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Title: Ten years in Burma
Author: Julius Smith
Release date: January 29, 2024 [eBook #72797]
Language: English
Original publication: Cincinnati: Jennings & Pye, 1902
Credits: Peter Becker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TEN YEARS IN BURMA ***
Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_. Additional
notes will be found near the end of this ebook.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: _Julius Smith_]
[Illustration]
_Ten Years
in Burma_
_By
REV. JULIUS SMITH_
_CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & PYE
NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS_
_COPYRIGHT
1902 BY
JENNINGS
& PYE_
[Illustration]
_ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED_
_PREFACE_
The following account of life in Burma has been written to make the
country and its people better known in America. At this time, when the
United States has come into possession of large and important tropical
lands, there is much quickening of interest in all such countries.
Burma is much like the Philippine Islands in climate, and there is
great racial similarity between the Burmese race and the Tagals.
But I have written chiefly to record the experiences and observations
of a missionary in a great and important mission-field, which is not so
well known in the home land as it deserves to be. My purpose has been
to make the condition of missionary life, and much of other life, real
to the reader, who has had no experience in a tropical country. It is
hoped that this presentation of facts will add to missionary knowledge,
and secure a better acquaintance with the races of Asia and the forces
of civilization that are making for the uplift of Asiatic peoples.
In writing of mission work in Burma, I have given special prominence
to that under the control of the Methodist Episcopal Church. There has
been no printed account of this mission for the twenty-two years of its
history, and it seems well to give some permanent form to the record
of that which has been undertaken by our little band of missionaries in
that field.
In writing of races, social life, and government, I have, of course,
written of that which is seen through a missionary’s eyes. It so
happens that I have had a great deal to do with people of various
nationalities, in relations not directly of a missionary character.
This has given me many opportunities to observe as a man, regardless
of my calling. In all respects I have tried to be fair and accurate. I
have always cherished a fellow-feeling with men whose labors brought
them to Asia, and my sympathies have been with all such in honorable
callings. It has been my purpose to reflect the conditions of life
with which they are surrounded. There has been much excluded that I
would gladly have recorded, if the limit of this book had allowed
the additional facts. Some incompleteness of statement has been
unavoidable, as I could not verify the details at the time and place
of writing. Ten years is a short time to study great questions in the
East, and to form conclusions on the greatest of them; but I trust
that enough of well-digested facts has been told in this book to
give the student of missions and mission lands an inside view of the
questions discussed. For such defects as are due to the limitations of
the author’s ability to gather or to present facts in a satisfactory
manner, I must trust to the generous sentiments of the reader.
JULIUS SMITH.
_TABLE OF CONTENTS_
PAGE
I. FROM AMERICA TO BURMA, 13
II. FIRST YEAR IN BURMA, 34
III. A YEAR OF CHANGES, 57
IV. THE PHYSICAL FEATURES OF BURMA, 70
V. THE CITY OF RANGOON, 87
VI. EUROPEANS, ANGLO-INDIANS, EURASIANS, 109
VII. CHARACTERISTICS OF RACES OF BURMA, 122
VIII. BUDDHISM, 139
IX. BUDDHISM; HOW MAINTAINED, 153
X. BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY CONTRASTED, 169
XI. RIPENED FRUIT OF NON-CHRISTIAN FAITHS, 180
XII. OUTLINE OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS, BURMA, 201
XIII. METHODIST EPISCOPAL MISSION, BURMA, 216
XIV. PREACHING IN FOUR ASIATIC LANGUAGES, 236
XV. A UNIQUE ENTERPRISE, 263
XVI. THE PRESENT SITUATION IN MISSIONS, 293
XVII. BENEFITS OF BRITISH RULE IN SOUTHERN ASIA, 308
[Illustration]
_LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS_
PAGE
1. JULIUS SMITH, _Frontispiece_.
2. SWAY DAGON PAGODA, 27
3. METHODIST CHURCH, RANGOON, 37
4. NATIVES OF BURMA, 43
5. PADDY-BOAT, 75
6. THE ELEPHANT AT WORK, 83
7. THE NEW PUBLIC OFFICES, RANGOON, 93
8. THE MOSQUE, RANGOON, 99
9. ENTRANCE OF SWAY DAGON PAGODA, 103
10. ROYAL LAKES AT EVENTIDE, RANGOON, 107
11. A BURMESE FAMILY, 127
12. SHRINE, SWAY DAGON PAGODA, 143
13. FRONT OF A GAUTAMA TEMPLE, 149
14. BUDDHIST MONK AND ATTENDANT, 157
15. FUNERAL PYRE OF A BURMESE PRIEST, 163
16. FESTIVITIES AT A POUNGYI’S CREMATION, 199
17. METHODIST GIRLS’ SCHOOL, RANGOON, 219
18. CHARLOTTE O’NEAL INSTITUTE, RANGOON, 223
19. LARGE IMAGE AT PEGU, 255
20. MISS PERKINS AND GROUP OF GIRLS AT THANDAUNG, 275
21. FIRST PERMANENT BUILDING ON THANDAUNG, 283
22. BURMESE FESTIVAL CART, 315
[Illustration]
_Ten Years
in Burma_
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I
From America to Burma
The Church of Jesus Christ has just closed its first century of
missionary effort within modern times. The nineteenth century began
with only a few heroic spirits urging the Church to awake to its
responsibility of giving the gospel to the Christless nations.
The century has just closed with a steadily increasing army of
missionaries, who are determined to give the gospel to every man in
his own tongue at the earliest possible day, while the whole Church
is beginning to feel the missionary impulse, so far at least, that an
increasing multitude are eager to hear of mission lands, the condition
of the peoples without Christ, the victories of the gospel, and to have
some share in its triumph.
Adoniram Judson, the great missionary hero, enrolled the land of Burma
in the list of great mission-fields. He began his labors in Burma
during the second decade of the century. The following pages are
written as a report of missionary labors and observations in that land
in the closing ten years of the century.
How the writer came to be a missionary, and to be honored with an
appointment to Burma, may warrant a brief statement. In almost all
life’s important steps, individual influence proves the determining
factor. This is true in my call to the mission-field. In 1867, when
only ten years of age, living on my father’s farm in Andrew County,
Mo., I heard a Methodist preacher make a plea for the heathen world. I
have never been able to recall his name, that being the only time he
ever preached in that place, which was a schoolhouse on my father’s
farm. The sermon made a profound impression on me, and I decided to
give half of my little fortune of one dollar, saved from pennies,
to the cause of missions, with pleadings for which he so warmed our
hearts and moved our eyes to tears. Later experiences have shown that
missionary sermon to have been the most potential influence of my
childhood or youth in determining what I should be in after years. The
experience itself seemed to die away for a term of years, due, I think,
to the fact that I had little religious training and no missionary
information during youth. The reawakening of missionary interest came
in 1880, when in college in the Iowa Wesleyan University I heard
William Taylor tell of his missionary labors in many lands. Had I then
been near the close of my college course, instead of at its beginning,
I would have volunteered to go to his mission in South America. Seven
or eight years went by, and I was in Garrett Biblical Institute. At
that time Bishop Thoburn delivered a series of thrilling missionary
addresses to the school. I now think, though without being clearly
conscious of it, that from that time I was called to go to India. In
1889, I was pastor of the Arlington Methodist Church in Kansas City,
Mo., and so became one of the entertainers of the Missionary Committee
that met in the city that year. In listening to the missionary
addresses for ten days, and more especially in conversation with Dr.
Oldham, who was present, being commissioned by Bishop Thoburn to
secure re-enforcements for India, the whole question whether my wife
and I should offer ourselves to the Missionary Society for work in
the foreign field came up for final settlement. I sought the counsel
of Bishop Ninde, who had once been to India, and whose kindly manner
always invited confidences of this sort. He agreed to come and spend
a day with us, two months later, which he did, and as a result of his
counsel and advice, we decided to offer to go to India as missionaries.
