But
notwithstanding, they may pave the way for a fuller knowledge of the
truth, and for the entrance of Christ into the heart and into the life.
VI
CALCUTTA, DARJEELING, AND BENARES
Calcutta is the largest city of India. It numbers more than a million
inhabitants, of whom 600,000 are Hindus, 300,000 are Mohammedans, and
less than 100,000 are Christians. The name of the city is derived from
Kali, the goddess-wife of Siva, the Destroyer; and her temple is one of
the most filthy and disgusting in all India. In this temple I saw one of
its many priestesses cutting into bits the flesh and entrails of a goat,
which had been offered in sacrifice, in order that the poorest worshiper
might have for his farthing something bloody to present at the altar. It
was the altar of a fierce, cruel, and lustful goddess, whose black and
ugly image could be dimly seen within the shrine. A stalwart priest
followed me with hand outstretched for a contribution. It was a novel
sensation to hear him utter, in excellent English and with seeming
reverence, the words, "the great goddess Kali," as if no one could doubt
her power. It reminded me of "the great goddess Diana," whom all Asia
and the whole world once worshiped, but whose temple is now an
indistinguishable heap of ruins. The worship of a goddess so vengeful
and sensual as Kali throughout India, a worship both of lust and of
fear, shows how ineradicable is the religious instinct, but how
perverted it may become when existing apart from divine revelation.
There is another temple in Calcutta of a somewhat better sort. I refer
to the temple of the Jains, that mongrel sect which is partly a
reformed Hinduism, and partly a worship of Buddha. Its temple is a
model of cleanliness and of Oriental art. Its decoration consists
largely of inlaid glass of all the colors of the rainbow. Walls,
ceilings, and columns are fairly ablaze with tinted arabesques that
reflect every ray of the sun. Fountains and lawns and statues mingle
their attractions. The effect is one of splendor and beauty. Jainism
is conservative Hinduism, recurring to the ancestral worship of the
Vedas, exaggerating its doctrine of the sanctity of animal life,
repudiating its later licentious developments, and taking in Buddha,
not as the supreme and sole teacher of religion, but as only one of
its great saints and heroes.
The real glory of Calcutta is its relation to modern missions. Here is
the chapel in which William Carey preached, and in which Adoniram Judson
was baptized. Its spacious construction evinces the faith and hope of
its founders. But it is in Serampore, which, though fourteen miles away,
is almost a suburb of Calcutta, that Carey's work was done. How
wonderful that work was! "A consecrated cobbler," he mastered the
languages of the Orient, and gave the Bible to India in several of its
tongues. He received from the British Government large compensation for
his services as interpreter and translator, but he gave back all the
money he received, in order to support schools and missions. The noble
college at Serampore, with its hundreds of students, is his best
memorial. His tomb in the cemetery witnesses to his humility of spirit.
It stands at one corner of a triangle, with the tombs of Marshman and of
Ward at the two remaining corners, but the only inscription he permitted
to be engraved upon it is the two lines of the hymn,
A wretched, lost, and helpless worm,
On thy kind arms I fall.
So he left his testimony to the need, and the power, of Him who will
ultimately demolish Hindu temples and enthrone Christ in India.
From Calcutta we traveled about three hundred and seventy miles
northward to Darjeeling. We wished to see the Himalayas. A most tortuous
narrow-gage railway lifted us gradually to a height of seven thousand
feet. And there we had the unusual privilege of seeing the sunrise
tipping with rosy light the snowy peak of Kinchinjinga, twenty-eight
thousand feet high and forty-six miles away. Mt. Everest, a hundred
miles distant, is twenty-nine thousand feet high, but from Darjeeling is
invisible. Kinchinjinga is nearly twice as high as Mont Blanc, and its
glittering mass is a spectacle never to be forgotten. Curiously enough,
upon the summit of Observatory Hill, from which we gained our view,
the immigrant Tibetans had erected their shrine, and long, inscribed
paper and muslin streamers, enclosing a large quadrangle, gave to the
winds their prayers. No idol was to be seen. The worship seems to be
far more spiritual than that of the Hindus. Nature seems to have
taught that secluded race of Tibetans a more primitive religion than
modern Hinduism. It is a religion mixed with Buddhism, but preserving
the earlier view of a divinity in natural objects, which Hinduism has
almost wholly outgrown.
Our next point of investigation was Benares, "the holy city," the Mecca
and Jerusalem of the Hindus. It is a hotbed of heathen enthusiasm and of
blinded devotion. The sacred river Ganges flows by, with tier upon tier
of temples rising from its steep banks--such a congestion of religious
edifices that one might almost doubt whether they had left room for any
but priests to live. Every day, hundreds of pilgrims troop through its
streets and throng these temples, presenting their flowers and their
offerings, making their sacrifices, and listening submissively to the
instructions and threatenings of the priests. Every temple has its
sacred animals, to be sacrificed or worshiped. The "Golden Temple,"
so-named, is covered with gold-leaf from its spire to its base. The
noisy crowd in its corridors, the noisome odors of its sanctuaries,
the adjurations of its priests and their evident aim to turn religion
into financial gain, disgust the Christian traveler, while they show
him how deeply rooted in the human heart is this towering system of
idolatry and superstition.
But only the water-view of Benares presents Hinduism in its most
characteristic aspect. It is the sacred river that makes sacred the
town. This river is regarded as itself divine, for it had its source in
the mouth of Brahma. Hence it is endowed with life-giving and purifying
powers. It is bordered for a full mile by a grand succession of palaces
and temples, of bathing ghats and of burning ghats. Here the Hindu,
often after long pilgrimage, washes away his defilement and prepares
himself to die. When death actually comes, his relatives wash his body
in the holy stream. But the bathing ghat only makes ready for the
burning ghat. These burning ghats are castle-like edifices, from which
the smoke of burning flesh ascends continually. Cremation, with the
Hindu, takes the place of burial. The ashes are collected and are
preserved in a tomb. To die in Benares, and to have a temple for a tomb,
is the surest passport to happiness in a future state, since the
transmigration of souls into higher or lower forms is an essential
doctrine of modern Hinduism.
A wealthy resident of Benares courteously offered us the use of his
observation-boat to view the scene upon the river in the early morning.
This river-craft was a double-decker, propelled by oars from the lower
deck. From the upper platform, one could overlook the ceremonial
washings of hundreds of pilgrims. Stalwart men plunged themselves three
times into the stream, looked toward the sun, joined their hands, spoke
a prayer, rinsed their sacred cord, cleansed their raiment, and then,
reclad, went to the priest on his platform, to be smeared with ashes on
the forehead and marked with a little colored dot, as a certificate that
they had correctly performed their vow. Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, had
each his worshipers and his priests, to give the appropriate mark. The
"holy man" was there, either upon his bed of spikes or in an attitude
which suggested torture, and ready to receive the homage, and the money
as well, of his benighted admirers. Mothers were present, immersing not
only themselves but also their children. All the bathers must drink of
the muddy and fetid water, for purification internal is as needful as
purification external. And so, hundreds of worshipers every day, and on
special feast-days thousands, drink this water of the "sacred Ganges,"
foul with the stains of disease and reeking with the sweat of the dead.
It is no wonder that the burning ghats have no lack of business, and no
wonder that medical experts have traced epidemics of cholera, smallpox,
and plague, in Western lands, to this city of Benares, where "Satan's
seat is." The throne of the great adversary, however, seems to be built
on very insufficient foundations, for not a few of the temples which
line the steep banks of the river have toppled over, or have sunk into
the yielding sand. Their massive fragments, at the base of long
stairways of stone, show how hideous is the ruin of any system of
religion which is not founded upon Christ, the Rock.
VII
LUCKNOW, AGRA, AND DELHI
At last we are on Mohammedan ground--at least on ground where
Mohammedanism has a powerful, and perhaps a controlling, influence. This
northwest part of India was the scene of Moslem conquest in the ninth
century. Mohammedans have always proudly contemned idolatry, and they
have often been iconoclasts, as many headless Hindu images can witness.
Northwest India saw the rise and the strength of the great mutiny of
half a century ago, but it was Moslem rajas and faithful Moslem troops
who helped to put it down.
Mohammedan faith in the unity and personality of God might at first
sight seem to render its adherents more accessible than are Hindus to
the gospel of Christ. As a matter of fact, however, the very elements of
truth in their belief make them too often stout opponents of
Christianity. They are religious bigots, as the Hindus are not. The
Hindu has a pantheon to which he can, with some show of consistency,
invite Christ. The Mohammedan declares that there is but one God, and
that Mohammed is his prophet. So he denies Christ's claim to be either
God or Saviour.
Lucknow was deeply interesting, for here was exhibited one of the most
heroic and thrilling defenses ever made in history. More than two
hundred women and children spent three months of agony in the cellars
of the British residency, while husbands and fathers and friends, to the
number of seventeen hundred, were exposed to the besieging force and the
murderous fire of fifty thousand mutineers. The headquarters of the
defenders were riddled with shot and shell, and the residency is now a
ruin. But only one shot penetrated the retreat of the women and children
below, and of these only one woman lost her life. Crowded together in
the heat of the summer, tormented by flies, half famished for lack of
food, these brave women held out themselves and encouraged the
protecting garrison, though of the seventeen hundred men only seven
hundred at the end of the siege remained alive. Sir Henry Lawrence died
of a cannon-shot, exhorting his soldiers to the last man to die, rather
than to surrender. We were glad to pay reverence to his bravery, by a
visit to his tomb. Although he died, the flag of England flew over the
fortress, in spite of innumerable efforts of the enemy to bring it down.
And to-day, in memory of that fact, it is the only flag in the British
Empire that is not lowered at sunset. The joy of the defenders and of
those whom they defended may be imagined, when General Havelock appeared
in their relief, and the great mutiny was suppressed. That victory
settled the prestige of the English in India. All classes now recognize
the military strength as well as the judicial fairness of British rule.
Without it, India would be a country of warring races, for Mohammedan
and Hindu even to-day live in slumbering jealousy of each other.
This latent hostility, I am happy to say, shows some signs of wearing
away. The desire for more of home-rule is bringing these two great races
together in conventions, with a view to the discovery of some method of
cooperation between them. Parliamentary government in China and Japan
has had its effect in India, and Britain will soon be compelled to admit
her Indian populations to a larger share in municipal and provincial
administration. But democracy can be successful, only when conflicting
classes find some basis for harmony. English missionary and educational
institutions are doing much to reconcile Hindus and Mohammedans to one
another, and this may prepare the way, not simply for free government,
but also for the acceptance by both parties of a religion in which all
their elements of truth are included, while their perversions of truth
are sloughed off.
By English educational and missionary institutions I mean much more than
Church of England schools and colleges. In Lucknow we visited the
Isabella Thoburn College, under American Methodist control, and were
greatly impressed by its noble equipment in the way of buildings and
teachers. Both boys and girls have here the opportunity of securing an
education as high in grade as the sophomore years of our American
colleges, and of preparing themselves for the advanced work of a great
Indian university. All this is under Christian influences, and has its
fruit in many a conversion to Christ. Martinière College is also nobly
equipped and endowed, but it is solely for English boys, who are
generally the sons of British officials in India. I cannot speak too
highly of these means of education now furnished by all our great
denominations, in all the cities of India. I could only wish that our
Baptist people at home might see how far Christians of other names have
often surpassed them in their gifts and preparations for the future of a
country whose population is three times as large as our own.
At Lucknow we had the rare opportunity of seeing "the mango trick"
performed by an expert juggler. He first showed us a jar, filled with
innocent sand, so dry that it fell easily through his fingers as he
lifted a handful. Then he presented a dry mango seed, which he planted
in the sand and watered. The jar was placed on the stone pavement of the
hotel, not ten feet away from our eyes. He covered the jar with a little
tent not two feet in diameter. After a few passes of the hand, the tent
was lifted. The seed had already sprouted, and had become a twig with
leaves. Covering the plant once more, he called our attention to a
cobra-charmer, who played harmlessly with a hooded and venomous snake.
At last he threw the tent wholly aside, and there stood a fully
developed little mango tree, perhaps two feet high. It seemed impossible
that the folds of the tent, which had been shaken out at the beginning,
could possibly have held it. The juggler's method was simplicity itself.
If I had not previously seen in America a necromancer cut his wife's
head off, and then put it on again so slick that she seemed to have
received no injury, I might have begun to believe that this Indian
juggler had supernatural powers.
To Lucknow succeeded Agra. The great wonder and prize of Agra is, of
course, the Taj Mahal. So we made our way to it before sunrise, and saw
its exquisite columns and its white minarets in the rosy light of the
earliest morning; then again, as the sun was setting, we saw its last
rays fall upon the snow-white dome. As one looks upon the Taj from the
noble gateway through which one enters the enclosing park, he sees also
its reflection in the long lines of water that lie between, and it seems
a miracle of beauty. But when you reach the edifice itself, and perceive
that its simplicity is combined with lavish richness of decoration,
marble and precious stones being so woven together that they form one
gorgeous and splendid whole, you can only admire the affection that
planned this memorial to a beloved wife, and the art which has succeeded
in constructing an edifice which, after six centuries, is still
recognized as a wonder of the world. Yet the Moslem emperor who built it
was deposed by his son, and then imprisoned not far away, the chief
solace and recreation granted him being this, that from his prison-roof
he could look out upon the Taj Mahal.
The Pearl Mosque and the Jasmine Tower, the Courts of Public and of
Private Audience, in the palace which the Moslem emperor once occupied,
are monuments of architecture so remarkable and so beautiful, that no
description of mine can fairly represent the impression which they made
upon me. They are surrounded and protected by the Fort, an enclosure
half a mile square, whose massive wall is itself a wonder. In the days
when these structures were built, labor was cheap, for the monarch had
only to impress and to feed his laborers. But artistic genius is always
rare. The Mohammedan conquest and sovereignty of the past produced and
encouraged a flowering out of art, comparable to that of the days of
cathedral-building in England, and of the time of Pericles when
sculpture and architecture so flourished in Greece. In all the world
there is nothing more elaborate or beautiful than the perforated marble
of these Oriental screens, and the intricate carving of these Oriental
pillars. The Alhambra in Spain has its superiors in India, both for
splendor of color and for beauty of pattern. The arabesques of these
Oriental mosques exhibit powers of invention of the highest order. It
has been well said that their architects "designed like Titans, and
finished like jewelers." Both the throne of the Mogul Emperor Akbar and
his tomb in Agra are proofs that even the grain of truth in
Mohammedanism can awaken intelligence and enthusiasm in those who
receive it, and that, in the conflict with idol systems, it has power to
conquer the world.
An account of our visit to Delhi may well complete my summary of
Mohammedan influences in India. Delhi was the capital of India long
before Akbar reigned and the lofty tower of the Kutab Minar was built.
But Hindu influence has combined with Mohammedan in leading the British
to restore Delhi to its former position as the center of governmental
authority. Tradition has handed down a prediction that making Delhi its
capital marked the end of each power that asserted itself. Hence there
have been many Delhis, as there have been many ancient Romes, and this
present Delhi must be succeeded by a new Delhi which British authority
and resources will build. The new Delhi will be the ninth, as the
present Delhi is the eighth, of the long series. Ruins of the earlier
Delhis are about it on every side. Now, at last, a great tract of land
has been appropriated for the new seat of government which will rise
from the dust. Temporary buildings have been erected. The permanent ones
will soon follow. We may be sure that they will be splendid and suited
to modern tastes, while they still preserve the characteristic features
of Indian architecture.
By making this new Delhi the British capital of India, it is sought to
impress the Oriental mind with Britain's claims to be supreme, while at
the same time the old traditional prediction is evaded. Let us hope that
the device will accomplish its purpose. The prosperity of India is bound
up with the recognition by all races and parties of England's right to
rule. I would not justify all the steps by which Britain has gained her
power, nor would I ignore certain defects of her later administration.
But there is no question as to the general justice of British rule, nor
as to the fact that, without it, India's warring races and religions
would now be the ruin of all peace and progress. When we remember that
in this land of former famines the population has increased since 1858
by one hundred millions; that forty-six thousand miles of canals have
been dug for irrigation, and more than twenty-two million acres have
thereby been reclaimed; that trade has increased in the last
half-century from three hundred millions to fourteen hundred millions;
that the value of land is now larger by fifteen hundred millions than
it was fifty years ago; that there are now thirty-two thousand miles
of railway in operation and seventy-six thousand miles of telegraph;
that the Indian Post Office now handles nine hundred millions of
letters, newspapers, and other matter every year; we may well doubt
whether any conquest of history has brought about so great or so
beneficent results as have followed what we must regard as England's
commercial absorption of India.
There are doubtless seditious and anarchistic elements in the Indian
populations which need to be kept under and subdued. Let us remember
that only one-tenth part of the men, and only one-hundredth part of the
women, know how to read. There is a vast proletarian mass, ignorant and
inflammable, ready to follow leaders of better education, but less
principle, than themselves. This mass the British Government has failed
to educate, so that, while ninety per cent of the people in Japan can
read, in India only one-tenth as many can read. One of the greatest
mistakes of English administration has been its beginning of education
at the top, instead of at the bottom. It has established universities,
but not elementary schools. The excuse, of course, has been, that
differences of caste and of religion have made it impossible to put
Hindu children and Mohammedan children, Brahman children and Sudra
children, together, in the same schools. And yet, in the universities,
pupils of all these various classes sit side by side, and some plan, it
would seem, might have been devised to apply the same rule, so as to
secure universal and compulsory elementary education. The higher
education, taken alone, has its dangers; it is sought only by people of
means and intelligence; many seek it from no love of learning, but only
in order to prepare themselves for government offices. But there are not
enough offices to go round. The disappointed men will not work with
their hands; they find their avocation in the plotting of sedition. It
is the high-caste educated Brahmans who have edited the malcontent
periodicals, and have organized the revolutionary conspiracies, which
have of late bred so much trouble for the government in India. I rejoice
therefore in the rise of factories, and in the new emphasis that is
being laid on industrial education. These will do much to develop the
resources of India. But what is most needed is the spirit of peace and
justice; this is furnished by the gospel of Christ. I therefore believe
that the gospel is the only real guaranty to India of its political as
well as its religious welfare.
The Friday prayer-service in the great mosque of Delhi was a striking
spectacle. The open court in front of the mosque is four hundred and
fifty feet square, surrounded by a cloister, and paved with granite
inlaid with marble. Three or four thousand worshipers, in parallel rows,
stretched from side to side of the great enclosure. At the summons of
the mollah, or officiating priest, all these worshipers, in perfect
unison, prostrated themselves with folded hands, and repeated in a loud
voice, "God is great." Each devotee had previously purified himself, by
cleansing his mouth and hands and feet in the open tank in the center of
the great esplanade. Inasmuch as the Delhi mosque is the largest and
most splendid east of Cairo, the entire spectacle was most impressive.
If Turkey had not joined a Christian power by her alliance with Germany,
Mohammedans throughout the world might have taken Germany's side against
the Allies, and might have threatened the peace of India. That danger is
now providentially averted. The Moslem rulers have held fast to their
allegiance to the British Crown. This city of Delhi, with the schools of
the Methodists, the Anglicans, and the English Baptists, is permeated
with religious influences that attract its native populations, and these
influences are continually lessening the prospect of any future
rebellion such as the mutiny of fifty years ago.
VIII
JAIPUR, MT. ABU, AND AHMEDABAD
India, as is well known, is a part of the British Empire, and is under
the sway of the British Government. Yet, for administrative purposes, it
is divided into presidencies, provinces, and native states. The
presidencies and provinces are wholly administered by British officials.
The native states are administered by rajas and other Indian rulers,
with the presence in each capital of a resident officer who represents
the British Government and who is accessible for consultation in case of
necessity. The relations between the rajas and the residents are
friendly, and only the gravest matters are referred to the
representative of the Crown. All other affairs are cared for by the
native ruler, who is attended by a distinguished suite and who maintains
quite a royal court. This species of self-government is the reward,
granted by the British Government after the mutiny of 1857, to the
rulers of the native states, who remained faithful to British interests
and assisted in the suppression of the great rebellion. The government
of these native rulers is in general worthy of praise. Many of them are
progressive men; they have traveled abroad; they have been affected by
Western thought; they have introduced modern reforms and systems of
education, to the great benefit of their subjects. In this present hour
of crisis, the majority of them have been loyal to the British
Government, and have contributed men and means for the cause of the
Allies. It was interesting in our journey across India to traverse
several of these native states; and it was difficult to observe any
difference between these sections and the portions of the empire
officered solely by the British. We saw no British soldiers, but only
native troops. There was less of English language and custom prevalent.
The Hindu, Mohammedan, and Jain seemed to have things very much to
themselves. They, after all, are the real India, the hereditary India,
while at the same time they are feeling the influence of modern railways
and modern commerce.
Jaipur, which is the capital of a native state, was especially
interesting. It has been called "The Pink City," either because the
maharaja owns all the property on the business streets and himself sees
that every building is painted of a pink color, or because he compels
every private owner to conform to his fixed rules of construction and
decoration. At any rate, the wide streets of Jaipur are laid out like
those of the homeland, and are lined with pink structures of only one
type of architecture and only one type of ornamentation. Even Paris can
present no better illustration of the value of supervision in building.
There are no sky-scrapers. There are long rows of shops and residences,
with arcades in front of them, and with many variations in plan and
decoration, while at the same time one tone of pink, together with the
sky-line and the arcade-line is preserved without important change; the
Oriental type of building is preserved; and there is a uniform style of
architecture from one end of the street to the other. No city in the
world so well illustrates Mrs. Humphrey Ward's quotation of the poet's
words,
A rose-red city, half as old as Time.
It is not the city of Jaipur, however, which merits our chief attention,
though the maharaja's town-palace and his quaint astronomical
observatory are both of them deeply interesting. This observatory has no
tower and no telescope. It shows what can be done by sun-dials and
structures almost level with the ground to mark the movements of the
heavenly bodies, and thus demonstrates that primitive stargazers might
even thus early acquire a very considerable knowledge of astronomy. The
scientific and literary tastes of this Oriental monarch are also
indicated by a noble public library of his own foundation, which
contains a priceless collection of books and manuscripts in all the
languages of the East.
But it is Amber that constitutes the chief attraction of a visit to
Jaipur. Amber is the original metropolis and the ancient seat of
government, five miles distant from the present Jaipur, and even now the
summer residence of the maharaja, though the old city which once lay
around the rocky fortress has become a waste of ruin. The palace at
Amber is situated on a hilltop several hundred feet above the level of
the plain, and commanding magnificent views of the surrounding
country. Next to the sight of river or sea from a mountain summit, the
view of broad and level plains stretching far away is most beautiful,
and such a view the Indian ruler secured when he built his summer
residence upon this eminence.
We came expecting to find India hot, but we have found the northern part
of India very cool. So it was reviving and refreshing to take the drive
from Jaipur to Amber in an automobile, over a noble roadway with
slightly ascending grade and skirting an originally splendid palace,
once in the center of an island, but now in the bed of a dried-up lake.
When we left the motor-car at the final lofty hill, the deserted city of
Amber towered above us. How should we reach that threatening height?
Three gorgeously caparisoned elephants solicited our patronage for the
ascent. But before making that ascent, there was another ascent to make.
We had to ascend the elephants. Ladders were brought to our assistance,
and up the ladders we climbed to the howdah, or square seat on the top
of the bulky beasts. Each elephant had to carry two passengers. I, on
one side of the animal that bore me, had my weight balanced by that of
my courier, who rode on the other side. Each of us was compelled to let
his legs dangle over the edge of the howdah. All went well until the
elephant came to the narrow part of the road. There he evinced a vicious
propensity to plant his feet close to the edge of the precipice. There
was indeed a railing beneath me, but, clinging as I was somewhat
convulsively to my slippery seat, the railing was invisible. So I seemed
to myself at times to be hanging over the abyss. If I slipped from my
seat, I might fall four hundred feet. It was not a pleasing situation.
But the elephant knew his business. He trod the path in perfect
confidence. And so, in royal state, though in mind tremendously afloat,
we made the long and steep climb, until we reached the palace of the
king. The maharaja, however, was not at home that day to receive us. He
is a Hindu devotee, and at the time of our visit he was making a
pilgrimage to Benares, the sacred city. The first thing we saw, when we
entered the court of his excellency, was the spot where every morning a
bullock or a goat is sacrificed as an offering to his heathen god.
Still, "every prospect pleases." The views of mountain and plain from
this elevation among the hills are so beautiful that one can only admire
the taste of the prince who made this his chosen dwelling-place. And the
palace itself is a fascinating study in art and architecture. Long
corridors are turned into cloisters arched and shaded from the sun.
Tanks of water, with fountains playing in the center, provide refreshing
baths. Halls of public and of private audience are gorgeous with crimson
and gold. Temples for worship are added, both for daily devotion and for
great state occasions. In short, here are all the appurtenances of an
Oriental court, combined with private luxury and seclusion. While the
multitudes must toil and suffer in the plains below, the maharaja may
rest and enjoy himself in his hilltop palace. I would not, however,
imply that this particular monarch is not in many respects a
large-minded and liberal man. The many evidences of his taste and public
spirit in Jaipur rectify any wrong impressions one might gain from a
visit to Amber.
The next day we reached a station called Abu Road, four hundred miles
to the south of Delhi, and about half-way to Bombay. True to its name,
Abu Road furnished us the road to Abu Mountain. Again we proceeded by
motor-car, that great annihilator of distance in a foreign land. This
road, in its gradual ascent, is a noble piece of engineering. It is
exceedingly tortuous, for it follows the contour of the mountain in
marvelously skilful curves. All the way for two hours, and covering an
ascent of four thousand five hundred feet, there are enchanting views.
Tropical birds and trees were on every hand, together with cactus of
many varieties; green and red parrots screamed through the air; peacocks
spread themselves in the sun; and monkeys scampered across our path.
One of the spurs of Mt. Abu is called Dilwarra. It is the seat of the
chief temple in India of the Jains, that Hindu sect which claims to have
preserved the ancient religion of the Vedas, and to have kept it true to
the ancestral faith. As I have before remarked, the Jains aim to escape
the possible miseries of transmigration, and to attain the bliss of
Nirvana, even in the present life. Jainism, like every other heathen
system, is an effort to earn salvation by labors and sacrifices of
one's own. Its works of righteousness, however, are often uncalled-for
exaggerations of natural virtues, such as counting sacred all forms of
animal and vegetable life. The most devoted of the sect wear a cloth
over their mouths, lest they should destroy an insect by swallowing
it. To found hospitals for the care of parrots and monkeys is one of
the most approved works of merit. So also it is a work of merit to
build a temple or to endow it. Jain temples are full of images, and
the chief object of worship is honored by their multiplication. Buddha
is recognized as one of the divine incarnations, and in some sense
Buddha is worshiped. But it must be remembered that even in Jainism
Buddha is only a memory. He has entered into Nirvana, and has passed
out of conscious existence. Now that he has attained that state of
passivity, he has no eye to pity and no arm to save. And yet in this
Jain temple images of Buddha are worshiped, and these images are
numbered by the hundreds.
All this aberration from the truth does not prevent the temple from
being almost a miracle of art. There is a scrupulous cleanliness about
it which differences it from other heathen temples, like that of Kali.
In the Jain temples there are no animal sacrifices, for all animal
life is sacred. But there are little houses for feeding the birds;
larger houses for feeding the beasts; and tombs for departed saints
and teachers. And let it be specially borne in mind that in all the
world there are no more splendid examples of arches, domes, and
shrines, decorated with elaborate and intricate carvings, than are
found here in Dilwarra. Its arabesques of perforated white marble an
inch and a half thick are like lace-work in their delicacy and beauty.
Invention could go no farther in devising an infinite variety of
geometric traceries. We in the West have much to learn from the
artistic genius and labor of the East.
Another day's ride, or rather, another night's ride, brought us to a
city of a very different sort from Jaipur, and to a very different
environment from that of Mt. Abu. It brought us to the busy metropolis
of Ahmedabad. Here is also a city in a state under a native ruler, but a
city so prosperous that native rule is seen to be by no means slovenly
or indolent. On the way from the station I counted eighteen lofty
chimneys belonging to manufacturing establishments. There are eighty
factories in this busy center, chiefly connected with the cotton
industry. In this industrial expansion is revealed the solution of many
of India's financial problems. The population is now too exclusively
employed in agriculture, and its manufactured articles are imported. But
the rains are so uncertain that the farmer's subsistence is precarious,
and famines claim thousands of victims. Hence, next to Christianity,
India needs industrial development. This has been the view of recent
British governors. Better methods of irrigation and of cultivation have
been supplemented by the introduction of new instruments of manufacture.
Both English and American machines now do much of the work that was
formerly done by hand, and in the cities there is growing up a new
manufacturing population.
Industrial missions are a great blessing to India, and our religious
denominations have shown their practical sense by entering upon this
sort of work. When a native becomes a convert to Christianity, he is
often thrown out of caste by his family, and out of labor by his
employers. He must support himself; he must find something to do. But he
is friendless and helpless, unless he can find friendship and help in
the mission where he has been converted. It is necessary to secure
employment for him, if he is not to become an encumbrance to the
mission and to himself. Hence I welcome all gifts for industrial
missions that will teach men new methods of obtaining a livelihood.
India, as I have said, has a vast agricultural population, now scantily
subsisting and subject to occasional famines. Multitudes who are now
idle might be usefully employed. The change now going on in our Southern
States might well go on in Southern India, and I welcome the sight of
the factory chimneys of Ahmedabad.
Ahmedabad is not yet converted to Christianity. It is a celebrated
stronghold of Jainism, and here is another most splendid temple. It
was instructive to see the little houses on poles for the care of
birds, and for the feeding of lazy monkeys, while the poor and sick of
human kind in the neighborhood begged in vain for help. The Jain
temples are noted in all India for their beauty. Carving and gilding
can go no farther than they have gone in the decoration of this shrine
in Ahmedabad. But the troop of monkeys that came to us in the park to
be fed, seemed to us quite as sensitive to human needs as were the
holy men who sat about that temple of the Jains, for these latter
devotees use God's gifts not rationally, but for inferior ends, and
especially for their own interest and comfort. Ahmedabad is an
example, not of the worst, but still of a misplaced, religious zeal
that has lost its bearings because it has lost its God.
IX
BOMBAY, KEDGAON, AND MADRAS
Bombay is a great city, the second, in population, of the British Empire
in India. While Calcutta has over a million people, Bombay comes only a
few short of that number. Its commerce is immense; its public buildings
are fashioned after European models; its streets are broad and finely
paved; there is every evidence of wealth and cultivation. But Hindus
greatly outnumber Mohammedans; Parsees are strong; Christians are
active, but still comparatively few. In thought and customs, Bombay is
still essentially Oriental, while yet profoundly influenced by modern
newspapers and modern inventions. It was a memorable change for us
travelers to emerge from its Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, and then to find
ourselves, first in its Caves of Elephanta, and secondly, in its
Towers of Silence.
A word of explanation is necessary for each of these notable objects of
interest. Elephanta is a little island eight miles from Bombay, and so
named because of its general resemblance in shape to an elephant.
Elephanta Island forms a beautiful object as seen from the deck of the
little steamer that serves for a ferry, and the views from the summit of
Elephanta Hill, over the Bombay Bay, with the gleaming towers of the
green city in the distance, are very charming. The island is a great
resort, however, not so much for the views therefrom, as because it is
the seat of a rock-hewn temple excavated centuries ago in honor of Siva,
the Hindu god, whose province it is to destroy. Brahma is the Creator;
Vishnu, the Preserver; and Siva, the Destroyer. Siva was the god of
reproduction, however, as well as the god who destroys, and his worship
has been often connected with obscene and lascivious rites.
The approach to Siva's temple is through a lovely garden, in which are
many splendid specimens of tropical vegetation. At last there appears to
the visitor, in the side of the precipitous hill, a massive portico,
with four immense pillars, all hewn out of the solid rock. Then come
long rows of similar columns leading darkly like a cathedral nave into
the stony hill, and terminating at the altar, above which towers the
statue of Siva, colossal in size, with Parvati, his goddess wife, by his
side, and all the emblems of his authority, as scepter and sword, around
him. The statue seems to express the joy of sovereignty, and, though
somewhat mutilated, it is noticeably free from the immoral suggestions
which have been intimated in many descriptions of it. Entrance to the
statue is flanked by great guardian statues, and the whole chancel, so
to speak, is enclosed by a broad and lofty corridor, in the manner of
cathedral architecture. From this corridor on either side, many nooks in
the rock have been excavated, like chantry chapels, each with its
separate statue at least twenty feet in height. The whole Hindu
pantheon, seems to be represented by carved figures, but all cluster
about the god Siva. The really characteristic and indispensable feature
of these caves is, however, still to be mentioned. It is the image of
the lingam, or phallus, gigantic in size, and carven out of solid stone,
in the innermost shrine, where it is the object of hysterical or lustful
worship. Every year, on an appointed feast-day, three or four thousand
people throng to this shrine, some to pray for offspring, others to seek
license for illicit pleasure. Elephanta has become in this way the
symbol and propagator of a debasing superstition. Such worship is only a
deification of the lower instincts of human nature.
Returning to Bombay, it was natural to think of the Towers of Silence,
for these too are located on a lovely eminence, called the Malabar Hill,
and overlooking the city and the bay. These towers are enclosures in
which the Parsees, a most intelligent, wealthy, and influential sect,
dispose of the bodies of their dead, by laying the forms in the open air
where they can be devoured by vultures. The towers themselves are at
least half a dozen in number, and they vary in size. But the style of
their construction is uniform. Inside of a lofty circular wall are
concentric beds of stone, each with its groove in which a corpse can be
laid. There are three concentric circles, the outermost for men, the
next inner for women, the innermost for children. The structure has no
roof, but is open to the air. Great flocks of vultures perch upon the
top of the outermost enclosing wall, waiting in silence and expectation
for the time when they can descend upon their prey. Only a half-hour
elapses after a body is laid on its stony bed, before these ravenous
birds have torn every morsel of flesh from its bones. The skeleton is
then left to disintegrate by the action of the elements, until the rains
wash the remaining dust into a great pit at the center of the circles,
from which receptacle the refuse is conducted away by drains during the
rainy season, to mingle with the surrounding earth.
This is the Parsees' "ashes to ashes, dust to dust." They glory in this
method of disposing of their dead, and they think it far more natural
and impressive than the common Hindu method of cremation. We must grant
that all methods of disposing of the dead are painful. But faith in a
resurrection of the body is surely most in consonance with our
time-honored custom of laying our dead away in their kindred earth,
"until the day dawns, and the shadows flee away."
From Bombay to the town of Kedgaon may seem to some a descent from great
to small. Not so; it is rather an ascent from the false to the true,
from the impure to the pure, from the illusory to the real. For Kedgaon
is the home, and center of the work, of Pundita Ramabai, perhaps the
most learned, and certainly the most influential Christian woman in
India. The very name pundita is given only to those of high intellectual
attainments. A Hindu of the highest, that is the Brahman, caste, she was
many years ago converted to Christianity, and she has devoted all her
powers to the education and uplifting of her countrywomen. Her father
was a great Sanskrit scholar. He was one of the first in India to
determine that his daughter should be a learned woman. Accordingly she
was thoroughly instructed. She knew by heart the sacred scriptures of
her people long before she became a Christian. She could repeat from
memory an amount of them equal to that of our whole English Bible. It is
especially the improvement of the condition of women, and particularly
of child-widows, to which she has devoted her attention. The condition
of the child-widow in India is most pitiable. She is held responsible
for the death of her husband, no matter how young she may be. She is
subjected to indignities. Her hair is entirely shaven from her head. Her
jewels are taken from her. Her bright clothing is taken away, and she is
clad in the coarsest garments. She becomes the slave of the family;
virtually an outcast; frequently a prostitute. She can never remarry, no
matter how young she may be at the beginning of her widowhood.
It was to ameliorate this condition of affairs that Pundita Ramabai set
herself many years ago. She gathered child-widows under her protection,
surrounded them with Christian influences, and gave them a Christian
education. A time of famine threw upon her care in one year twenty-four
hundred girls, who depended upon her alone for food to keep them from
starving. That time of great distress is now past, but when we remember
that in India there are estimated to be as many as two millions of
child-widows, it will be clear that the need of a refuge for such is
still immensely great. Girls of the highest caste are in the greatest
need, for among the lower classes the reproach of child-widowhood is not
so strongly felt. It was the sorrows of girls belonging to her own
Brahman caste, married perhaps at the age of eight or ten to husbands
five times their own age, and then made practically outcasts by those
husbands' death, that most touched the heart of Ramabai. It is wonderful
what she has already accomplished. We found on her extensive premises a
great assembly-room which has sheltered at one time twenty-six hundred
auditors; schools of every grade for Hindu girls, including a school for
the blind; a large and commodious hospital; a printing office with
presses capable of turning out a high order of typography; an asylum for
lepers; a rescue-home for unfortunate girls; normal classes for teachers
and for nurses; training in sewing, embroidery, and weaving; and many
another sort of Christian service, including the work of the factory and
the farm. Every species of cooking on the premises, and all the care of
the rooms and houses, is done by the girls themselves, so that all of
them are taught how to support themselves when they leave the
institution. Three hours a day for industrial work, and three hours a
day for schooling, is the uniform rule. One can imagine the far-reaching
influence of this institution, if he remembers that out of the
twenty-four hundred scholars who were received and taught in that
dreadful time of famine, more than fifteen hundred were child-widows and
many of them of the highest caste.
Ramabai is a great scholar. She has translated and printed the whole New
Testament, in the colloquial Mahrati dialect, for the benefit of the
poor women in her district. She is now engaged upon the Psalms and the
book of Genesis, with the hope of finishing the whole Old Testament.
Numberless tracts of her composition have gone out into all parts of
India. Her graduates become not only teachers, but also evangelists. No
one can measure the extent of her present influence, as showing what a
native woman in India can do, in the way of breaking down caste,
overthrowing pernicious customs, and demonstrating to a benighted
heathen world the superior claims of Christian truth. We left Ramabai,
invoking a blessing upon her head and upon Manorama, her daughter, who
bids fair to prove her worthy successor. Ramabai, by her intellectual
gifts, her executive ability, and above all by her Christian devotion,
deserves honor from all lovers of Christ and his gospel.
As we neared Madras, the third largest city of India, the heat began to
oppress us. Up to this time India had been unexpectedly and refreshingly
cool, at night even cold. But now it was unpleasantly warm. The heat
reminded us of the conundrum: "Why is India, although so hot, the
coldest country on the globe?" Answer: "Because the hottest thing in it
is chilly" ("chili" is the peppery sauce which the natives mix with
other spices to form "curry"). We have learned to like curry. I cannot
understand it; but if seems as if the hottest countries needed the
hottest kinds of food. At any rate we had a warm welcome in Madras,
thirteen degrees in latitude above the equator. We were fortunate in
reaching this fine city during the session of all our Baptist
missionaries in the South India, or Telugu, field--that field which a
few years ago witnessed the baptism of 2,222 converts in one day. It
was a remarkable illustration of the family and tribal spirit in
India. We Baptists believe in individual conversions, and we seek
evidence, in every case, of regeneration by the Holy Spirit. But the
coherence of the family and the village is so strong in a heathen
community, that the lot of the individual Christian is often
exceedingly hard. Occasionally there is apostasy. The resistance of an
important man to the gospel makes the persistence of his dependents in
the gospel-way almost impossible.
In some quarters, however, whole families and whole clans have been
blessedly converted, and idolatry has been completely eradicated. In
other cases where mass movements have taken place, certain
missionaries have found it physically impossible to sift out each
doubtful individual, and for safety have demanded that the whole
family or clan or village shall give up idolatry before any single
individual convert has been received for church-membership. To combine
strict faith and practice, according to the New Testament standard,
with a proper respect for local customs and traditions, demands great
wisdom in our missionaries, and makes their conferences very practical
and very necessary. Certain it is that in our Baptist missions abroad
greater care is exercised in receiving members than that to which we
are accustomed in the homeland. The missionary cannot afford to have
false disciples in the flock, if he knows it, for "one sinner
destroyeth much good."
New Year's Day at Madras was full of interest. Lady Pentland, wife of
the governor of the Madras Presidency, invited us to a New Year's
garden-party. An open-air gathering of any sort on the first day of
January would have been a novelty to us, but this one found the
atmosphere so balmy and the vegetation so green, that such a party was
a positive delight. The avenues of approach to the governor's residence
were lined with the body-guard of his excellency, stationed in twos
along the way, and clad in scarlet The reception took place under a
wide-spreading tree, on a spacious lawn. There were as many as a
thousand guests. It was a gay and beautiful scene. Hindu and Moslem,
Parsee and Christian, all met together. It was an exhibition of loyalty
to the British Crown, as well as a proof that just government may yet
weld all India's classes and castes together. Lord Pentland spoke to us
most pleasantly of certain members of his family whom we had met in
America, and Lady Pentland showed herself to be a charming hostess.
But a reception still more charming to us was the reception which the
Rochester men gave us that same New Year's night, at the bungalow of
Doctor Ferguson, close to the Day Memorial Chapel, where the sessions of
the conference were held. At least ten of our graduates sat down to
supper, together with their wives. Subsequently, from adjoining rooms,
other members of the conference came in to the New Year's reception,
which is an annual affair. The United States consul dropped in, with a
few other guests, until the total number could not have been far from
eighty. It was like a family gathering. When I remembered that the
Telugu Mission was once called "The Lone-Star Mission," and was in
danger of being given up, and when I noted that it now numbers one
hundred and sixty-eight churches and a church-membership of more than
seventy thousand, I could but say, "What hath God wrought!"