The offer was promptly accepted, and from that time we laid our plans
to leave for our new field of work the following fall. It has always
been an inspiring memory to recall the steps by which we were led to
let go of America and set our faces toward Asia, and the personal
agencies that led us to this decision.
There was another consideration which had great weight in our choice
of the foreign mission-field. At home there are men ready for all
places. In the foreign mission-fields, especially in Southern Asia,
to which we were drawn, there are several places for every man. Here
any one of a dozen valuable men can be had for any important charge.
On the mission-fields there are most important posts that call in
vain for re-enforcements. At home supplies can be had to meet any
emergency within a very short time; but on the mission-field we often
must wait years for the right man. I left Kansas City in the morning,
and my successor, a very worthy and successful man, arrived in the
evening of the same day. But out in Burma I have pleaded for years for
one man to re-enforce the mission. The Arlington Church, which I was
serving, was then and is now a very enjoyable pastorate--one in which
the people, always cherish their pastor, and better, where they have
from the founding of the Church cordially supported every effort for
the salvation of men. The decision to leave that Church to go half way
round the world to a people I had never seen, was largely due to the
fact that we were needed most on this picket-line of missions, and good
men, who for any reason could not go to the foreign fields, could be
found to take up promptly the work I laid down at home.
The farewells in Kansas City were of the cheerful and happy kind that
send missionaries on their way to their peculiar missions strong in
heart. Arlington Church spoke its own farewell in a reception to their
pastor and his family, while Grand Avenue Church, the Methodists
of Kansas City, followed with a general reception to the outgoing
missionaries. This general gathering was under the direction of the
pastor, Dr. Jesse Bowman Young, and Dr. O. M. Stewart, the presiding
elder. The latter sounded the note of cheerfulness for the farewell.
He said, “Let us have nothing of a funeral sort about this reception.”
We have always thanked him for the cheerful and hopeful tone which
ran all through the meeting. Dr. Young was of the same spirit, and
in his address, which at one moment bordered on the emotional at
the thought of a long parting from those to whom he had been one of
the best of friends, recovered himself by saying, “If you discover
anything suspicious in my eyes, charge it up to the hayfever.” These
good brethren did more than they knew to set a standard of joyful
anticipation on the part of the Church and the outgoing missionaries in
the honorable service to which they were called, that toned up their
courage when facing the actual separation from home ties. This was of
very great value to us who were leaving a very enjoyable pastorate, a
native land in which we had taken deep root, and most of all, an aged
father and mother.
We left Kansas City on September 3, 1890, and after a little over two
months spent in resting and arranging our affairs, we sailed from New
York for Liverpool on November 12th. The closing hours in New York were
very different from those in Kansas City, and made it appear very real
to us that we were being plucked up from the home land and transplanted
to a foreign country. We had no acquaintances at all in New York,
except one of the Missionary Secretaries, who had visited us in Kansas
City. He and his associates were as kind as they could be; but then as
now, they were men worked beyond their strength with the burdens of
business there is upon them, and at that particular time were hurried
to get off to Boston, to the annual Missionary Committee meeting, and
they had to tell us a hasty farewell at the Mission Rooms, and leave us
to go alone to the ship. While our sailing was more lonely than that of
most missionaries, yet it is now the custom to make very little out of
the departure of men and women to mission-fields, however distant. The
older missionaries contrast this formal dispatch of recruits with the
custom of forty years ago, when men still in active service, were first
sent out. Then it was the plan to have the new missionaries gathered
in one or more churches, and after speeches and exchange of good-will
all around, to send them forth with the feeling that their outgoing on
this great mission was a matter of moment to the whole Church. It is
presumable that custom may change in this matter from time to time, and
especially as the number and frequency of the departure of missionaries
increase; but it is certain that the departure of missionaries to our
distant fields on this, the highest mission of the Church, can not be
made less of than it has been in recent years.