X
THE TELUGU MISSION
Madras is the greatest city of South India, and ranks next to Calcutta
and Bombay in thrift and importance. Tamil and Telugu are the two
languages of the extensive Madras Presidency, the former prevailing most
to the south, the latter to the north. They are cognate tongues, and
both are derived from the Sanskrit. Our American Congregationalists have
done most for the Tamils; we Baptists have done most for the Telugus.
The Telugus number twenty-six millions. Though Madras is near their
southern border, it is the best starting-point for our description.
Next to our mission in Burma, the Telugu mission has been most blessed
by God. The famine of 1876 was followed by a wonderful revival, in
which a nation seemed to be born in a day. The people accepted Christ
by the thousands, and twenty-two hundred were at one time baptized.
Evangelization has been followed by education. While our organized
Telugu churches number 168, and our church-members 70,000, we have 819
schools of all grades, and 28,781 pupils under instruction. The needs
of the body have been cared for, as well as the needs of the soul, for
there are fourteen hospitals and dispensaries, ministering to 8,067
patients.
In such a mass movement as that among the Telugus, it was inevitable
that the organization of the converts into distinct, self-governing,
self-supporting, and self-propagating churches should be a gradual
process and should require time. The poverty of the people was an
obstacle to self-support. But Christian teaching has made them models of
liberality, and it was touching to see the church-members come forward
at the close of the Sunday morning service with their thank-offerings.
In fact, these Telugu churches, in the support of their native ministry,
are in large measure independent of foreign financial aid. It is certain
that, so long as religion is an exotic, its existence will be
precarious. The plant in the pot needs, for permanence, to become a tree
rooted in the soil. Self-government is as necessary as self-support, and
self-propagation is equally important, if the Christianity of the native
is ever to become indigenous. These aims have been dominant in recent
years, and we have been permitted to witness scenes which demonstrate
the power of God to make multitudes of people, of the lowest class,
intelligent, liberal, and aggressive Christians.
I must take four separate stations as illustrations of my thesis.
Fortunately, all of these stations are now under the administration of
Rochester men, whom I am proud to recognize as my former pupils. But
before I proceed to describe our experiences with them, I must to some
extent repeat what I have said in my last letter about Madras and the
conference there at the house of Doctor Ferguson. Because Madras is the
greatest city of South India, it is the natural source of supplies and
the easiest place of gathering for our Telugu missionaries, even though
most of them live and work much farther to the north. The principle of
home rule requires such gathering, and the missionary at Madras, without
seeking it, naturally becomes a sort of secretary and treasurer and
entertainer of the whole body of Telugu workers. No one could be
better adapted to this position of responsibility than is Doctor
Ferguson. His abounding hospitality and his command of the whole
situation make him sought as a counselor and as a leader. As the older
men, like Clough and Downie, pass away, Doctor Ferguson, by common
consent, forges to the front. The present prosperity and harmony of
the Telugu mission are largely due to his unassuming and welcome
influence. He too is a man whose scholarship and character reflect
honor upon the Rochester Theological Seminary, where he sat under my
instruction twenty-two years ago.
Coming now to our stations north of Madras, I begin with the Theological
Seminary at Ramapatnam, in charge of the Rev. Dr. Jacob Heinrichs. Its
students met us at the entrance of the mission compound, and we passed
under an arch over which were inscribed the words, "Welcome to Dr. and
Mrs. Strong." We had garlands of flowers thrown about our necks, and we
were sprinkled with eau de Cologne. In the large assembly-room of the
seminary, we listened to addresses in excellent English from pupils of
the higher grades, and we made responses in the same language, which
were interpreted to the scholars of the lower classes by the pastor of
the village church. A beautiful casket of carved ivory and pearl was
presented to us, containing engrossed copies of the addresses delivered
by the students. There was singing of hymns, both in English and in
Telugu, by choir and congregation. The beauty of it all was its
spontaneity and naturalness, for the pupils themselves had planned and
executed the whole program.
Instruction in this seminary is largely biblical. Preachers are prepared
for their work by being grounded in the life of Christ and the life of
Paul. The text-books have been written by Doctor Heinrichs himself, and
they are so well adapted to their purpose that they have been
extensively used by seminaries of other denominations than the Baptist.
A native Christian literature has been created for the Telugus,
beginning with the Bible, but now embracing church history, theology,
ethics, and something of modern science. It must not be thought that
the teaching is exclusively religious. Our seminary, and all our
schools of lower grade, are affiliated with the government system of
education, and in all their lower grades are subject to government
inspection. So far as they conform to government standards of
thoroughness, they receive government grants of financial aid. British
India is impartial--aid is also given to Hindu and to Mohammedan
schools. But Christian schools can well stand competition with these
other systems, for the methods of our Christian schools are more
modern and more rational. We left Ramapatnam, convinced that India is
receiving from the work of Doctor Heinrichs an inestimable blessing.
Through a long series of years he has been training preachers and
teachers for this whole Telugu land, and much fruit is appearing in a
new type of New Testament pastors and evangelists.
Ongole, one hundred and eighty-one miles north of Madras, was the scene
of the great revival. Here too we were received most royally. A crowd of
church-members waited for us at the railway station and flocked round
our carriage as we passed to the mission compound. On the way, a company
of Telugu athletes entertained us at intervals by their feats of ground
and lofty tumbling. It was their native way of welcoming distinguished
guests. Dr. James M. Baker has ably succeeded Dr. J. E. Clough in the
work of administering and organizing this important field. The Ongole
church of twelve thousand members, with its connected schools, is enough
to tax the resources of the ablest man. The new Clough Memorial Hospital
had its beginning while we were in Ongole, in the laying of the
corner-stone of a gateway in honor of Dr. S. F. Smith, who wrote, "Shine
on, Lone Star," as well as "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." Mrs. Strong, with
a silver trowel, made its foundation sure, while the English deputy
collector for the district represented the government, and I had the
privilege of making an address to a great mixed audience of Hindus and
Mohammedans as well as Christians.
Our most thrilling experience in connection with Ongole I am yet to
relate. We wished to see the heart of India, as we had seen the heart of
China and the heart of Burma. We could do this only by taking part in
one of Doctor Baker's country tours. Every year he takes advantage of
the favorable weather centering about mid-winter, to spend two solid
months in visiting the villages which throng these fertile plains. With
tent and equipment for cooking, he penetrates these swarming heathen
communities and carries to them the gospel of Christ. It was over some
fearful roads that our two-pony, two-seated buggy enabled us to
accompany him. Government roads are one thing; native roads are quite
another. Sudden descents to fordable streams and sudden ascents to the
opposite banks are succeeded by long stretches of passage through
cultivated fields, where there appears no sign of road at all. At last
we reached the village of Naletur. Under the shadow of a great tree we
found at least a thousand people assembled, sitting on the ground
bordered by a broad fringe of men and women standing on the outside, and
supplemented by a score of half-naked Zaccheus-like hearers perched in
the branches of the trees. Mrs. Baker, awaiting the coming of her
husband and his guests, had been holding this motley audience for two
hours with selections from the gramophone, with illustrated Scripture
lessons and pictures from the Life of Christ, and by calling on her
"band" for "music" with a big drum, castanets, cymbals, and various
other instruments of Indian manipulation. Salvation Army methods have
great influence over a childlike people, and Mrs. Baker would make, in
case of necessity, a first-class Salvation Army lassie. In fact, no act
of missionary humility has struck our eyes as more pathetic and true,
than that of Mrs. Baker, beating a big drum to the time of native music,
in order to hold an audience for the hearing of the gospel. The
amphitheater of dusky faces, massed together and intently listening,
with Christians on one side and heathen on the other, seemed like a
reproduction of the days "when Jesus was here among men," and a
prophecy of the great final Day when our Lord, the Judge, will separate
the sheep from the goats.
That evening we left the grove and entered the village with fife and
drum, attracting auditors, and held a torchlight meeting in the
market-place. There was preaching, and the chanting, in rhythm but not
rhyme, of a versified story of the life of Christ. The missionaries
make much of this sort of Telugu singing. There was the same crowd of
auditors that had met us in the afternoon, but now the intermittent
light of the torches made the scene seem to be flashing rays of
conviction into many a troubled breast, and I wished that some great
painter could immortalize the picture upon canvas, for no one can
understand missions to the heathen without picturing to himself such
preaching.
The next morning, on our way back to Ongole, we visited the famous spot
on the river bank at Vellumpilly where, in 1878, 2,222 believers were
baptized. On Sunday we attended a service of the mission church, where a
native pastor officiated and at least fifteen hundred persons in
addition to the missionaries were present, though several hundreds of
scholars were absent on account of the holiday vacation. And finally, at
the sunset hour on that memorable Sabbath Day, we ascended
Prayer-meeting Hill, where Doctor Jewett, Mrs. Jewett, and two others
met on New Year's Day fifty years ago, looked out over the great
surrounding plain, and prayed the Lord to give them the Telugus, as John
Knox of old prayed, "Give me Scotland, or I die!" In both cases prayer
was answered, and we hope the more recent prayers offered on that
historic spot in January, 1917, will also be answered. The Telugus are
gradually being won, and we ourselves were witnesses to that fact when,
at the village of Naletur, we beheld the baptism of eleven new converts,
nine stalwart young men and two married women.
Kavali is next to be mentioned. Here is a work for the gradual
reformation of criminals and the industrial regeneration of India. In
this land of poverty and famine, our converts, when turned out of house
and home, need new means of earning a livelihood. There is in India a
hereditary criminal class which, like the thugs of a former generation,
make it a sort of religion to prey upon their fellow countrymen. The
British Government has been almost powerless either to subdue or to
reform such offenders. Something more than mere justice is required in
their treatment. The Government is recognizing the value of Christian
education and supervision, and has recently put large tracts of
territory into the hands of the Salvation Army, the Methodists, and the
Baptists, with a view to combining compulsory work and paternal
influence in the reform of the criminal classes. The Rev. Samuel D.
Bawden, at Kavali, has charge of over eight hundred such people, and is
teaching them agriculture and all manner of trades. Mr. Bawden is one of
the graduates of our theological seminary. He was for several years
chaplain of our House of Refuge at Rochester. Physically and mentally he
is a remarkable man, an athlete and almost a giant, a man of science and
a man of faith. It needs all these gifts to dominate and lead toward
Christ eight hundred born thieves. I know of no more self-sacrificing
and Christlike work than that which brother Bawden is doing.
The success of it proves its value. There are no prison walls, though
leaving the community is followed by pursuit and recommittal. There are
no punishments except deprivation of food-wages. Each member of the
community is paid in food, and in proportion to the extent of his labor.
If he will not work, neither can he eat. Opportunities for education are
given to all. There is even a church, made up of converted convicts. The
faithful among these Erukalas, as they are called, are made monitors and
helpers to their weaker fellows. Squads are sent out from five to twenty
miles, to build and repair the roads, with only an unarmed comrade for
overseer. Nothing is given but education and Christian influence.
Everything for the physical man is earned. In this way hundreds of
reformed criminals learn to gain their own living and to lead an honest
life. It was pathetic to receive the welcome of these humble men, and to
see their reverence and affection for their "big father," Mr. Bawden. We
heard them greet him as "our savior." To show their respect for Mr.
Bawden's former theological instructor, these poor men subscribed of
their scanty means and hired a large gasoline street lamp to illuminate
the evening service.
I have reserved to the last my account of our visit to Nellore. Nellore
is last, but not least, for this was our first permanent mission station
in South India. Work was indeed begun at Vizagapatam in 1836, but in
1837 it was moved to Madras, and in 1840 to Nellore, Madras being
reopened in 1878. Nellore is one hundred and seven miles north of
Madras, on the main line of railway, and sixteen miles from the
seacoast. In the Nellore field we have six churches, and a total of
nine hundred and twenty-six members. It is our Baptist schools that
most attract our attention. The Coles-Ackerman High School, in charge
of the Rev. L. C. Smith, has more than eight hundred pupils, and is a
great credit to our denomination. Bible classes and special preaching
services for students are conducted with enthusiasm by our young
missionaries, Smith and Manley, and they bring good results. There are
also in Nellore a high school for girls, a hospital for women, and a
nurses' training-school, all under the direction of our Woman's
Society. In these schools, Miss Tencate and Miss Carman are
representatives of Rochester.
The general work of the mission is presided over by the Rev. Charles
Rutherford, one of my former pupils and graduates. Mr. Rutherford is the
young and able successor of Dr. David Downie, a much older Rochester
man, and one of the pioneers and leaders of the Telugu Mission. He
graduated from Rochester in 1872, the year in which I began my work as
president of the seminary. I cannot easily express my gratification at
finding him in South India to welcome me, and to accompany me during a
large part of my stay on this field. Few men have so noble a record.
Though he retired from active service ten years ago, and is now devoting
himself to writing the history of the mission, he is still vigorous in
mind and heart, and to meet him is to come in contact with "an
incarnation"--an incarnation of the missionary spirit. He has seen "the
little one" become not only "a thousand," but well nigh a hundred
thousand. His faith is great, that this whole Telugu Land will bow to
Christ's scepter. Long may he live, to bless India and the world!
XI
THE DRAVIDIAN TEMPLES
The Dravidians are supposed by most ethnologists to have been the
aborigines of India. When they were subdued by the Aryans from the
north, they were crowded southward and were compelled to serve their
conquerors. This subjugation was the origin of caste; the weaker became
hewers of wood and drawers of water for the stronger. The Brahman would
have no social intercourse with the Sudra, and thought even his touch a
profanation. For the Brahman represented Brahma, was in fact Brahma
incarnate, while the Sudra was a manifestation of deity in inferior
clay. Yet the Brahman needed the Sudra, and had to propitiate him in
order to use him. So the Aryan absorbed into his own system some of the
Dravidian gods, and usually did so by marrying to Dravidian female
divinities male deities of his own. Siva, the Aryan god, for example,
took for his wife the Dravidian goddess Kali. In many ways like this,
the Aryan and the Dravidian united to form the Hindu. The Hindu religion
is a composite--a corruption of the nature-worship of the earlier Vedas
by its union with the more cruel and debasing features of the Dravidian
idolatry. The renowned temples of Southern India best represent this
mongrel form of Hinduism, and show Hinduism in its most corrupt
development under Dravidian influences.
The massiveness and vastness of these temples demonstrate the power of
the religious instinct in man, even when that instinct is most
perverted. With all their grossness and crudity, these shrines reveal a
wealth of imagination and an artistic inventiveness, which furnish
object-lessons to the most cultivated Occidental mind. We wonder what
the East could really have accomplished, if its native gifts had been
under the control of Christian truth. Unfortunately, those gifts were
commonly under the control of the baser instincts. Paul's philosophy of
heathenism is far more correct than that of many a modern writer on
comparative religion. Only an ancestral sin can explain man's universal
ignorance and depravity. Because he would not retain God in his
knowledge, he was given up to the dominion of vile affections, to show
him his need of a divine redemption.
Tanjore and Madura are the seats of the Dravidian temples which we
visited. Tanjore is two hundred miles south of Madras, and fifty miles
from the Bay of Bengal. It is in the Presidency of Madras, but European
influences have not greatly changed its prevailingly native aspect. The
half-naked coolies, and the children clothed only in sunshine, show how
inveterate are custom and poverty. The great Tanjore temple is the
center of worship for a hundred miles round. It is built on a stupendous
scale. It consists of a series of courts, in the midst of which are two
tremendous towers or gopuras, as the technical term should be. Its
principal tower, is pyramidal in form, is two hundred feet in height, is
covered with row after row of colossal carvings of gods and goddesses,
and is surmounted by an immense dome-shaped and gilded top of solid
stone, said to have been brought to its place upon an inclined plane
from the quarry four miles away. The gateway leading to the temple is
itself an enormous structure. It opens upon a court eight hundred feet
long by four hundred feet wide, the walls of which enclose an endless
succession of little chapels, each one of which has at its back a rude
picture of some incarnation of Vishnu or Krishna, and in front of each
picture there stands erect an image in stone of the lingam or phallus.
A great platform, in the center of the court, houses, beneath a gorgeous
canopy, an immense black granite image of a bull, the favorite animal of
Siva, carved out of a single block sixteen feet long and twelve feet
high, and kept perpetually shining by anointings of holy oil. The
imagination of the worshiper is thus excited by successive statues and
pictures, until at last he reaches the tremendous pyramidal tower, or
gopura, which portrays and symbolizes the power of the heathen god to
destroy and to recreate. That massive tower, superimposed above the idol
and forming its magnificent abiding-place, has no superior in all India
for grandeur. Mr. Fergusson, the distinguished writer on architecture,
calls it the most beautiful and effective of all the towers found in
Dravidian temples. The sculptures in the long and dimly lighted
corridors at the base of the temple, and in the first tiers of the
tower, are wonderfully realistic representations of a sensual and
ferocious deity. But, as you stand in the court, and look up the sides
of the tower to the gilded pinnacle on its dome, you discover that all
the upper rows of gods and demons are of stucco. Money evidently gave
out, as the structure rose, and plaster took the place of stone.
The appurtenances of the temple are tawdry and childish. Huge cars, in
which images of the gods are carried about at times of festival, stand
in the courtyard. Each car has its bejeweled beast for the god or
goddess to ride--a wooden elephant, a wooden bull, a wooden rat--each
with trappings of many-colored glass, to imitate rubies and diamonds,
and each with its escort of dusky priests, not forgetting to follow the
foreign visitor and hold out their hands for alms. Yet in these
corridors there were prostrated many absorbed and eager worshipers,
seeking protection or aid from a deity more demonlike than divine. One's
heart grew sick as he realized that, still in these latter days,
The heathen in his blindness
Bows down to wood and stone,
and worships in a temple which exhibits in its halls a hundred immense
images of the male organ of generation.
It was a relief to be conducted by a clergyman of the Anglican faith to
the church where lie buried the remains of Schwartz, the first English
missionary to India. It must have required great gifts of mind and heart
and will to brave Hindu opposition, to win the affection and support of
a raja, and to lay the foundations of a Christian community in this
heathen land. Schwartz was a Prussian by birth, though he went out as a
missionary of a Danish society. He gave his life and his fortune to the
cause of missions, and the English work in Tanjore is even now largely
supported by the endowments which he left behind him when he died. Our
good friend Doctor Blake, the English clergyman, took us to the palace
of the princess of Tanjore, also to the raja's library of Oriental
manuscripts within the palace--a priceless collection of eighteen
thousand Sanskrit manuscripts, of which eight thousand are written on
palm-leaves. This library is unique in all India; and it shows that a
raja in Tanjore, in his love for literature, could equal the raja of
Jaipur, in his love for astronomy. The desire for learning was a passion
that survived the fall, an evidence of the presence in humanity of the
preincarnate Christ, "the Light that lighteth every man."
Madura is a hundred miles farther south than Tanjore. It is really the
center of Dravidian worship. While some features of the Tanjore temple
are more beautiful, the temple at Madura is more vast. Five great
pyramidal towers, four of them on the points of the compass, meet the
eye as one looks upon the temple from a distance. The temple is built
about two great shrines or cells, one for the god Siva and the other for
his goddess wife Minakshi, each cell surmounted by a noble dome of
plated gold. On the four sides of the temple are stone porches, arcades,
and pillared halls of great variety, filled with elaborate and grotesque
carvings and sculptures. The extent of the structure may be judged from
the simple statement that the outer walls, twenty-five feet high,
surround a space eight hundred and thirty by seven hundred and thirty
feet, and are surmounted by four lofty gate-pyramids, each of them ten
stories in height. The portico roof of Minakshi's Hall is supported upon
six rows of carved pillars, each made from a single stone. There is an
extensive "Golden Lily Tank," bordered by a granite corridor hung with
cages of parrots, and the putrid waters of the tank furnish purification
preparatory to worship at Minakshi's shrine. The very porch or entrance
pavilion of this shrine is called "The Hall of a Thousand Pillars,"
though the actual number is nine hundred and eighty-five. Here and there
among the pillars are seated learned men or pundits, who place offerings
of flowers and perfumed water before their sacred books and chant the
meaning of Sanskrit scriptures to groups of devout listeners.
The great temple, with its dimly lighted corridors, is open to the
public day and night, and there is special illumination by hundreds of
little lamps in an arch at the entrance when night comes on. Long
avenues are filled with buyers and sellers of wares, and the rent of
their stalls furnishes a large revenue for the support of the many
priests. A big elephant and a baby elephant, each with the mark of the
god upon its forehead, are paraded up and down, and are taught to pick
up with their trunks the coins thrown down by visitors. Innumerable dark
alcoves invite the crowd to rest, and many a sleeping form is seen at
the foot of the altars. Imagine a festival night with these dimly
lighted courts crowded with worshipers, the fierce and lustful images,
the glorification of the lingam, the secret places of assignation! And
this is the acme of Hindu religion!
There are better things than this to be seen in Madura. The palace of
Tirumala, a raja of the seventh century, is a magnificent specimen of
Moorish architecture with unexpected Gothic tendencies. Its entrance
hall, one hundred and thirty-five feet long, half as wide, and seventy
feet high, has a lofty roof supported by heavy stone pillars with
pointed arches of Saracenic type. It shows that the Moslem, in the
long ago, had at least a temporary hold upon South India. This palace,
which has the structural character of a Gothic building, has now been
partially restored and taken for the law-courts of the British
Government.
The same Tirumala who built the palace, built the Teppa Kulam, an
artificial reservoir outside the town, about one thousand feet on a
side, very symmetrical and the largest of its kind in South India. The
whole "tank" is surrounded with granite walls and parapets, and next the
water there is a granite walk five feet wide running round the whole
structure. Flights of steps lead down to the water, at intervals. In the
center of this small lake is an island, also walled around with granite
slabs, and on it there are five towers, a large one in the center and
one at each of the four corners. The whole effect is very graceful and
it makes a sight long to be remembered, when the "feast of lights" takes
place and the island and the parapets and the granite curbings are
illuminated with hundreds of little oil-lamps. Not far away from the
"tank" is a famous banyan-tree which covers with its shade an area sixty
yards in diameter, has a main stem seventy feet in circumference, and
has besides two hundred branches that have struck root.
But the noblest sight of Madura is its American Congregational Mission.
Beginning in 1836, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
Missions planned and founded their most wise and successful foreign
missions. They have aimed to do one thing well: to make the Madura
station not only complete but well supported, to embrace in it all
stages of education and all sorts of evangelization; and to reduce the
whole work to a unified system. And the result has been the raising up
of a large native ministry, churches with twenty-two thousand members,
schools of every grade from the kindergarten to the college and the
theological seminary. We were most hospitably entertained by the
principal of the college, Dr. J. X. Miller, and the other missionaries;
and we met and addressed both the native church at their Sunday service,
the faculty and students of the seminary, and the annual conference of
Congregational missionaries. The Madura Mission is a light shining in a
dark place, the darkest place indeed in India. But it is a light that
cannot be hid. Like our missions to the Burmans and the Telugus, it is
showing the power of the gospel to "cast down imaginations and every
high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God," and to
make a spiritual desert "bud and blossom as the rose."
XII
TWO WEEKS IN CEYLON
Ceylon is not a part of India. It is a Crown Colony of Great Britain,
and is administered directly from London, while India has more of
independence and self-government. The relation of Ceylon to Britain is
somewhat like that of the Philippine Islands to the United States, while
the relation of Britain to India resembles that of the United States
Government to our several territories. Ceylon, however, is very
productive and prosperous. Surrounded by the sea, it is free from Indian
droughts and famines. Its people are stalwart and loyal. The English
language is fast becoming the easiest method of communication between
Cingalese and Tamils, Hindus and Malays. Colombo is really a European
city, as large as Rochester, with noble public buildings and lovely
parks. Our Galle Face Hotel, on the very edge of the sea, with a great
stretch of green lawn in front of it, is one of the finest hotels in the
East, and our week of rest here was delightful.
Buddhism has been one of the great missionary religions of the world. It
was a reform of Hinduism. But the Hindus, with their caste system, would
have none of it and drove it out. The Buddhist triumphs were in Burma,
Tibet, China, Japan, at the north; in Ceylon and Java, at the south.
Here in Ceylon is preserved a sacred tooth of Buddha; and one of his
bones, recently discovered in northern India, is to be brought next week
with great pomp and ceremony to the temple in Kandy, which already ranks
in sacredness next to the great Shwe Dagon pagoda in Rangoon. A temple
in Java is founded upon a single hair of Buddha's head. All this
superstition and imposture dates back to a couple of centuries before
Christ, and there is great reason to believe that the Roman Catholic
worship of relics is only an appropriation of this form of heathenism.
Christian schools and churches are doing much to undermine Buddhism in
Ceylon. Colombo is especially fortunate in possessing a noble college of
the Wesleyan Methodists and a strong institution of all grades with
eight hundred students. The English Baptists also have a very creditable
mission work under the charge of Messrs. Ewing and Charter; while Mr.
Woods is the able pastor of an English-speaking Baptist church. The
students of these various schools usually adopt the English dress. The
barefooted pupils first put on shoes, then the coat, finally the
trousers. In the end you can hardly distinguish them from Europeans.
These changes are more rapid in Colombo than in Madras. Indeed, British
rule is fast transforming what was first a Portuguese, and then a Dutch,
settlement into a city where English is universally known and spoken.
It was gratifying to find that the Government College, where the English
language alone is used, is opened every day with the reading of
Scripture and with prayer. But it was unpleasing to learn that, side by
side with these Christian influences, the Ananda College, a
theosophical institution, allied to Mrs. Besant of Madras, was exerting
an influence unfavorable to Christianity, not only by setting Buddha
side by side with Christ, but by urging the claim of Buddha to be the
supreme ethical teacher of the world.
Before I tell you of our visit to Buddhist temples, I must speak of the
refuge from them which we found at Nurwara Eliya, sixty-two hundred feet
above the sea. Colombo is only six degrees north of the equator. Here in
January the sun casts hardly any shadow at noon, and the middle of the
day is hot. Later in the year the heat is intense, day and night. So
British officials combine with the rich of every tongue, and even with
the missionaries, to make their summer quarters high up among the hills.
We were transported thither on a narrow-gage railway, cut into the sides
of precipices, running through tunnels, and so tortuous as to form a
hundred horseshoe loops. The road seemed almost a miracle of
engineering. But the views were beautiful beyond description. It was
Switzerland without its ruggedness. It was Italy on the southern side of
the Alps, as "Philip van Artevelde" best describes it:
Sublime, but neither bleak nor bare
Nor misty, are the mountains there;
Softly sublime, profusely fair;
Up to their summits clothed in green,
And fruitful as the vales between,
They lightly rise
And scale the skies,
And groves and gardens still abound,
For where no shoot
Can else take root,
The peaks are shelved and terraced round.
I am inclined to think that, of all the beautiful railway rides I have
ever taken, this was the finest. From the rice-fields of the plains we
passed upward through endless tea-plantations, where every inch of soil
was preserved and utilized by the construction of artificial terraces.
In the midst of these plantations, rubber trees were set at intervals.
There were many instances when we looked down from our airy perch, on
the edge of a precipice, at least a thousand feet, and saw ourselves
on the side of a veritable amphitheater of mountains towering a
thousand feet above us and covered with rows of tea-plants from the
bottom to the top. This amphitheater was often two miles across, every
foot of the ground minutely cultivated and a perfect sea of verdure.
But, as we went up, the palm gave place to the pine; cold succeeded to
heat; and to be at all comfortable at our hotel we were obliged to
order fire in our rooms.
Beautiful for situation as was Nurwara Eliya, we were glad, on account
of the January cold, to leave it. And we went to Kandy. I wonder whether
our word "candy" is derived from that sweet place. I agree with some
celebrated author, whose name I forget, in saying that "Kandy is the
loveliest city in the loveliest island in the world." Of late years
Kandy has become the resort of tourists, though the present war has
greatly diminished their number. A hotel that was accustomed to
entertain fifty guests now has only half a dozen. But the beauty of the
place abides. An artificial lake, with an island of green in its center
and winding among a forest of stately palms, is surrounded by a circlet
of hills. On the summit of one of these hills is the Missionary
Rest-house, founded and endowed by a wealthy Christian woman for the
relief of pilgrims, as was the House Beautiful of Bunyan's story. There
we were invited to afternoon-tea, and as I looked upon the fairylike
landscape I almost thought the Garden of Eden had come again.
But I could not long be deceived, for at the very foot of this hill was
the most famous Buddhist temple of Ceylon. If this is Paradise, it is
Paradise Lost. Here Buddha's tooth is worshiped, and here a newly
discovered bone of his body is to add sanctity to the temple. We
attended the evening worship, which consisted of a torchlight
procession of priests, with beating of tom-toms and frenzied dancing
of musicians, which would have done credit to the savagery of the Fiji
Islands. The temple here has no lofty pagoda. It shows what the
original pagoda really was, for this temple has a number of
bell-shaped structures resting on the ground. Next, historically, came
the elevation of the bell upon a stone platform; and, finally, the
lifting of it into the air, resplendent with gilding. Kandy
illustrates the humble beginnings of Buddhistic worship, but with
later accessories begotten by irrational devotion.
I should mention, however, the only sign of intelligence which I found
in this Buddhist temple. It was the library of Pali manuscripts
containing the sacred books and stories of Buddha's life and doctrine.
Many of these manuscripts were written on palm-leaves and were wrapped
in silken coverings. Some had been presented by Siamese and by Burmese
kings. Some were ancient. I saw no priest who could read them, and I
fancy that the sacred books are really studied only by pundits, whose
vocation is that of teaching, and whose personal beliefs may be very
different from those of orthodox Buddhism. It was pleasant to find, not
far from the Temple of the Tooth, a little church of the English
Baptists, which sends out light into all the surrounding darkness. Its
pastor is a native Christian, who preaches every Sunday morning in
Cingalese and every Sunday evening in English, while his week-days are
devoted to the work of conducting an English boys' school.
Kandy is celebrated also for its botanical gardens. Only those of Java
compare with them in completeness. The long avenues of palms of
different varieties--palmyra, talipot, sago, royal, sealing-wax--and the
specimens of bamboo, India rubber, and rain-tree, are unique and
wonderful. The rain-tree is so called because the vast spread of its
branches and the density of its foliage collect the dew to such an
extent as actually to water the ground upon which it drops. Think of
viewing in one morning of two hours' length, a score of trees we had
hitherto known only in the tales of the tropics: the traveler's tree
with its fernlike leaves, the cannon-ball tree, the deadly upas, the
nourishing breadfruit, the clove, the cinnamon, the mace or nutmeg, the
vanilla, the guava, the cork, the almond, the mulberry, the mango, the
sandalwood! There were great screw-pines, lignum-vitae, mahogany,
mimosa, magnolia trees; and the tree-fern, the giant creeper, the
panama-hat plant, the Peruvian cactus, the papyrus, the pineapple, and a
great collection of orchids. Only the sunshine and the moisture of
Ceylon could produce such a result. A tree cared for from its first
sprouting, and favored by the elements, becomes a wonder of the world.
It shows what man may become under the tutelage of God.
Anurajahpura was our last place to visit. Far to the north of Colombo,
it is the most important extant specimen of the ruined cities of Ceylon.
Before the time of Christ it was the seat of a kingdom that embraced the
whole island. Buddhism, after a life-and-death struggle, captured it and
erected in it structures for worship, which for grandeur and beauty
rivaled those of Burma. Two pagodas, or dagobas, of solid brick, each of
them more than two hundred feet high, tower up before one as he enters
the town. These structures are covered with verdure, for grasses and
shrubs have eaten their way into the mortar on the sides, until the
dagobas resemble conical natural hills. It is said that the brick of a
single one would suffice to build a wall eight feet high and a foot
thick from Edinburgh to London. One of them is being restored, and fifty
men are at work upon it, tearing away the vegetation and building anew
the outside covering of brick. The dagoba itself is not a temple, for it
is solid and has no chamber within; but at its base is a structure,
infinitesimal in size as compared with the one that towers above it, and
in this structure there is a reclining statue of Buddha seventy feet
long. Buddha must have been a giant, for his footprints are four feet
long, and his tooth is as large as the tooth of an alligator, and
surprisingly like one.
The grounds in the neighborhood of these towering dagobas are strewn
with ruins. Sixteen hundred pillars of stone, seven feet high, remain
to show the vast foundations of an ancient Buddhist monastery. There is
also a temple excavated in the solid rock of the hillside, and adorned
with curious carvings of elephants. We made the acquaintance of its high
priest under very peculiar circumstances. We met him at a funeral. It
was the cremation of one of his priests. On the outskirts of the village
a great crowd surrounded a burning pyre. Two or three cords of rough
wood had been piled up, with the body of the priest in its center and
the bier on which the body had been brought laid upon its top. The fire
was blazing upward, and a deafening beating of tom-toms gave sacredness
to the obsequies. The awe-stricken followers of Buddha stood at a little
distance around, while the flames grew fierce, and the sickening odor of
burning flesh entered their nostrils. It was no wonder that they were
willing to follow the high priest, when he came to salute me as a
minister of religion from the other side of the world. He was
eighty-eight years of age. Clothed in his saffron robe and holding with
trembling hands his rod of office, he seemed the decaying specimen of a
moribund religion. He presented me with an umbrella of yellow silk. It
had an ivory handle with the carving of a lotus bud on its end. I could
not let him make such a present without some reward, and he seemed
grateful for the few rupees which my interpreter wrapped up in his
handkerchief. He lifted up his fan and fanned me, as we parted, while he
uttered some words of blessing. I could hardly doubt his good will, or
fail to hope that some gleams of heavenly light had come to him from
Christ, the Light of the world. But Anurajahpura was, like Pagan in
Burma, the type of a vanishing religion, and its high priest was, like
the Jewish high priest of old, the type of a priesthood sure to pass
away, since Christ, the true High Priest, has come.
XIII
JAVA AND BUDDHISM
We have crossed the equator, and the Southern Cross, invisible to
northern eyes, seems still to beckon us onward. But we have reached the
most distant point of our journey, and henceforth we shall be homeward
bound, taking China and Japan as we go. Java is not so hot as we
expected. An island like Cuba, six hundred miles long and only two
hundred broad, has sea-breezes enough to keep it tolerably cool. Rain
falls almost every day, with an average of twelve feet in a year. As the
moisture is excessive, all sorts of vegetation are luxuriant. Java is a
gem of the ocean, and an emerald gem at that. Life here is as easy as
anywhere on earth, and there is a swarming population. While Ceylon,
similar in area, has only five millions of inhabitants, Java has
thirty-five millions.
Java is the jewel of the Dutch Crown, one of the most fertile and
productive islands of the world. Coffee and tea, rice and sugar, salt
and spice, tobacco and corn, coal and oil, coconut and rubber, are
exported in an aggregate of two hundred millions of our dollars every
year, while the aggregate of imports is little more than a hundred and
twenty millions. The Dutch have taken a colony whose deficits once
frightened the English into abandoning it, and by the famous "culture
system" of letting out the land upon wise conditions as to the kind and
quantity of production, have turned the whole island into a veritable
garden, and a principal source of revenue for Holland. The Dutch indeed
have drawn from Java much more than they have given. The Roman Empire
should have taught them that incorporation of a colony, and privilege
granted to it, were the only security for permanent possession. Until
ten years ago, however, the Dutch policy was one of repression rather
than one of development. While Britain has tried by her schools and
hospitals to Anglicize India, Holland, for many years, tried to keep the
Javanese apart and in subjection, discouraging their study of the Dutch
language and giving them also no share in the government. This policy
has at last been seen to be suicidal; Chinese immigration has added an
element of vigor, industry, and discontent; the modern movement in India
and in Japan has provoked new aspirations here; even the Malay has
become aware that he has rights. Dutch schools have at last begun to
educate the people; the more progressive among the students are also
learning English; and Java now bids fair to press forward to occupy a
position in the van of national and democratic progress.
I am deeply impressed with the density and vastness of this population.
Only Belgium surpasses Java in the number of inhabitants to the square
mile. We have taken a ride by rail for four hundred miles through the
center of the island. We have passed volcanoes actually smoking; for a
long range of mountains, rising sometimes to a height of twelve thousand
feet, constitutes the back-bone of Java. There are sublime and
beautiful landscapes all along the way, sublime because of their
occasionally rocky grandeur, and beautiful because of the minute
cultivation that adorns both hillside and plain. The endless
rice-fields, and the fields of sugar-cane that stretch for miles like a
billowy sea, make a railway journey by day a constant source of delight.
You ride in a perennial garden, and it is perfectly natural that the
bird of paradise should have its habitat here. Like Ceylon, Java is sure
to be the resort of innumerable tourists, for here are wonders beyond
any to be found in localities more commonly visited.
And yet it is the people that interest one even more than the land they
live in. We turned aside at different points, from the stations of the
railways, and got glimpses of the Javanese in their country homes. I am
bound to say that these homes were often primitive in the extreme, mere
shacks or huts of bamboo and thatch, often without windows and with only
a door in front and a door behind, sometimes standing in a pool of
shallow water or lifted on stilts to escape the rain. But everybody
seemed to be at work, except on market-days, when the whole population
of a district gathered in a country fair. The throng and press of these
trading-days, the strife and din, the variety of wares, and the
sharpness of competition, were something new to us and long to be
remembered. The amusements of the Javanese, their music, their
shadow-dances, all show a vigor and passion, which explain their
occasional use of the "kriss" or Malay dagger, and the difficulty of
subduing and civilizing so ardent and imaginative a people. But they are
a people _sui generis_, and sure, when roused and educated, to take
their part on the modern stage.
I have intimated that the Dutch Government has seen its past mistakes,
and has entered upon a new and more generous policy. Nothing could
demonstrate this better than the botanical gardens at Buitenzorg. These
are unique in the world, the most complete and the most practical. The
gardens at Kandy in Ceylon are more artistically arranged and are more
beautiful to the ordinary visitor. But these in Java are more scientific
and more helpful to the general development of the country. They include
the chemical investigation of agricultural products, as well as the
testing of their nutritive value and their tensile strength. Rubber
planters are shown proper methods of culture, and also improved methods
of preparing the product for market. Seventy different varieties of rice
have been discovered and classified; and the tillers of the soil have
been shown how they can greatly increase the yield of their acreage. All
the great botanical collections of the world communicate their novelties
and discoveries to the Java gardens. Here at Buitenzorg there is a
school of forestry and another of veterinary science, each of these with
practical demonstrations. Trees and plants in the gardens are grouped in
scientific classes, the palms by themselves, the pines by themselves.
Here the _Victoria regia_, the royal pond-lily, flourishes in its proper
habitat. The avenues of kanari trees, with their lofty overarching
vaulting, are grander than any nave of French cathedral. It will be seen
at once that the Botanical and Experimental Gardens of Java are of
immense service to agriculture and to science throughout the world. We
had the great privilege of being personally conducted through them by
Dr. K. J. Lovink, Director of the Dutch Department of Agriculture,
Industry, and Commerce.
I wish I could say as much for the religious prospects of Java as I can
say for its economical and political prospects. There is even greater
need of change in this regard, for the island has been a very stronghold
of Buddhism, as it is now of Mohammedanism. When driven out from India,
the Buddhist missionaries came to Java and here found a welcome.
Javanese kings erected temples so enormous and so rich in sculpture
that, defaced and decayed as they now are, they have no superiors on
earth. It was, indeed, the fame of Boro Budor, that most attracted us
to Java, and we made a journey of thirteen hours to inspect this
renowned ruin.
Imagine a structure upon an eminence from which it is visible for miles,
yet walled in on one side by a lofty range of mountains, and on the
other side commanding a magnificent view of cultivated plains. Imagine a
temple of brick, like the great pyramid of Egypt, more than five hundred
feet square, with five broad terraces, the uppermost of which encloses
an immense sitting statue of Buddha. The topmost crown of this solid
structure rises more than two hundred feet above the ground.
The wonder of Boro Budor is, however, not the vastness of the structure,
containing though it does an amount of material five times as great as
that of any English cathedral, so much as it is the enormous amount of
artistic work that has been expended upon it. Each of these five
terraces has sculptured upon its side walls some representation in
bas-relief of the legendary incidents of Buddha's existence, not only in
the present state, but in his previous states of being. You walk, as it
were, through a picture-gallery of the life of Buddha. The bas-reliefs
are wrought out with such delicacy as to suggest the influence of Greek
art upon the multitude of artists who toiled for years to produce them.
The effect, at least, is Grecian; and the number of the plaques is so
great that, if they were placed in a continuous row, the line would be
three miles long.
Besides these sculptures, the terrace-walls are interrupted at regular
intervals by four hundred and thirty-six niches or alcove-chapels, each
with its image of Buddha facing the outside world, so that the visitor
approaching the temple cannot fail to see one hundred and nine Buddhas,
or one-fourth of the total number, looking down upon him. Above these
alcove-chapels there are seventy-two small latticed domes, or dagobas,
each with its statue of Buddha imprisoned within, as if he were
preparing himself, by seclusion and meditation, for the final state in
which the great chamber which crowns the structure represents him, I
mean the state of passivity and bliss, which has escaped the evils of
transmigration and has attained to absorption of personal existence of
the impersonal world-force which the Hindu called Brahma.
It is difficult to express the emotions which are roused by such an
exhibition of man's religious instinct, enlightened simply by God's
revelation of himself in the natural world and in the nature of man.
Here is a seeking, but not a finding, a groping in the dark, with only
the faint rays of conscience to show man the way. Yet he who is the
Light of the World was lighting every man, before his advent in the
flesh, and even Buddha was a reformer and an advance upon the Brahmanism
of his time. He preached the doctrine of unselfish devotion, but he
turned it into error by ignoring man's duty to himself. He made
extinction of desire, rather than purification of desire, to be the way
to happiness. How different this from that thirst after God, even the
living God, which animated the Psalmist, or that hungering and thirsting
after righteousness which Christ says shall be filled! Buddha found in
self, rather than in God, the power to overcome evil. Buddhism has no
personal God to whom appeal may be made for strength, and Buddha himself
has no power to answer prayer, since he long ago passed into a realm of
inactivity which is practically indistinguishable from non-existence.
There is no atonement for past sin nor escape from its consequences, but
by the giving up of being. Buddhism is a pessimistic and joyless
religion. Hence it suffers deterioration in competition with the more
active systems. Close by Boro Budor, where Buddhism reached its
culmination, are the temples of Mendoet and Brambanam, which show a
reversion in the popular mind to Hindu Brahmanism. And when the Moslem
came, with his doctrine of a personal and living God, Buddhism had no
force to combat it. Boro Budor, once the center of worship for a mighty
kingdom, now stands alone and desolate in a great wilderness, without
priest or worshiper. Djokjokarta, the next city in size to Batavia, is
to-day more Mohammedan than Buddhist. Christian schools and missions are
doing much to turn this moral wilderness into beauty. To convert Java to
Christianity will add to Christ's subjects the very Queen of the East.
XIV
THE RENAISSANCE IN INDIA
A recent book by Prof. C. F. Andrews, formerly of the Cambridge
Brotherhood in Delhi, has arrested my attention, as the best extant
synopsis of the religious history and prospects of that great country.
It is entitled "The Renaissance in India." It has not yet been
reprinted in America, and can be obtained only in the British Isles. I
have thought it worth while to make it known among us by writing a
review, and the following paper might perhaps serve such a purpose.
But, in the writing, so many thoughts and illustrations of my own have
suggested themselves, that I cannot credit Professor Andrews with the
result, except in part, and I submit my work as my own almost as much
as it is his.
Let me first, however, do Professor Andrews the justice of explaining
that the Cambridge Brotherhood is a semimonastic fraternity of the
Church of England, which aims to convert India to Christianity by
indoctrinating its higher classes. All its members are bachelors, and
their pure life as well as their learning and liberality are attractive
to educated heathen seekers after God. Our author is himself a devout
believer in a preexistent Christ, and he recognizes some rays of
Christ's light in Buddha and in Confucius. This faith has led him to
sever his connection with the Cambridge Brotherhood of late, and to
connect himself with the school of Rabindranath Tagore, whom the
British Government has recently knighted for his poetical gifts and for
his political loyalty. Members of the Brotherhood have thought this
leaving of their body a mistake of judgment, and too great a concession
to a rival religion, while they still admire the self-devotion which
leads their former brother to carry his advocacy of Christianity into
what he regards as the most promising school of Hinduism. With this
explanation I proceed to the treatment of my subject.
* * * * *
In the fifteenth century the European world was intellectually born
again. The barbarian Goths and Vandals had put an end to the Roman
Empire, and learning had taken refuge in the monasteries. Even that
learning had become ecclesiastical. Precious manuscripts of the Greek
classics had their original writing wiped off to make room for monkish
homilies. The people were in ignorance and were ruled by the priests.
But the Crusades had brought about a new intercourse between the West
and the East. The fall of Constantinople sent Greek books and Greek
scholars to Venice and to Rome. Greek art inspired Michelangelo and
Raphael. A great wave of enthusiasm for the new learning swept over
Europe. The printing-press multiplied copies of the old literature
and put them in the hands of the poor. It was the precursor of a new
civilization, and because it was a new birth of thought, we call
it the Renaissance.
The Renaissance, however, needed another factor to complement it. Not
merely intellect was sleeping, but also man's moral nature. Conscience
and will required new stimulus. Religious reformation was necessary as
much as intellectual revival. Greek books brought with them the vice, as
well as the art, of the East. Renaissance without Reformation produced
the Borgias and their unspeakable wickedness. Erasmus without Luther
would never have saved Europe from ruin. It was the new view of Christ
that showed men their sins, brought repentance and hope, purified
literature, gave power to social truth, and united with the new learning
to make possible our modern civilization. It was a triumph of
Christianity over the powers of darkness, for Christianity involves both
Renaissance and Reformation.
A similar intellectual change has been coming over the Eastern world,
and has been awakening the slumbering nations. Who would have foretold a
half-century ago that Turkey and Persia, Japan and China, would now have
constitutional governments and legislative assemblies? The world has
moved very fast during the past decade. Modern inventions have given new
wings to thought, the nations have been coming to self-consciousness,
freedom is in the air, even war is teaching the absurdity of committing
the destiny of a whole people to the arbitrary rule of any single
monarch. The success of Japan in her struggle with Russia aroused the
whole East. China has awaked from the sleep of ages. And India is the
scene of unrest, and will not be satisfied until her vast populations
are given a larger share in her government.
India has witnessed the beginnings of her renaissance. The universities
which her rulers have established have diffused the new learning. But
they have also raised up a host of educated men, some of whom can find
no employment except in sedition. False philosophies, imported from the
West, have made these same men agnostic, and have disposed them to put
evolution in place of God. Old religions have lost even their little
power to control the moral life, and a vague desire for independence of
all restraint has led to revolutionary and even anarchistic plots. We
have some of the same dangers in our Southern States. The negro is in
many cases receiving a higher education than he can utilize, and is
becoming a possible leader of revolt, while there is a vast inflammable
multitude of uneducated negroes whom he can incite to violence and
disorder. As with us, Christianity is needed side by side with
education, so in India to-day, intellectual renaissance needs to be
supplemented by religious reformation.
A glance at the history of India's religious systems will help our
understanding of the problem. The earliest record is that of the
Rig-Veda. It is a recognition of the powers of nature, and an exaltation
of them to divine honor and worship. The apostle Paul gives us the
further explanation that this deification of God's works was the result
of a previous unwillingness to retain the personal God in their
knowledge. To worship God's manifestations is to lose the sense of his
unity and his moral governance. Men preferred the sun in the heavens to
the Sun of Righteousness. They lost sight of the true God in self-chosen
admiration of his works. "While the Semitic mind gravitated toward the
ethical and the personal, the Aryan gravitated toward the philosophic
and the impersonal."
The Upanishads are the second series of Hindu scriptures. These
practically identify the human soul, as well as all natural objects,
with the supreme God. The self is only a manifestation of Brahma. The
trend is toward absolute pantheism. The individual is lost in the whole,
and the realization of this is salvation. But humanity cannot be content
without the semblance of personality in God, and since everything has
become divine, it was easy to regard not only natural powers, but also
personal beings as gods. Polytheism was the result. Vishnu and Siva,
gods of reproductive and destructive powers, came to be worshiped.
Incarnation and transmigration followed. The incarnation was not the
incarnation of the supreme Brahma, but of one of the subordinate
deities, Vishnu, and even this incarnation was but a temporary
assumption of human form--a vanishing manifestation, to be put off again
like a worn-out garment when the real god returned to his heaven. The
Hindu Trimurti was never the Christian Trinity; for Christ is not only
the supreme God manifest in the flesh, but also the eternal Revealer of
God, who takes our humanity to be a part of himself forever, the
partaker of his inmost being and the sharer of his throne.
While we credit Hinduism with the idea of incarnation, we regard it as
only showing this to be a necessity of human thought, and as far from
satisfying man's longings for union with God. Gautama Buddha,
passionless and lost in the contemplation of his own excellence, is not
the Christian Redeemer, who daily bears our burdens and takes upon
himself, in order that he may take away, the sin of the world. And what
shall we say of the other deities of the Hindu pantheon, but that they
are personifications of every human caprice and vice. The Krishna of the
Puranas has infected all India with his licentiousness, and has given
sanction to the worst forms of lust.
The growth of caste was another result of the loss of a personal and
moral God and the deification of his works. Since all things came to be
regarded as manifestations of deity, the order of society and its
distinctions became fixed. The origin of caste is to be found in the
superiority of the Aryan conqueror to the Dravidian aborigines. The
people of light complexion looked down on the dark-skinned race, and
drove them to the wall. Intermarriage between the two classes of the
population became abhorrent to the ruling class, and all manner of
restrictions were put upon their intercourse, till even the shadow of
the outcaste falling upon the Brahman brought contamination. Let us not
blame the Aryan too hastily, for in South Africa and in our own Southern
States we see the same denial that God has made of one blood all the
races of men, and the same exclusion of the darker race from all
privileges of human brotherhood. Slave-owners were shocked when Abraham
Lincoln lifted his hat to salute a negro, and Southern men protested
when President Roosevelt entertained Booker Washington at his table.
Christian proclamation of human brotherhood constitutes one of the chief
obstacles to the success of the gospel in India.
The low place of woman and her lack of education is another obstacle
which must be removed if India is to profit by the renaissance of
learning. This undervaluing of the physically weak is itself a fruit of
man's apostasy from God. And as Brahmanism set its stamp of approval
upon distinctions of caste and fixed them for centuries, so it was with
woman's position and influence. She was condemned to inferiority. She
became a mere instrument of man's pleasure, or a mere drudge in his
household. She never sat with him at his meals, but ate what was left
after he had been served; she never walked by his side, but always
followed behind, when she was not shut up in the zenana at home. One of
the best signs of a new civilization in India is the growing conviction
among the higher classes that woman must be educated, if her children
are to emerge from their superstitions and become of use in the modern
world. The suttee has been abolished by law, but child-widowhood yet
remains to curse the lives of millions. There is no better proof that
Christianity is permeating society with its influence than is found in
the increasing number of girls who are seeking education in our mission
schools and colleges. Pundita Ramabai has become a glory to her own
countrymen, as much as has Rabindranath Tagore by his utterance, "The
regeneration of the Indian people to my mind, directly and perhaps
solely, depends upon the removal of this condition of caste." We may add
that the dominion of caste and the degradation of woman will come to an
end together, and nothing but Christianity will abolish them.
The renaissance of learning is not enough. A new spirit of love is
needed to solve the problems of India. For there is no country of the
world where racial antagonisms are so felt. Entirely apart from the
distinctions of caste, which are racial in their origin, there is the
distinction of Hindu from Mohammedan, which has its origin in religion.
Remember that, of India's population, sixty-five millions are Moslems,
while one hundred and eighty millions are Hindus. The Hindu men of caste
cannot help paying some respect to the Mohammedans, for they are
compelled to acknowledge their financial and executive power, just as
they acknowledge, without admiring, the power of their British rulers.
They cannot treat Moslems as outcastes, but they will not associate
with them; and they cherish a settled antipathy to them. All this the
Mohammedans heartily reciprocate. English policy has in times past
cultivated this mutual dislike, lest union between the two religious
sects should lead to the formation of a party too strong for British
rule to keep in subjection. One religion has been used to defeat the
influence of the other. Of late years only has it been true that both
have been forced to recognize the impartial justice of British rule;
and this recognition has been gained by the gradual admission of able
men from both parties to many important judicial and administrative
positions in the Indian government. But the antagonism of religions
still remains, and it constitutes a most serious bar in the way of a
united India.
* * * * *
There are signs of an approaching reformation in India which will
supplement its intellectual renaissance. Just as the growing power of
Christianity in the second and third centuries of our era was shown by
the competition of new and imitative religions like that of Mithra, and
by spasmodic attempts on the part of the old heathenism to interpret
its mythology symbolically and to reform its moral practice; just as the
growing power of the gospel in the fifteenth century led the Roman
Church to slough off some of its abuses and to tolerate among its
adherents reformers before the Reformation; so in India the new learning
from the West and the missionary proclamation of the gospel have brought
about a state of religious unrest which could only be allayed by efforts
on the part of Hindus and Moslems alike to interpret their faiths more
rationally and to prove that these faiths were equal if not superior to
Christianity itself. The Brahmo-Somaj, which Ram Mohun Roy founded at
the end of the eighteenth century, largely as a result of his horror at
the murder of his sister by suttee, has led to the abolition of that
cruelty. Ram Mohun Roy sought to purge Hinduism of its corruptions by
appealing to its earlier and purer scriptures. He was the first to
establish a vernacular press in India, and, with Alexander Duff, the
first English schools. Though he did not formally profess Christianity,
he studied our Christian Scriptures, acknowledged their value and
influence, and published a book entitled "The Precepts of Jesus."
Another Hindu who exerted great influence during the half-century just
passed was Keshub Chunder Sen. He passionately adored Christ as his true
Master. Yet he was practically Unitarian, and his later years belied the
promise of his brilliant beginnings. Though a member of the
Brahmo-Somaj, he split the body in two by his violation of its
prohibition of child-marriage, and wasted his strength in attempts to
combine Western rationalism with the ecstatic fervors of the East. As
the result, the Brahmo-Somaj has declined, until in numbers and
influence it has now hardly more than five thousand adherents in all
India. Mozumdar was one of its representatives who sought to give
Oriental interpretation of Jesus, but one without ethical or saving
power. The Arya-Samaj is a more consistent effort to reform Hindu
religion by bringing it back to the purer standards of the Vedas. Swami
Dayanand was the founder of the society. He was led to renounce idolatry
by seeing a mouse eat food offered to an idol and run without hindrance
over the idol's robes and hands. Of all the reforming bodies, the
Arya-Samaj most retains the confidence of the masses in the north of
India. But its tenets are not acceptable to the educated classes of the
south, and it needs a further infusion of both science and religion.
Thus far we have treated only of Hindu progress. A word must be said of
progress among the Moslem population of India. Here the Aligarh Movement
demands attention. Sir Seyd Ahmad Khan was its leader. He was of noble
family, entered the English service, and took part with the British in
crushing the mutiny of 1857. When the Mohammedan population afterward
fell under suspicion, he gathered round him a company of liberal young
men and sought by educational means to bridge the gulf between Moslem
and English. He claimed that British rule in India represented Christian
civilization, and that this is no enemy to Islam, but only its
complement and helper. He saw that only religion could heal the breach
and rescue Islam from decline. He founded the Aligarh College in Delhi,
and devoted himself to the cultivation of friendliness, not only
between Moslem and English, but also between Moslem and Hindu. This
college is one of the strongest educational forces in North India.
Returning to Hindu progress, we mark the work of such men as the Swami
Vivekananda. It will be remembered that he represented India at our
Chicago Parliament of Religions, where Joseph Cook challenged the
priests of the Orient to answer Lady Macbeth's question, "Who shall
cleanse this red right hand?" Vivekananda sought to blend Christian
philanthropy with the Vedantic philosophy. Identity with the Supreme is
to be attained, not only by passive contemplation, but also by active
unselfish service. But this truth was mixed with strange interpretations
of Scripture. Jesus' declaration, "I and my Father are one," was made to
mean, "Every man and woman is God." And Vivekananda was quite willing
himself to be worshiped. His fundamental error, indeed, was his lack of
the sense of sin. He said to his audience in Chicago: "The Hindus refuse
to call you sinners. Ye divinities on earth, sinners? It is a sin to
call a man so. It is a standing libel on human nature." Yet, in spite of
this deification of self and of all humanity, he did much to inspire
pity for the poor, to awaken India to self-consciousness, and to give
hope of national unity.
We must not ignore the work of The Theosophical Society, though it has
made a name for itself more in Europe and America than in India. While
it has done something to encourage education and to teach modern
science, it has used the knowledge thus given as an instrument in
defending superstition. The immoralities of Krishna are discussed and
palliated in Mrs. Besant's Magazine for the instruction of young
students. Charms, incantations, astrology, idolatry, caste, are all
woven into the system, for the sake of propitiating the Indian mind, so
that its influence is hostile to Christianity and to missions. Idols are
to be worshiped because they are "centers of magnetism." In England Mrs.
Besant predicts a second advent of Christ. But in India this becomes a
new avatar of Krishna. In spite of her stout denunciation of
child-marriages and her inculcation of modern science, her propaganda
has not been so much a reform of Indian religion, as it has been a
hindrance to reform. Hindu devotees indeed have eulogized her for what
they call her successful opposition to the proselyting efforts of
Christian missionaries.
And yet, even the Theosophical Society, with all its absurdities of
levitation and the astral body, has been compelled to bear some witness
to Jesus Christ. He is "the light that lighteth every man," and he has
given even to this system some elements of truth. We do not hesitate to
recognize the truth that Buddha and Confucius, taught, and to regard it
as a ray of Christ's light shed forth before the rising of the sun. And
it is our privilege to conclude our list of Hindu reformers with the
name of Justice Renade, who recognized in Christ the source of all
former revelations of God.
Justice Renade, in his social reform movement of the last fifty years,
has carried the spirit of philanthropy into practice, more fully than
did Vivekananda or Mrs. Besant, and without any of their fantastic
self-exaltation. Renade recognized the elements of truth in both the
Hindu and Moslem systems, and he saw in Christianity the influence
destined to unite them. He would not throw away the old, but he would
utilize it while he added the new. And with this acknowledgment that "he
who is not against us is on our side," we may well close our sketch of
reformers before the reformation. We sum up the lessons of history when
we recognize in Hinduism the two great ideas of divine immanence and
incarnation, in Mohammedanism the two equally essential truths of divine
transcendence and personality. And we see the absolute dependence of
India upon Christianity for its true Reformation. India needs the
missionary more than she needs the schoolmaster. Let us pray that she
may have a religious revival that shall turn the intellectual awakening
into moral channels. That religious revival will furnish a center of
unity in Christ, the one and only Revealer of God; not in a Hindu
philosophy, nor in a Moslem Koran, but in a living Person, present with
all his people, the soul of their soul and the life, and imparting to
them his own Spirit of love and brotherhood. In Christ alone can India's
renaissance become a complete reformation.
XV
MISSIONS AND SCRIPTURE
The world of scholars has recently been startled by the pretended
discovery that the "Great Commission," "Go ye therefore, and make
disciples of all the nations," is not an utterance of Jesus himself, but
only one attributed to him by some enthusiastic follower of his in a
later time. This pretended discovery is on a par with the earlier one
that there never was such a person as Jesus at all, but that his
personality is simply a myth that gradually grew up in the minds of some
Jewish fanatics who sought a fulfilment of Messianic prophecy. We might
treat these perverse and subversive conclusions as only curious
instances of a wrong method of criticism. But they filter down from the
scholars to the masses of Christian believers and weaken their faith. It
becomes a duty to deal with the method which leads to such results, and
threatens to destroy all our missionary zeal. Hence I proceed to test
the value of the method itself, even though it is commonly called "the
historical method" by those who adopt it. If we can bear a somewhat
roundabout way of treating the subject, we shall gain a new and valuable
light upon our missionary theory and practice.
To prevent misunderstanding, however, I must premise that it is the
historical method as frequently employed, and not the historical method
as it ought to be, to which I offer my objections. My criticism is
directed against the historical method, only when it assumes to be the
exclusive means of attaining truth, follows the methods of physical
science, and ignores the far more important material for religious use
which is furnished by intuition and revelation. The phrase "historical
method" has come to imply much that does not properly belong to it. I
criticize only its frequent exclusiveness and exaggeration. And I do
this, as I think, in the interest of true science.
There are two methods of reasoning possible, in this case or in any
other case, and there are only two--I mean the deductive, and the
inductive. I make no mention of argument from analogy, for that proceeds
upon a deductive basis, presuming that there is a designed order in the
world which makes analogy possible. The deductive method argues from the
universal to the particular, from the higher to the lower, from God to
man. The inductive method, on the other hand, argues from the particular
to the universal, from the lower to the higher, from man to God. Both of
these methods are correct when each is taken in connection with the
other. Much depends, however, upon the question which is taken first.
Shall we begin with the particular, leaving out for the time all thought
of the universal? There is danger that induction will come to be
regarded as itself sufficient to lead us into the truth. This is a
serious error, for correct induction presupposes deduction, and
therefore deduction should be the guiding principle and safeguard of
induction. If this is forgotten, induction may go fearfully astray.
To make my meaning still more plain, let me say that in our
investigations we need a comprehensive method, a method that will look
at facts from more than one point of view. A truly historical method
will look at facts from above, as well as from each side, and so the
deductive process may be popularly described as vertical. The historical
method falsely so called errs in confining its view to what can be seen
immediately around it, and so its process is exclusively horizontal.
Deduction begins vertically, and makes that which comes from above to be
its guide and standard in all inductive work. Induction begins
horizontally, and tends to become self-sufficient, until all light from
above seems untrustworthy and useless. For example, take the study of
nature. If one begins, inductively and horizontally, with mere physical
and material order, instead of beginning, deductively and vertically,
with man's higher powers of conscience and will, he will end by finding
only impersonal force in the universe, and by practically deifying it,
as the Hindus deified Brahma. Begin rightly, and, with due care in the
application of the deductive principle, he will come to right
conclusions. There are certain truths which cannot be reached by
induction. They are known by intuition, long before induction begins.
The most fundamental of these truths is the truth of God's existence. A
Power above us, which has moral perfection, and which claims our
obedience, is revealed to every man by conscience. Begin with this
knowledge, and to the obedient spirit the physical world seems ablaze
with evidences of wisdom and love; the regularities of nature are
recognized as God's methods of ordinary operation; evolution is only
his usual plan of growth and progress; in other words, God's
transcendence is manifest as well as his immanence, his personality as
well as his revelation in the forces of the universe.
Man is a theist, before he becomes a Christian. Theism is a universal
intuition, ready to assert itself in practice wherever it is not
prevented by an evil will from its normal manifestation. But, because
man is in an abnormal condition, this normal action of his powers can be
restored only by the Holy Spirit. "When he is come," says our Lord, "he
will convince the world of sin, because they believe not on me," and "of
righteousness, because I go unto the Father." Only when the prodigal
repented, did he "come to himself," and begin to act normally. Under the
influence of the Spirit, God's holiness reveals to man his sin, and
God's love leads him to the feet of Jesus. This is the first step in
Christian experience. To put my doctrine unmistakably and in a nutshell,
deduction from the existence of God normally precedes and insures the
acceptance of Christ. The sinner comes to have personal knowledge of One
who has atoned, and therefore can forgive. But to him who has accepted
Christ, his Lord is more than a historical Redeemer, he is a present
Saviour from both the penalty and the power of sin. Without this
personal knowledge of Christ, we might think of him as only one of many
human examples or teachers, like Confucius or Buddha. Now, he is nothing
less than God manifest in the flesh, omnipresent, omniscient,
omnipotent, whom having seen we have seen the Father.
But there is a second step in Christian experience, which I wish also to
describe in a nutshell and to define as unmistakably as I described and
defined the first. I claim that deduction from the existence of Christ
normally precedes and insures the acceptance of Scripture. Our Lord
himself has said, "My sheep hear my voice." The Christian recognizes in
Scripture the voice of Christ. No change in his experience is more
marked and wonderful than the change in his estimate of the Bible. A
little time ago, Scripture was commonplace and unmeaning. Now it speaks
to him with a living voice such words of instruction and comfort, of
warning and promise, that his soul is filled alternately with sorrow and
with joy. He wonders that he never saw these things before. He perceives
for the first time that he has been in an abnormal condition of mind,
and that condition has been due to his own perversity of will. But now
the prodigal has "come to himself." Only the Holy Spirit could have made
possible this new and normal exercise of his powers. The change is not
in the Scripture, it is in himself. He has come in contact with a word
of God that "liveth and abideth." He sees in it the divine workmanship.
He can no longer regard Scripture as merely the work of man; it is also
the work of the same Spirit who has transformed him, namely, the eternal
Christ. Christ is the author and inspirer of Scripture, even though
imperfect human agents have been employed to communicate his revelation.
In spite of the rudeness and diversity of the instruments, there
breathes through them all a certain divine melody and harmony. While the
inductive and horizontal method would give us only finite and earthly
truth, the deductive and vertical can give us truth that is infinite and
eternal. The indispensable condition of success in the interpretation of
Scripture is therefore a hearty belief that the Bible is Christ's
revelation of God, and not merely a series of gropings after truth on
the part of men. Deduction will give us truth from above, whereas
induction will give us only scattered facts on the horizontal plane.
I am convinced that the so-called "historical method" of Scripture
interpretation, as it is usually employed, fails to secure correct
results, because it proceeds wholly by induction, leaving out of its
account the knowledge of Christ which comes to the Christian in his
personal experience. I do not regard such a "historical method" as
really historical; I deny that it discovers the original meaning of the
documents; I claim that, when made the sole avenue of approach to truth,
it leads to false views of doctrine. It assumes at the outset that what
rules in the realm of physics rules also in the moral and religious
realm. But the Christian has learned that Christ is the supreme source
of truth. By a process of either conscious or unconscious deduction he
recognizes in Scripture the utterance of Christ. He must begin his
investigations with one of two assumptions: Is the Bible only man's
word? or, Is it also Christ's word? Is it a mere product of human
intelligence? or, Is it also the product of a divine intelligence, who
indeed uses human and imperfect means of communication, but who
nevertheless at sundry times and in divers manners has brought to the
world the knowledge of salvation?
I claim that we should begin by assuming that the Bible is a revelation
of Christ. This assertion is justified, as I have already intimated, by
our Christian experience. That experience has given us a knowledge of
the heart, more valuable in religious things than any mere knowledge of
the intellect. Doctor Tholuck, in an address to his students at his
fiftieth anniversary, said that God's greatest gift to him had been the
knowledge of sin. Without that conviction of sin which the Spirit of
Christ can work in the human heart, there can be no proper understanding
of Scripture, for Scripture is a revelation to sinners. The opening of
the heart to receive Christ, and the new sense of his pardoning grace
and power, give to the converted man the key to the interpretation of
Scripture, for "the mystery of the gospel," the central secret of
Christianity, is "Christ in you, the hope of glory." He whom the Holy
Spirit has first led to the knowledge of sin, and has then led to the
acceptance of Christ, is prepared to enter into the meaning of
Scripture, and no other man can understand it.
This was the way in which Paul came to understand Scripture. It was not
by criticism of the documents, but by receiving Christ, that "the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ"
entered into his soul. He knew himself to be the chief of sinners. He
knew Christ as his manifested God and Saviour. He applied to Christ all
that the Old Testament had revealed with regard to the dealings of God
with his chosen people. The light that shone upon him on the way to
Damascus was the Shekinah that led Israel in the pillar of cloud by day
and of fire by night, that dwelt over the mercy-seat in the tabernacle
and in the temple, and that thundered and lightened from Sinai in the
giving of the Law. "The Rock that followed them" in the wilderness, and
gave water to the thirsty, "that Rock was Christ." And so Paul came to
know Jesus Christ as preexistent and omnipresent, as Redeemer of the
whole world, Gentile as well as Jew; and Christ's Cross became the
embodiment and symbol of God's amazing sorrow for human sin, and of his
sacrifice for its cure. All Paul's later conclusions were developments
and expressions of his initial knowledge of Christ. It was a deductive
and not an inductive process, by which he arrived at his theology.
Lest any Christian should say that the deductive method is impracticable
to him, for the reason that he has had no such revelation of Christ to
start from as that which was given to Paul, Scripture reports to us the
very different experience of another apostle. I refer to Peter. Peter
shows us how, by this same deductive method, an experience which at its
beginning is very small, may in the end become very great. Peter goes to
the banks of Jordan, a sinner, seeking pardon for his sin. John the
Baptist points him to Jesus, "Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away
the sin of the world." Peter knows nothing of Jesus' deity, nor of his
atonement. But, by an instinct which is the best of logic, he is drawn
to Jesus, as the one who can satisfy his needs. He becomes a Christian,
that is, a follower of Jesus. His experience is a sort of caterpillar;
it can creep, but it cannot soar. Yet all the elements of growth are in
it. Peter begins to analyze it. What right has he to surrender himself,
body and soul, to a man like himself? The answer is: Jesus is more than
man. At Cæsarea Philippi, Peter cries, "Thou art the Christ, the son of
the living God." On the day of Pentecost, he preaches Christ as the
Saviour exalted to God's right hand. And finally, in his Epistles, he
declares the preexistence of Christ, and the fact of Christ's utterances
through the prophets as far back in time as the days of Noah. If our
higher critics only adopted Peter's method, analyzed their own
experience, following on to know their Lord and meantime willing to do
his will, they too, like Peter, in spite of small beginnings, would
learn of Jesus' doctrine, would emerge from the caterpillar state, would
be soaring instead of creeping, and would end by gladly confessing that
he who met them on the way in their first experience was none other than
the omnipresent Christ, whom Paul describes as God manifest in the
flesh, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. They
would also learn, with Peter, that Scripture is the work and word of the
preexistent Christ.
Because this experience of sin and of Christ is knowledge, it is
material for science, for science is only unified knowledge. I do not
deny that it is knowledge peculiar to the Christian. The princes of
physics and literature and government have not known it. It is not the
wisdom of this world, but it is better, even the very wisdom of God. I
glory in Christian theology, as the science that will last, when all
systems of merely physical science have passed away. For the man who has
been saved by Christ has knowledge of him who is Creator, Upholder, and
Life of all. I do not hesitate to say that the only safe interpreter of
physical nature is the true Christian, for it is Christ "in whom all
things consist." The true Christian is the only safe interpreter of
history, for it is Christ who "upholds all things by the word of his
power." And so, the true Christian is the only safe interpreter of
Scripture, for it is Christ whose Spirit in the prophets "testified
beforehand of his sufferings, and of the glories that should follow
them." In him who is the Lord of all "are all the treasures of wisdom
and knowledge hidden." Only when one is joined to Christ, can he
understand the evolutionary process through which Christ has led the
human race, or understand the Bible which constitutes the historical
record of that process. With the Psalmist we may say, "In thy light
shall we see light."
As Christ is the central object of knowledge in Christian experience, it
follows that Christians recognize him as the primary author of
Scripture. They find him speaking to them in the Bible, as in no other
book. It becomes to them the word of God, given by divine inspiration,
and able to make them wise unto salvation. From the deity and supremacy
of Christ they proceed to faith in the unity, the sufficiency, and the
authority of Scripture, and this determines their method of
investigation. From the person of Christ to the word of Christ is a
process often unconscious, but one better than any process of formal
logic. Knowing their divine Saviour, they know the divinity of his word.
His presence in human history and in the hearts of the righteous has
given _unity_ to his continuous revelation. The Scripture "cannot be
broken," or interpreted as a promiscuous congeries of separate bits; for
a divine intelligence and life throb through the whole collection. Like
railway coupons, its texts are "not good if detached." We must interpret
each text by its context, each part by the whole, the preparation of
salvation by the fulfilment, and all the diverse contents by him who
weaves all together, even Christ, the end of the law, to whom all the
preliminaries point. This method gives room for the most thorough
investigation of the times and ways of revelation, for recognizing the
imperfection of beginnings and the variety of the product. The Bible is
a gradually accumulated literature, Hebraic in form, but universal in
spirit. The preexistent Christ has made all this literature one, by the
influence in the sacred writers of his omnipresent Spirit. If the
"historical method" would begin with this postulate of a unifying
Christ, its method would be more safe and its results more sure.
Faith in an eternal and omnipresent Christ guarantees also the
_sufficiency_ of Scripture. Here, however, there is an obvious
limitation. Scripture is not sufficient for all the kinds and purposes
of human science. It will not tell us the configuration of the hinder
side of the moon, nor reveal the future uses of electricity. It is not
with such things that Scripture deals. But in religious matters, such as
our relation to God and salvation, it is sufficient as a rule of faith
and practice. We may find in it all needful models and helps in the
divine life, as well as all needful directions about the way to begin
it. The church of Christ has always found in the Bible a safe guide for
her polity and conduct, and civil government has prospered when the
principles of Scripture were followed by the powers that ruled the
State. Because the Christian believes the Bible to be the product of men
inspired by Christ, he can send it out by the million copies as equal to
the moral and spiritual needs of the world.
And because Christ is, through his imperfect agents, the real author of
Scripture, we believe in its absolute _authority_. When rightly
interpreted, however. It will never do to treat poetry as if it were
prose, or drama as if it were history, or allegory as if it were fact.
Christ can use, and he has used, all the common methods of literary
composition, and he expects us to use common sense in dealing with them.
But out of the whole can be evolved a consistent doctrine and an
authoritative law. The one and only way of salvation is plainly that of
faith in God's provision of pardon and life in Christ. In spite of many
divergences, the great body of Christians throughout the ages have
agreed in their recognition of the personality and the deity of the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; of the incarnation and the
atonement of Christ; of his resurrection and his lordship; of his
omnipresence with his people even to the end of the world. They have
expressed this agreement in the Apostles' Creed and in the hymnology of
the church. But the great body of instructed Christians also believe in
Christ as the Revealer of God in nature and in history; as "the Light
that lighteth every man" in conscience and tradition; and as the
righteous Judge who accepts in every nation those who fear God and work
righteousness, casting themselves as sinners upon the divine mercy even
though they do not yet know that this divine mercy is only another name
for Christ. The Bible, as a whole and when rightly interpreted, is
absolute authority, because it is the word of Christ; and Christ holds
each of us, as individuals, to the duty and the privilege of
interpreting the Bible for himself.
It seems to me plain that this method of interpreting Scripture in the
light of the Christian's experience of Christ, is not "the historical
method," as it is usually employed. This latter method seems to ignore
the relation of Scripture to Christ, and to proceed in its
investigations as if there were no preexistent Christ to furnish its
principle. It insists upon treating Scripture as it would treat any
unreligious or heathen literature, and with no relation to its divine
authorship. It sees in Scripture only a promiscuous collection of
disjointed documents, with no living tie to bind them together, and no
significance beyond that of the time in which they were written. It
would treat the Bible as a man-made book, or rather, as a man-made
series of books, regardless of the fact that the plural "biblia," which
once represented the thought of the church, has, under the influence of
the divine Spirit, become "biblion" or Bible, a singular, and a proof
that Christian consciousness has not been satisfied with rationalistic
explanations, but has followed its natural impulses by attributing unity
to the word of Christ its Saviour. The separate "words" have been felt
to constitute the one "word of God," an organic whole, which fitly
represents the eternal "Word," of whom it is the voice and expression.
Scripture is not a congeries of earth-born fragments, but an organism,
pulsating with divine life. The "historical method" of which I speak can
never find that life, because it works only on the physical and
horizontal plane, ignoring the light which comes deductively from above,
and also the darkening and blinding influences which often operate
unconsciously from below.
XVI
SCRIPTURE AND MISSIONS
The "historical method" of Scripture interpretation, as it is often
employed, ends without Christ, because it begins without him. One of its
fundamental principles is that each passage of Scripture is to be
interpreted solely in the light of the knowledge and intent of the
person who wrote it. The One Hundred and Tenth Psalm, for example, can
have no reference to Christ, because the writer knew no other than the
Jewish king whose accession and whose power he anticipates. The Psalm
reads, "Jehovah said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I
make thine enemies thy footstool." The so-called historical critics
would make any interpretation of this passage as a designed prophecy of
Christ to be an unwarranted accommodation of it to a meaning which it
did not originally bear, and the conclusion is that we are wrong in
citing these words as an Old Testament assertion of Christ's deity. But,
unfortunately for this method of interpretation, we have, in the Gospels
of Matthew and of Mark, our Lord's own reference of this passage, not
simply to some Jewish ruler of olden time, but to the coming Messiah,
and since he was himself the Messiah, he refers it by implication to
himself. He does not deny, but rather grants, a primary reference of the
psalm to a son of David, for David was a king, and his son would be a
king. But he also sees in the psalm a prophecy that this son of David
would be a king whom David would call Lord. His searching examination
propounds to the unbelieving Jews the question, "What think ye of the
Christ? whose son is he?" And they say, "The Son of David." He answers
them by asking, "How then doth David, in the Spirit, call him Lord?" In
other words, inspiration declares Messiah to be a King of kings, and a
Lord of lords. Since the whole discussion is one with regard to the
nature and claims of the Messiah, and since the Messiah is not a mere
man like David, but is seated on the throne with Jehovah and is David's
Lord, Christ's answer is an assertion of his own deity. His answer
antedates, even if it did not suggest, Paul's later description of
Christ, as "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the
Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." But the higher
critics differ in opinion from the Lord Jesus. They extricate themselves
from their difficulty by suggesting that Jesus, like other men, was
subject to the errors of his time. And so, not only Christ's knowledge
of Scripture and his authority as its interpreter are denied, but also
his knowledge of his own nature and place in the universe. If his
knowledge of things so essential be denied, what trust can we place in
any other of his utterances? To those who reason in this way, Christ
cannot possibly be divine--he is only a fallible man, self-deceived, and
so, deceiving others. The fault of the critics lies in their
presupposition. They have begun wrongly, by leaving out the primary fact
in the subject they investigate, namely, that the preincarnate Christ
was the author and inspirer of the Scripture which he afterward
interpreted. He used human agents, with their natural language and
surroundings, as his instruments, but he could, on the way to Emmaus,
"beginning from Moses and all the prophets," interpret to those humble
believers "in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself."
Scripture can have, and it does have, two authors, man and God, the
writer and Christ; and to ignore Christ in the evolution of the Bible is
to miss its chief meaning, to teach falsehood instead of truth, and,
consciously or unconsciously, to deny Christ's deity.
Cannot a document have more than one author? What are the facts in other
realms of art? In painting, did not Landseer get Millais to paint the
human figure into the picture of his dogs? In literature, is there any
more acknowledged fact than that Erckmann-Chatrian's battle-stories were
the work of two writers, and not of one? The work of a single author may
have two separate meanings, for Dante declares that his Divine Comedy
has one meaning that is personal, and another meaning that is universal.
Our extreme critics are as poor students of literature as they are of
life. Their narrowness of interpretation is due to a narrowness of
experience. If they knew Christ better, they would find in the
Twenty-third Psalm alone enough proof to upset their theory. "The Lord
is my shepherd, I shall not want," is an utterance inexplicable by
merely human authorship. To suppose that even a king of Israel who had
been a shepherd-boy could have written this psalm without divine
inspiration, in a day when all lands but little Palestine were wrapt in
a pall of heathen darkness, is to suppose that religion can exist and
flourish without a God.
"The testimony of Jesus," says the book of Revelation, "is the spirit of
prophecy." It was the recognition of constant references to Christ in
the Old Testament, that enabled the apostles to convince and convert the
unbelieving Jews. The absence of this recognition is the secret of all
the minimizing of Christ's attributes which is so rife in our day. Do
men believe in Christ's deity who ignore his promise to be with them to
the end of the world, and who refuse to address him in prayer? Could one
of these modern interpreters have taken the place of Philip, when he met
the Ethiopian eunuch? That dignitary had been reading the prophecy of
Isaiah, "He was led as a lamb to the slaughter." "Of whom speaketh the
prophet this? of himself, or of some other?" "And Philip opened his
mouth, and preached unto him _Jesus._" Our modern critics call this an
unwarranted interpretation, because Isaiah had no knowledge of Christ.
And yet, John tells us that "Isaiah saw his glory, and spake of him."
The critics contradict John again, when they say that we must put no
meaning into Isaiah's words but that of his own time. His great prophecy
of a suffering Messiah, they say, had reference only to Jehoiachin, the
captive king of Judah, or to the whole Jewish nation as the afflicted
people of God. Philip and the critics are evidently at variance. If we
accept their method, we shall lose all reference in the Old Testament to
the atonement of Christ, and all proof that the sacrifice on Calvary was
that of "the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world."
Reverse the process, and we can still say,
The Holy, meek, unspotted Lamb,
Who from the Father's bosom came
For me and for my sins to atone,
Him for my Lord and God I own.
It is needless to multiply instances of this failure to interpret the
Old Testament aright. Let me call attention to the effect of this method
upon the interpretation of the New Testament, for the authority of the
New Testament is also undermined. The system of typical interpretation,
which sees in Christ the reality prefigured in Old Testament shadows, is
discredited as unscientific. The whole Epistle to the Hebrews is thrown
out, as a poetical clothing of "the man of Nazareth" with the fading
glories of an outworn worship. The idea that the high priest of old who
entered the Holy of Holies once a year not without blood, and the whole
Jewish system of which this formed the central feature, were a divinely
ordered prefiguration of Christ's atoning sacrifice for the sins of
men--this idea is called a mere human addition to historical truth.
Christ is no longer our great High Priest. His priesthood is mere
metaphor, without divine warrant or authority. He is not our Prophet,
nor our King, for his prophecies are not fulfilled, and his kingdom is
only that of a moral teacher and example. And all this, in spite of the
fact that the Epistle to the Hebrews bears upon its front the
declaration that "God, who in past times spoke to the fathers through
the prophets, has in these last days spoken through his Son," whom this
same Epistle then proceeds to describe as the effulgence of God's glory
and the very image of his substance, the Creator, Upholder, and
Redeemer of the world, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.
I do not undervalue the historical method, when it is kept free from
this agnostic presupposition that only man is the author of Scripture.
This method has given us some information as to the authorship of the
sacred books, and it has in some degree helped in their interpretation.
I am free to acknowledge my own obligation to it. I grant the composite
documentary view of the Pentateuch and of its age-long days of creation,
while I still hold to its substantially Mosaic authorship. I say this,
however, with deference, for a university president of note, when asked
about the stories of Cain and Abel, replied that no such persons in all
probability ever lived, but that the account was still valuable, since
it taught the great moral lesson that it is highly improper for a man to
murder his brother! I grant that there may be more than one Isaiah,
while yet I see in the later Isaiah a continuance of the divine
revelation given through the earlier. Any honest Christian, I would say,
has the right to interpret Jonah and Daniel as allegories, rather than
as histories. I can look upon the book of Job as a drama, while I still
assert that Job was a historical character. I can see in the Song of
Solomon the celebration of a pure human love, while at the same time I
claim that the Song had divinely injected into it the meaning that union
with Christ is the goal and climax of all human passion. In short, I
take the historical method as my servant and not my master; as partially
but not wholly revealing the truth; as showing me, not how man made the
Scripture for himself, but how God made the Scripture through the
imperfect agency of man. So I find _unity_ in the Scriptures, because
they are the work of the omnipresent and omniscient Christ: I find
_sufficiency_ in the Scriptures, because they satisfy every religious
need of the individual and of the church; I find _authority_ in the
Scriptures, because, though coming through man, they are, when taken
together and rightly interpreted, the veritable word of God. I denounce
the historical method, only when it claims to be the solely valid method
of reaching truth, and so, leaves out the primary agency and determining
influence of Christ.
What sort of systematic theology is left us, when the perverted
historical method is made the only clue to the labyrinth of Scripture?
There is but one answer: No such thing as systematic theology is
possible. Science is knowledge, and to have a system you must have
unified knowledge. The historical method so called can see no unity in
Scripture, because it does not carry with it the primary knowledge of
Christ. It simply applies in its investigations the principles of
physical science. Physical science begins with the outward and visible,
not with the inward and spiritual, with matter and not with mind.
Laplace swept the heavens with his telescope, but he said that he
nowhere found a God. He might just as well have swept his kitchen with a
broom, and then complained that he could not find God there. God is not
stars, nor dust. God is spirit, and he is not to be apprehended by the
senses. Laplace should have taken man's conscience and will for his
starting-point. And just as physical science can find no God in the
universe by the use of the forceps and the microscope, so this
historical method can find no Christ in the Scriptures, because it looks
there for only human agency. The result is that it finds only a
collection of seemingly contradictory fragments, with no divine Spirit
to harmonize them and bind them together. Its method is purely
inductive, whereas its induction should always be guided by a knowledge
of Christ, gained before investigation begins, and furnishing the basis
for a deductive process as well. Differentiation and not harmonization
is its rule, and this makes its criticism destructive rather than
constructive. Many a passage is set aside, because it will not fit in
with a skeptical interpretation. Christ's own words with regard to his
being "a ransom for many," and with regard to his having "all power
committed to him in heaven and in earth," are held to be later words
attributed to him by his followers. The whole New Testament story comes
to be regarded as a mythical growth, like that which gradually placed
haloes about the heads of the apostles. The Gospel of John is not
accepted as historical, but is said to be a work of the second century.
Jesus, it is said, never himself claimed to be the Messiah, since it is
only John who reports his saying to the woman of Samaria, "I that speak
unto thee am he." Paul is set aside, as being the author of a rabbinical
theology which has no claim upon us; and that, in spite of Christ's own
declaration that there were many things which he could not teach while
he was here in the flesh, but which he would teach, by his Spirit, after
his resurrection, and ascension.
Prof. Kirsopp Lake, in a recent address before the Harvard Divinity
School, deprecated the use of the term "theology." "Theology," he said,
"presupposes divine revelation, which we do not accept." He proposed the
term "philosophy," as expressive of the aim of the Unitarian school.
This is honest and plain. What shall we say of those who speak of the
"new emphasis" needed in modern theology, when they really mean that the
preaching of the old doctrines of sin and salvation must give place to
"another gospel" of cooperative Christian work? From their neglect to
put any further emphasis upon "the faith once for all delivered to the
saints," we can only infer that, for their structure of doctrine, no
other foundation than philosophy is needed, and that they, like the
Unitarians, no longer accept the fact of a divine revelation. "Other
foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus
Christ," and to lay greater emphasis upon the fruits of Christianity
than upon its roots, is to insult Christ, and ultimately to make
Christianity itself only one of many earth-born religions, powerless
like them either to save the individual soul or to redeem society.
Professor Lake is quite right: If there is no divine revelation, there
can be, not only no systematic theology, but no theology at all.
What is the effect of this method upon our theological seminaries? It is
to deprive the gospel message of all definiteness, and to make
professors and students disseminators of doubts. Many a professor has
found teaching preferable to preaching, because he lacked the initial
Christian experience which gives to preaching its certainty and power.
He chooses the line of least resistance, and becomes in the theological
seminary a blind leader of the blind. Having no system of truth to
teach, he becomes a mere lecturer on the history of doctrine. Having no
key in Christ to the unity of Scripture, he becomes a critic of what he
is pleased to call its fragments, that is, the dissector of a cadaver.
Ask him if he believes in the preexistence, deity, virgin birth,
miracles, atoning death, physical resurrection, omnipresence, and
omnipotence of Christ, and he denies your right to require of him any
statement of his own beliefs. He does not conceive it to be his duty to
furnish his students with any fixed conclusions as to doctrine but only
to aid them in coming to conclusions for themselves. The apostle Paul
was not so reticent. He was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, but
rather gloried in it. He even pronounced his anathema upon any who
taught other doctrine. It is no wonder that our modern critics cry,
"Back to Christ," for this means, "Away from Paul." The result of such
teaching in our seminaries is that the student, unless he has had a
Pauline experience before he came, has all his early conceptions of
Scripture and of Christian doctrine weakened, has no longer any positive
message to deliver, loses the ardor of his love for Christ, and at his
graduation leaves the seminary, not to become preacher or pastor as he
had once hoped, but to sow his doubts broadcast, as teacher in some
college, as editor of some religious journal, as secretary of some Young
Men's Christian Association, or as agent of some mutual life insurance
company. This method of interpretation switches off upon some side-track
of social service many a young man who otherwise would be a heroic
preacher of the everlasting gospel. The theological seminaries of
almost all our denominations are becoming so infected with this
grievous error, that they are not so much organs of Christ, as they are
organs of Antichrist. This accounts for the rise, all over the land, of
Bible schools, to take the place of the seminaries. The evil is coming
in like a flood, and the Spirit of the Lord will surely raise up a
standard against it. But oh the pity! that money given by godly men to
provide preachers of the gospel should be devoted to undermining the
Christian cause!
What is the effect of this method of interpretation upon the churches of
our denomination? It is to cut the tap-root of their strength, and to
imperil their very existence. Baptist churches are founded upon
Scripture. Their doctrine of regenerate church-membership, and of church
ordinances as belonging only to believers, presupposes an authoritative
rule of faith and practice in the New Testament. In controversy with
other denominations we have always appealed "to the law and to the
testimony," and we have declared that, if other faiths "speak not
according to this word, surely there is no morning for them." We have
held that the authority of Scripture is not an arbitrary authority, but
that the ordinances have so much of meaning that to change their form is
to destroy them altogether. We stand for immersion as the only real
baptism, not because much water is better than little water, but because
baptism is the symbol of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, and
the symbol also of our spiritual death, burial, and resurrection with
him. When we are "buried with him in baptism," we show forth his death,
just as we show forth his death in the Lord's Supper. To change the form
of the Lord's Supper so as to leave out all reference to the breaking of
Christ's body and the shedding of his blood, would be to break down one
great visible monument and testimony to Christ's atoning death, and to
destroy the Lord's Supper itself. And to change the form of baptism so
as to leave out its symbolism of Christ's death, burial, and
resurrection, is to break down another great visible monument and
testimony to Christ's essential work, and to destroy the ordinance of
baptism. Only the surrender of belief in the authority of Scripture, and
a consequent ignoring of the meaning of baptism can explain the proposal
to give us our requisition of immersion. The weakness of our
denomination in such cities as New York results from the acceptance of
the method of Scripture interpretation which I have been criticizing. We
are losing our faith in the Bible, and our determination to stand for
its teachings. We are introducing into our ministry men who either never
knew the Lord, or who have lost their faith in him and their love for
him. The unbelief in our seminary teaching is like a blinding mist which
is slowly settling down upon our churches, and is gradually abolishing,
not only all definite views of Christian doctrine, but also all
conviction of duty to "contend earnestly for the faith" of our fathers.
So we are giving up our polity, to please and to join other
denominations. If this were only a lapse in denominationalism, we might
call it a mere change in our ways of expressing faith. But it is a far
more radical evil. It is apostasy from Christ and revolt against his
government. It is refusal to rally to Christ's colors in the great
conflict with error and sin. We are ceasing to be evangelistic as well
as evangelical, and if this downward progress continues, we shall in due
time cease to exist. This is the fate of Unitarianism to-day. We
Baptists must reform, or die.
What is the effect of this method of interpretation upon missions? I
have just come from an extensive tour in mission fields. I have visited
missionaries of several denominations. I have found those missions most
successful which have held to the old gospel and to the polity of the
New Testament. But I have found a growing tendency to depend upon
education, rather than upon evangelism. What would Peter have said on
the day of Pentecost, if you had advised him not to incur the wrath of
the Jews by his preaching, but to establish schools, and to trust to the
gradual enlightenment of the Jewish nation by means of literature? He
might have replied that our Lord made it his first duty to "make
disciples," and only afterwards to "teach them to observe all things
which he had commanded." Christian schools and Christian teaching are
necessary in their place, but they are second, not first. Our lack at
home of the right interpretation of Scripture, and our fading knowledge
in experience of the presence and power of Christ, have gone from us
round the world. Some boards are sending out as missionaries young men
who lack definite views of doctrine. These young men, having nothing
positive to preach, choose rather to teach in the English language, in
schools where English is spoken, rather than preach in the native
language which requires a lifetime of study. When they teach, they
cannot help revealing their mental poverty, and disturbing the simple
faith of their pupils. Having no certainty themselves, they can inspire
no certainty in others, for "if the trumpet gives no certain sound, who
will arm himself for the battle?" These unprepared and inefficient
teachers may become themselves converted through their very sense of
weakness in presence of the towering systems of idolatry and
superstition around them. But if they are not so converted, they will
handicap the mission and paralyze its influence. Some of our best
missionaries have said to me, "The Lord deliver us from such helpers!"
No man has a right to go, and no board has a right to send, as a
missionary, one who has not had such a personal experience of Christ as
will enable him to stand against this unscientific and unchristian
method of Scripture interpretation.
This so-called "historical method" has effects on the missionary cause
at home, as well as in the lands far away. "How shall they preach,
except they be sent?" The sending of missionaries is dependent upon the
zeal and liberality of the churches in our land. But how can one who is
not sure that Jesus ever uttered the words of the Great Commission urge
the churches to fulfil that command of Christ? How can one who has never
felt his own need of an atonement adjure his brethren, by Christ's death
for their sins, not to let the heathen perish? How can one who has had
no experience of Christ as a present and divine Saviour, have power to
stand against the rationalism and apathy of the church? This method of
Scripture interpretation makes evangelism an enterprise of fanatics not
sufficiently educated to know that Buddha and Confucius were teachers of
truth long before the time of Christ. Can we more surely dry up the
sources of missionary contributions, than by yielding to the pernicious
influence of this way of treating Scripture? We have gone far already in
the wrong direction. Our churches are honeycombed with doubt and with
indifference. The preaching of the old gospel of sin and salvation seems
almost a thing of the past. People have itching ears that will not
endure sound doctrine. The dynamic of missions is love for Christ, who
died to save us from the guilt and power of sin. Modern criticism has
to a large extent nullified this dynamic, and if the authority of
Scripture is yet further weakened, we may look for complete collapse in
our supplies both of men and of money. In fact, the faith and the gifts
of many converts from among the heathen already so far exceed the
average faith and gifts of our churches at home, that the time may come
when Burma and the Congo may have to send missionaries to us, as we are
now sending missionaries to the land where the seven churches of Asia
once flourished.
Whence has come this so-called "historical method" of interpreting
Scripture? I answer: It was "made in Germany." German scholarship for a
century past has been working almost exclusively on the horizontal
plane, and has been ignoring the light that comes from above. The
theology of Great Britain and of America has been profoundly affected by
the application of its evolutionary and skeptical principles. In Germany
itself the honesty of every Scripture writer has been questioned, and
every sacred document has been torn into bits. When the all-pervading
presence and influence of Christ in the Bible is lost sight of, and its
separate fragments are examined to discover their meaning, there is no
guide but the theory of evolution; and evolution, instead of being the
ordinary method of a personal God, is itself personified and made the
only power in the universe. The regularities of nature, it is thought,
leave no room for miracle. There is no divine Will that can work down
upon nature in unique acts, such as incarnation and resurrection. A
pantheistic Force is the only ruler, and whatever is, is right. Goethe
led the way in this pagan philosophy, and German universities have been
full of it ever since. It is painful to see how German theologians and
ministers have been won over to the ethics of brute force and the
practical, deification of mere might in human affairs. The New Testament
has been interpreted as justifying implicit obedience to "the powers
that be," even when they turn the Kaiser into a military despot and his
people into unresisting and deluded slaves. An exaggerated nationalism
has taken the place of human solidarity, and a selfish domination of the
world has become the goal of national ambition. All the atrocities of
this war might have been spared us, if the nations of which Germany is
the most conspicuous offender had derived their ethics and their
practice from the divine love which rules above, rather than from the
seeming necessity of competing with the nations around them. A new
interpretation of Scripture is needed to set the world right. But as
Germany will never be convinced that the worship of Force is vain,
until she sees herself plunged in defeat and ruin, so the advocates of
this so-called historical method will never make deduction a primary
part of their procedure, and will never take the eternal Christ as their
key to Scripture interpretation, until Christ himself shall by a second
spiritual advent enter into their hearts and dissipate their doubts, as
he did when he showed himself to Paul on the way to Damascus.
I have tried to point out the inherent error of the method to which I
have been objecting, and to show its ill effects upon systematic
theology, upon our theological seminaries, upon our Baptist churches,
and upon our missionary work abroad and at home. I have intimated that
the influence of this perverse treatment of Holy Writ may be seen even
in the present internecine conflict in which the professedly Christian
nations are engaged. I shall very naturally be asked what remedy I
propose for so deep-seated and widespread an evil. I can only answer
that I see no permanent cure but the second coming of Christ. But do not
misunderstand me. I am no premillennarian of the ordinary sort. Indeed,
I am as much a post-millennialist, as I am a premillennialist. I believe
that both interpretations of prophecy have their rights, and, believing
also as I do that Scripture is a unity and that its seeming
contradictions can be harmonized, I hold that Christ's spiritual coming
precedes the millennium, but that his visible and literal coming follows
the millennium. I therefore look for such a spiritual coming into the
hearts of his people, as shall renew their faith, fulfil their joy, and
answer to the prediction of "the rapture of the saints." In other
words, I look for a mighty revival of religion, which will set the
churches on their old foundation, and endow them with power to subdue
the world. This war seems to me God's second great demonstration of
man's inability to save himself, and his need of divine power to save
him. As the ancient world and its history were God's demonstration of
human sin, and of man's need of Christ's first advent, so this war is
God's proof that science and philosophy, literature and commerce, are
not sufficient for man's needs, and that Christ must again come, if our
modern world is ever to be saved. "In the fulness of time" Christ's
first advent occurred. "In the fulness of time" Christ's second advent
will occur. But not until humanity, weary of its load, cries out for its
redemption. "How long, O Lord, how long?" "It is not for us to know the
times which the Father has set within his own authority." But it is ours
to believe in Christ's promise, and to pray for its speedy fulfilment.
And so, I beg you to join with me in the one prayer with which our book
of Scripture closes, namely, "Lord Jesus, come quickly!"
XVII
THE THEOLOGY OF MISSIONS
"The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord." Yes, a candle, but a
candle not yet lighted, a candle which will never be light nor give
light, till it is touched by a divine flame. So said Doctor Parkhurst.
Was his interpretation of Scripture correct? He drew from the proverb
the conclusion that man has a religious nature, not in the sense that
he is actually religious, but only in the sense that he has a capacity
for religion. Doctor Parkhurst would say that man is actually religious
only when he knows the true God and worships him in spirit and in
truth. To that God he is by nature and by sinful habit blind. He can be
light and give light, only after God has enlightened him by special
revelation. His nature is a candle unlighted, until God touches it with
his divine flame.
What is the truth in this matter? The months I have spent in these
heathen lands have made deep impression upon me, and the problem of
heathenism has loomed up before me as never before. When one sees
thousands prostrating themselves in a Mohammedan mosque and chanting in
unison their ascription of greatness to God, or when one sees a Hindu
devotee so absorbed in his prayer to a senseless idol that he is
unconscious of the kicks and shouts of the passers-by, one comes to
realize that man must have a god. The religious instinct is a part of
his nature. It is more than a mere capacity for religion. It is active
as well as passive. In some sort the candle is already burning. It burns
at certain times and places with a fierce and demonic glow. When I saw
in Calcutta, so recently the capital of India, a priestess of the temple
of Kali, cutting into bits the flesh and entrails of sheep in order that
the poorest worshiper might have for his farthing some bloody fragment
to offer at the shrine of that hideous and lustful and cruel goddess, I
felt sure that, though the candle is burning, it is not always because
it has been touched by a divine flame. There are other powers than God's
at work in this universe. Doctor Parkhurst's explanation of the
Scripture text is not sufficient. He acknowledges only a part of the
truth. The candle is giving already a dim and lurid light. Man is
blindly worshiping, groping in the dark, bowing to imaginary deities,
the products of his own imagination, the work of his own hands.
We must go even farther than this, and concede that here and there among
these crowds of worshipers there may be one who is a sincere seeker
after God and, according to the light that he has, is trying honestly to
serve him. I do not mean a selfish service of ignorant and earthly
passion, but a service prompted by some elementary knowledge of the true
God, gained by contemplation of his works in nature or from the needs of
his own soul revealed in conscience. Surely there was truth and
sincerity in the worship of Socrates, of Epictetus, of Marcus Aurelius.
The patriarchs had knowledge of God and walked with God, long before
Christ came. And Scripture itself declares that in every nation he that
fears God and works righteousness is accepted by him. David Brainerd
found among the American Indians a man who for years had separated
himself from the wickedness of his people, and had devoted himself to
doing them good. Now and then our missionaries find a heathen whose
strivings after God have been prompted by a sense of sin, and whose
worship must have been accepted by the God of love. Though there is
"none other name given among men whereby we may be saved," we cannot
doubt that every man who feels himself to be a sinner, and casts himself
upon God's mercy for salvation, does really though unconsciously cast
himself upon Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the
world, and so joins himself to Christ by the teaching and power of
Christ's Spirit, as to be saved in some measure from the dominion of sin
here and from the penalty of sin hereafter.
I am a believer in the unity, the sufficiency, and the authority of
Scripture--in its unity, when the parts are put together in their
historical connections and with the key to their meaning furnished us in
Christ; in its sufficiency, as a rule of religious faith and practice;
and in its authority, when rightly interpreted with the aid of the Holy
Spirit. So I am prepared to find in the first chapter of Paul's Epistle
to the Romans the true philosophy of heathenism, and the reconciliation
of the otherwise seemingly conflicting utterances of Scripture with
regard to the religious nature of man. I learn that God made man
upright, and endowed him with at least a childlike knowledge of himself.
But early humanity sought out many inventions, did not wish to retain
God in its knowledge, and substituted for the true God creatures of its
own imagination. In other words, the scriptural explanation of
heathenism is found in an original ancestral sin, in which the human
race departed from the true God and gave itself up to the worship,
first, of impersonal nature-powers, and then, of the polytheistic
personifications of these powers which naturally followed.
Modern heathenism is the result of an abnormal and downward evolution.
Many students of comparative religion have forgotten that evolution is
oftener to lower forms than to higher. Many a species in the history of
life has first become degenerate, and then has become extinct. The
shores of time are strewn with wrecks, and one of these wrecks is human
nature. Paul gives us only the logical and moral interpretation of a
biological fact, when he declares that in consequence of man's departure
from God, God gave man over to the dominion of his own passions, in
order that the shame and guilt of his vile affections might awaken his
conscience and lead him to cry for mercy and redemption. Modern
heathenism, still surviving in this age of enlightenment, shows how sin
can blind the intellect and harden the heart. When men worship demons of
cruelty and lust instead of God, they reveal the depravity as well as
the ignorance of human nature in its downward evolution. The candle has
been lighted indeed, but it has been touched with the flames of hell.
When God made man in his own image, it was only wheat that he sowed in
his field. The evil decision of man has furnished the tares, and their
history has been a history of downward evolution. But side by side with
this downward evolution there has been an upward evolution of divine
grace. The tares have been suffered to grow, but only that there might
be demonstrated the power of the wheat to root them out. And from the
very beginning Christ has been the author and principle of the true
evolution. He who created the race has been its Preserver, Instructor,
and Saviour. Humanity, in its warring and its lust, would long since
have become extinct, if it had not been for the presence in it of a
divine Life and Light. That life and light were the life and light of
the preincarnate Christ. He is "the light that lighteth every man," and
"his life was the light of men." Jonathan Edwards did not go too far,
when he recognized in all natural beauty and goodness the work of
Christ. The sunset clouds were painted by the hand of Christ, and it is
he whose glory is celebrated by the cannonading of the autumn storm over
the grave of summer. All the light of conscience is his light; all the
progress of science is his revelation. It was he who led the children of
Israel by a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, and who
thundered and lightened from Sinai at the giving of the Law. "The Rock
that followed" the chosen people through the wilderness and gave them
drink "was Christ." Every reform within the bounds of heathenism has
been due to him. Confucius and Buddha, so far as they uttered truth,
were his messengers. He has never left humanity without a witness to the
power and goodness of God. While men have been seeking an unknown God,
he has been that very God whom they were seeking, and it is he who has
incited them to feel after him and find him. His light has shined in
the darkness, and the darkness has comprehended it not, though in him we
live and move and have our being.
So there is evolution of good, side by side with the evolution of evil.
We may recognize truth in heathen systems, while we deplore their
errors, for Christ himself is the Truth. It is the single grain of truth
in these systems that has given them all their power. They never could
have maintained their hold upon the world, if they had not appealed to
some good instincts of the human heart. A coin made wholly of lead will
never pass for a dollar. It must have a little washing of silver to give
it any sort of currency. But it is a counterfeit, for all its silver
washing. So these heathen systems have their grain of truth, but they
are false and soul-destroying all the same. Let us recognize candidly
the grains of truth which they contain, for these are witnesses to the
indwelling Christ who has not left humanity wholly to itself. And let us
make these grains of truth our gateways of access to the heathen heart,
while we show the heathen the larger and fuller truth as it is in Jesus.
Christ alone can solve the problems of the world and reconcile the
warring elements of humanity. He is our peace, who hath made Jew and
Gentile one, having broken down the middle wall of partition, and having
made of the twain one new man, reconciling both to God through the blood
of his Cross. He can make all sects, all parties, all castes, all
nations one; because in him are all the elements of truth which each
possesses, without any mixture of their errors. In him there will be no
longer barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, male nor female, for he will
bind all together by virtue of their union with himself. The Hindu, for
example, has the truth of God's immanence, but he turns it into
falsehood by denying the correlative and equally important truth of
God's transcendence, making God to be a mere nature-force without
personality, while Scripture recognizes in God both immanence and
transcendence, sees God in all things and through all things, yet above
all things. The Hindu has also the truth of God's incarnation, but he
turns it into error, by denying the permanence of that incarnation, the
divine incarnation in Krishna or Buddha being only a temporary
assumption of humanity which he leaves behind him when he reascends to
his heaven, while Christ takes our human nature into perpetual union
with himself and makes it sit down with him upon his throne. The Moslem,
on the other hand, believes in God's unity and transcendence, but denies
his immanence. His God is far away, not only physically but also
morally, for he is without justice or love. The Moslem holds stoutly to
the truth of God's personality; but he denies the manifestation of that
personality in Christ, and also Christ's personal presence with all
believers. Only Christ can break down the middle wall of partition
between Hindu and Moslem, for he alone has the all-inclusive truth that
will unite them both. And so of all divisions of caste, of color, of
party, of denomination, and of nationality, for he alone is the Way, the
Truth, and the Life, supremely and absolutely fitted to be the Bringer
of Peace to the world.
There is yet another reason why Christ alone can save. Let us remember
always that error is the result of sin, and that before the power of sin
can be broken, the penalty of sin must be removed. In the heart of man
is an inextinguishable sense of guilt, and an equally inextinguishable
thirst for reparation. It is the forebodings of conscience that make
death terrible. Blind the eyes and harden the heart, if you will. The
accusations of conscience will be like writings in invisible ink, that
come out clear and threatening in times of introspection and of sober
judgment. As Shakespeare says,
Their great guilt
Like poison given to work a great time after,
Now 'gins to bite the spirits.
The greatest chasm is between their souls and God, and they must have
peace with God, before they can have peace with men. Christ is our
peace, therefore, first of all, because he makes atonement for our sins,
pays our debts to justice, and sets our conscience free from guilt.
Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the whole world,
making peace by the blood of his Cross. Having made our peace with God,
he makes peace in our warring powers of conscience and will, and then
brings about peace in our relations with others. As he made man at the
first of one blood, so he will at last bring all the nations back into
one brotherhood of holiness and love.
There is a moral theology, as well as a doctrinal theology. The moral
follows the doctrinal, and shows in practice that the doctrine is truth
and not error. Paul includes this moral teaching in his Epistle to the
Romans. At the beginning of his twelfth chapter he passes from his
discussion of justification by faith to speak of the proper effects of
faith in the Christian life: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice." Then
comes the noblest summary of duty to be found in all literature. All
manner of social service is enjoined, while the presupposition of that
service is ever held to be the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf and the
regenerating grace of God in the Christian heart. How much the heathen
world needs this part of the gospel, only some knowledge of the shameful
vices of the Orient can reveal to us. The first chapter of that same
Epistle is a correct picture of the heathen world of to-day. A pure
life, which is also a life lived for others, is something which
surpasses the power of Confucius or Buddha to produce or to maintain.
Such lives in the churches of mission lands are the weightiest arguments
for Christianity. But conversion to Christ goes, in its influence,
farther than the individual. It has a far-reaching social influence. It
lifts up the whole family, the whole class, the whole caste, making its
members intelligent, efficient, trustworthy, as many British officials
in India gladly bear witness. Christianity seems likely to give the
Sudras precedence of the Brahmans in civil and political affairs, so
that in one case at least the meek shall inherit the earth.
The kingdom of God, however, can never win its triumphs solely by
external reforms. In order to obtain the fruits of education, morality,
and self-government, you must first have Christian faith rooted in the
soil. Applications of Christianity are necessary, and they are to be
earnestly sought, but it will be vain to seek them, if we have no
Christianity to apply. The tendency in our missions to put the main
stress upon physical and social agencies, to the detriment of simple
gospel preaching, is sure to be disappointing in its results. It is like
trying to light a coal-fire by putting your kindlings on top. It is like
beginning at the roof, and building down to the foundation; or like
first purifying the stream, and afterwards the fountain. Society is made
up of individuals, and regeneration of the individual must precede all
social renovation. The old gospel, with regard to sin and salvation, is
the only gospel that will save the heathen world; and the living,
personal Christ, with his atoning blood and his renewing Spirit, is the
only power that can bring about permanent reformation of social evils
and the establishment of the kingdom of God in the individual, in the
nation, and in the world.
That this is the true theology of missions, the history of missions is
the best of all proofs. We need not only to touch the intellect, but
also to touch the heart. We need to furnish a motive that will win to
action the sluggish and selfish devotees of systems century-old that
have enslaved them. One message, and one only, has accomplished this
result, and that is the message of the Cross. Not the presentation of
God's greatness and power, but the story of the personal Jesus and his
giving up of his life for sinners, has moved men to give themselves to
him. The love of Christ has called forth answering love. Greenlanders
and Bushmen, Tibetans and Telugus, Australians and Chinese, have gone
to their deaths for Christ, simply because they had learned that
Christ died for them. Of this sort have been the first-fruits of all
our missions. Christ crucified has been the power of God unto
salvation. When he who was rich became poor that we might become rich,
he instituted not only an example, but a motive, sufficient to subdue
men's hearts and to conquer the world. "To win for the Lamb that was
slain the reward of his sufferings" has turned illiterate men in
India into indomitable propagandists of Christianity; but it has also
made missionaries in Oxford and Edinburgh, in Leicester and
Andover--missionaries like Reginald Heber and John G. Paton, like
William Carey and Adoniram Judson. The "offense of the Cross" is
great, but the power of the Cross is greater still, and the theology
of missions must never permit mere philosophy, or education, or
physical betterment, or social service, to take the place of Christ
crucified in its preaching.
I grieve over the minimizing of Christ's nature and claims that is
current in our day, because I believe that it cuts the sinew of our
Christian faith and destroys the chief dynamic in our missions. I
deplore the denial of our Lord's deity and atonement, the refusal to
address him in prayer, the ignoring of his promise to be with his people
even to the end of the world. To meet our needs in the conflict with
towering systems of idolatry and superstition, we need a supernatural
Christ; not simply the man of Nazareth, but the Lord of glory; not the
Christ of the Synoptics alone, but also the Christ of John's Gospel; not
a merely human example and leader, but one who "was declared to be the
Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead"; not simply
Jesus according to the flesh, but "the Word who was with God and who was
God" in eternity past; not simply God manifest in human life nineteen
centuries ago, but the God who is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and
forever"; not simply the humbled, but also the glorified Saviour, who
sits now upon the throne of the universe, all power in heaven and earth
being given into his hand. When we believe in an ascended Lord at God's
right hand, the God of Creation, of Providence, and of Redemption, we
have a faith that can conquer the world. Without such a faith in the
omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent Christ, we are weak as water in
the conflict with heathenism. We may set up Christ on a pedestal, in a
pantheon like that of Mrs. Besant, with a statue of Krishna by his side,
and the Hindu will laugh at the claims of the gospel. Only faith in
Christ as very God can meet the demands of the hour. "The spirit of man
is the candle of the Lord." In every age Christ has lit that candle, so
that it has given some light. But all who have come before him,
pretending to be the Light of the world, have been thieves and robbers,
stealing from Christ his glory and from man his blessing. Christ alone
can so enlighten us that we can be light and can give light. Let us
arise and shine, because our Light has come, and the glory of the Lord
has arisen upon us!
XVIII
MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES
No result of my travel has been more valuable to me than the new
impression I have received of the effect of missions upon missionaries.
I came abroad with a lingering idea of my youth that missionaries were a
class by themselves, a solemn set, destitute of humor, and so absorbed
in their work as to be narrow-minded. On the contrary, I have found them
joyful and even hilarious, broad in their views and sympathies, lovers
of the good in literature and art. The mental and spiritual growth of
students who left me years ago for a foreign field has greatly surprised
me. Then they were boys; now they are men. The demands of the missionary
work have drawn out their latent powers; they have found their new
environment immensely stimulating; contact with new lands and people has
widened their outlook; they have become thinkers and leaders of men.
It takes an all-round man to be a good missionary. The learning of a
foreign language in which one has to construct his own grammar and
lexicon requires persistent effort of the most disciplined mind. The
missionary is often called upon to build his own house or church. He
must be both architect and supervisor, for his masons know no English,
and are bent on slighting their work. He has servants who steal and
coolies who lie. He establishes, manages, and governs a native school,
and generally has to evolve his own pedagogy. He comes into relation
with English officials, American consuls, and native functionaries, and
is obliged to know something of social customs. In fine, he is a jack of
all trades, besides being a preacher of the gospel who must adapt his
message to the understanding of the illiterate multitude and of the
cultivated man of caste as well.
All this gives the missionary a training beyond that of any university
course. Herbert Spencer asserted that a nation makes progress in
civilization in proportion to the variety of its environment. The
principle applies also to the development of the individual. Our
missionaries thought perhaps that they were leaving culture behind them,
when they left America for barbarous lands. But losing their lives for
Christ's sake they found to be mental gain. Even on the Congo our men
have learned more, and have developed stronger characters, than would
have been possible if they had accepted ordinary pastorates at home. And
they have not lost, but have won, that fine flavor of sanity and
judgment, which belongs to men who have had large experience of life.
So far, I have referred only to the intellectual side of one's
education. The spiritual equipment is even more important. In heathendom
one comes in contact with towering systems of idolatry and superstition,
venerable with age and rooted deeply in the nature and habit of the
people. The Christian teacher realizes that, in his conflict with these
systems, he is powerless, unless backed by Omnipotence. He is thrown
upon the divine resources, and learns, perhaps for the first time,
that, while apart from Christ he can do nothing, with Christ he can do
all things. A new experience of the presence and power of the Saviour
comes to him. The struggle that at first taxed all his energy is at last
a glad walk over the course in the strength of Christ. Anxiety and fear
have taught him lessons which he could not otherwise have learned. He
has become a hopeful and joyful Christian.
All this tends to render the missionary doctrinally sound.
Evangelization makes men evangelical. When you tell the gospel to a
heathen sinner, you must put it in the simplest terms, or he will fail
to understand it. Your effort to reach his mind and heart clarifies your
own. To one condemned and lost, no mere human example in Jesus will
suffice; you need an atoning Saviour. To one struggling with demonic
powers and helpless in their grasp, no mere man of Nazareth, no Jesus,
according to the flesh, will answer; you need the Lord of Glory, who was
declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the
dead. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit who regenerates, sanctifies,
comforts, and saves, becomes an indispensable element in preaching, and
so becomes ingrained into the preacher's confession of faith. A personal
and present Christ, Immanuel, God with us, is the source of the
missionary's power; he has practical proof that the Holy Spirit is
Christ in spiritual form, with his people alway, even to the end of the
world. The reality of God in Christ, manifest in nature, ruling the
world in providence, preparing the nations for judgment, sure to bring
the world to his feet, becomes an article of the missionary's faith, and
a constant subject of his teaching. The minimizing of Christ's nature
and claims has no proper place on missionary ground. The missionary
indeed is exerting an influence on the faith of the homeland equal to
that which he exerts upon the heathen abroad.
It is indeed true that here and there a man who has come out as a
missionary has been attracted and perverted by the very systems he
proposed to subdue, and has turned out a teacher of Buddhism instead of
Christianity. But such men had never the root of the matter in them, had
never felt the galling yoke of sin, had never known the joy of Christ's
salvation. They had gotten their preparation for evangelistic work from
American teachers of comparative religion, who put Buddha on the same
plane with Christ. The result has only shown the impotence of a man-made
gospel to combat heathenism, or even to save the souls of those who
preach that sort of gospel. In a sense precisely opposite to that of the
apostle Paul, they have come to be opposers of the faith they once
proposed to advocate, and destroyers instead of builders of Christian
civilization. All this is a lesson to our missionary societies and
churches at home. The colleges and seminaries which permit indefinite
and unevangelical doctrine to be taught, and which retain those who
teach it upon the ground that liberality in theology is a duty, merit
the censure of God and man; for the school or the church that ceases to
be evangelical will soon cease to be evangelistic, and when it ceases to
be evangelistic it will soon cease to exist. In this way missions are
the testing-places of Christian doctrine.
In a similar way New Testament polity is showing its power in our
foreign work. At home we are getting to be lax in our reception of
members, and are taking in numbers of persons without proper evidence of
their conversion. Baptist churches which used to examine carefully their
candidates for admission now receive them without public and oral
confession of their faith. Yet these new members may vote, and may
determine the attitude of the church in important exigencies. All this
is avoided in our mission churches. They perceive the necessity of
keeping out the unfit, as clearly as that of admitting the fit. They do
not add to their membership by infant baptism, and they make sure that
no pecuniary considerations influence professing converts. Our Baptist
mission churches are fast becoming models of self-supporting,
self-governing, and self-propagating bodies. Missionaries find that
their only safety lies in hewing close to the line of New Testament
requirement. Their success in building up Baptist churches in Burma and
among the Telugus, keeps our missionaries faithful to the New Testament
model of church polity. They have the joy of seeing churches organized
on scriptural principles, and shedding their light upon the regions of
darkness around them.
I wish to say something also about the physical environment of our
missionaries and its influence upon them. I remember that half a century
ago I called upon Doctor Thompson of Beirut, the veteran missionary of
the American Board in Syria. I would not have been surprised if I had
found him living in a hut, for my ideas of missionary hardship were
very crude. But I was surprised to find him living in a great stone
mansion, with twice as many servants as we ordinarily have at home. It
has taken me some time to learn that in a hot country a cool and
spacious house is a primary necessity of life, if the missionary expects
to endure a climate where the thermometer at times goes up beyond a
hundred degrees and stays there. And ordinary comfort cannot be obtained
without servants to do your cooking and running. The large house can be
built for half the cost of such a structure at home, and the servants
can be obtained for only a few cents a day for each one. Remember that
in many cases the missionary has not only to be his own physician and
surgeon, but also the physician and surgeon of others; that his house is
often a hospital as well as a gathering-place of inquirers. Remember,
too, that the missionary's wife has not only to perform the household
duties of a wife at home, but in addition has probably to be the
supervisor of a girls' school and the only school-teacher and
music-teacher that her children will know until they are old enough to
go to the homeland. Remember these considerations, and you will see that
a decent home is essential to a missionary's success in a heathen land.
Our missionary work, like our diplomatic service, has been too long
discredited by our insufficient care for our representatives abroad.
Our friends of other denominations are greatly ahead of us in this
matter of provision for their missionaries. Not only are the bungalows
built for their residences better than ours, but their plants of church
and school buildings show a larger outlook for the future than ours
show. The English Baptists, the Congregationalists, the Methodists, the
Church of England, yes, even the Theosophists and Buddhists, furnish
object-lessons to us in this regard. And yet, such has been the
inventiveness and large-mindedness of our missionaries themselves, that
in all the great centers of our work, they are housed better than the
average pastors of our churches at home. I wish we could double their
strength by the establishment of summer rest-houses in the hills, and by
presenting every one of them with a motor-car. But even now, the days of
extreme hardship are past, and no man of ordinary vigor need fear coming
to the foreign field on account of its physical discomforts.
When our Lord sent out his first missionaries, he sent them two by two.
The real trial of the missionary is more mental than physical. He
greatly needs companionship. Silence in the midst of the beating of
heathen tom-toms becomes enervating and appalling; it may make a man
insane. We are learning the value of team-work in missions. What one man
alone could never accomplish, he can do with the help of others. The
American Board in its mission at Madura, India, has acted upon this
principle, and the result is seen in an aggregate of twenty-two thousand
church-members. Our own most successful work has been among the Burmans
and Karens, where we have seventy thousand members, and among the
Telugus, where we have as many more. In these fields there are enough
workers to constitute a homogeneous society, with frequent conferences
to help the discouraged and to stimulate the weak. Let us be generous
in providing additional helpers and furloughs to men so far removed from
our Christian civilization.
But let no one go to the foreign field expecting to get all his strength
from his brethren. Missionary work is no sinecure. It requires not only
a sound body and a sound mind, with a cheerful and hopeful temperament,
but also a willingness to endure hardship for Jesus' sake, and, if need
be, with him alone for helper. There are more alleviations of missionary
conditions than were known in its early days, but they still require
self-sacrifice. Separation from home and friends, and, for the pioneer,
days of unspeakable loneliness, are the missionary's portion. The
necessity of sending children to America, so that they may escape
disease and immorality among the heathen, is an agony which only the
affectionate parent can know. Opportunities for usefulness which cannot
be seized, because of lack of reenforcement from the homeland, involve a
"hope deferred that maketh the heart sick."
When Paul went to Athens he probably hoped to win the philosophers to
Christ's standard. But the Stoics and Epicureans scoffed at him. He had
to content himself with the multitude of commoner converts at Corinth.
It was doubtless God's sovereignty that determined the result, but God's
sovereignty is also wisdom. It took Paul a long time to learn that God
builds his fires from the bottom, and ordinarily kindles the small
sticks first. "Not many wise, not many noble hath God chosen," but the
weak things first, "that no flesh may glory in his presence." Here is
one of the trials of missionary life, and one of the tests of
missionary faith. Can the missionary welcome the conversion of a
multitude of low-class people, like the Madigas, when their acceptance
becomes to the proud Brahman an evidence of the ignoble character of
Christianity? Yes, he can, if he has faith in God. He can wait on God,
and wait for results.
He builded better than he knew,
The conscious stone to beauty grew.
The great Sudra class, a class higher than the Madigas, under the
influence of Christianity, is becoming more intelligent and more
influential than the Brahman, and is gradually taking from him his
social prestige and his political power. Many missionaries are expecting
a great turning unto the Lord from among the Sudras. Meantime there is a
promise "to him that overcometh." "If we suffer with him, we shall also
reign with him." "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment,
worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." And
When we reach the shore at last.
Who shall count the billows past?
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Inconsistencies in the hyphenation of words preserved. (sightseeing,
sight-seeing)
Pg. 39, unusual word "subtilty". Presumed to be "subtlety". (and the
subtlety of the Hindus)
Pg. 177, triple quote mark after "biblia," changed to double quote
mark. (the plural "biblia,")
In the original text, every chapter had a title page (containing
chapter number and heading) with a blank page on the reverse. The page
with the main text then followed with a repeated chapter heading at
the top. Occasionally, there was also a blank page before the title
page. For tidiness, the title page of each chapter has been
transcribed but the repeated chapter headings have been removed.
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