We sailed on the steamship _City of New York_, the largest and swiftest
ship then afloat. She loosed her moorings at five o’clock in the
morning of November 12th. It was a gloomy morning with a cold rain,
and though I was on deck to note any objects of interest amidst the
gloom, nothing at all of importance was in view, save the Statue of
Liberty holding its light aloft in the harbor. No departure from the
shores of the home-land could have been less cheering and romantic.
But as the great ship made her way out to sea, there was a peculiar
satisfaction in the feeling that came over us, that we were actually on
our way to Burma. Some time before sailing, it had been decided that
we would go there, making headquarters at Rangoon, the capital of that
province of the Indian Empire.
Our voyage across the Atlantic was uneventful for the most part, but
not uninteresting. On a great ship one has a good opportunity to study
his fellow-passengers. One among our company has since become an
international character, and even then had become widely known. This
personage was none other than Paul Kruger, President, then and since,
of the Transvaal Republic. We then thought of Majuba Hill and its
consequences, but could not foresee that this son of the African velt
would, before ten years had passed, throw so large a part of the world
into turmoil and lead in a great war. I was impressed with his strong
leonine features, and the less heroic fact that he was one of the first
among the passengers to yield to the power of a rough sea.
Four days out we ran into a great storm that lasted nearly two days. Up
to that time we were making a quick passage, but the wind and waves
soon destroyed all hopes of making a high record. The storm was worst
at midnight, and as we were being rolled until it was hardly possible
to remain in our berths, the ammonia pipes broke and flooded the lower
cabins with gas. Our cabin was located near that part of the ship where
the trouble occurred, but no one was seriously injured. A similar thing
recently happened on the same ship in a storm on the Atlantic, and
again the suffocating gas spread through the ship with one fatality and
a number of prostrations.
Landing at Liverpool, we went to London for ten days, returning to the
former place to take the first ship direct for Rangoon. There are two
general routes from English ports to points in India. By one you travel
across the continent, and usually take ship at some Mediterranean port,
and sail to Bombay. By the other you sail via Gibraltar, and so go by
sea all the way. Our route was the latter course, and at the time we
went out there was only one line of steamers, the Patrick Henderson,
direct from English ports to Rangoon. We took passage on a new vessel,
the steamship _Pegu_, making its third voyage. “What a strange name for
a ship!” we said. We soon learned that the name was taken from an old,
ruined city of Burma, and that all the company’s steamers bear the name
of some city, ancient or modern, in the land of Burma. So, at the very
docks, as we started Eastward, we met a name suggestive of the ancient
history of the land of our future labors. In the appointments of the
steamer we were much impressed with the fact that we had no arrangement
for heating the vessel, but every plan for thorough ventilation. We
found it very cold on board until we passed the Suez Canal. Otherwise
the appointments were every way satisfactory, and the fare reasonable.
This good ship made but one voyage more under its Scotch ownership.
It was then sold to the Spaniards and renamed the _Alicante_. This
circumstance became of much interest to us at a later date, when
this ship was the first to be loaded with defeated Spanish troops at
Santiago.
The outward voyage had its many objects of interest to the passengers
going out for the first time. We sailed in plain view of the Portuguese
and Spanish coasts, but were disappointed in passing Gibraltar at
night. The next day, however, we were charmed with a magnificent view
of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Southern Spain, as they lifted their
snowy heights into cloudless skies, and their vineclad slopes dropped
away to the level of the sea. For nearly a whole day we sailed close by
the picturesque shores of Sardinia. Here we noted a singular confusion
of the compass by reason of being magnetized by the land. As the good
ship swung off from the southern cape of the island, it made two great
curves to correct the erratic state of the compass. We entered the
harbor of Naples in the full floodlight of a Mediterranean noon. The
afternoon was spent in the city. Our party was not favorably impressed
with the gay people in their holiday attire. It seems they have many
holidays of the like kind. In the evening we sailed southward; and
as darkness closed around us, distant Vesuvius sent its fiery glow
upward on the black mass of overhanging cloud, making a lurid night
scene. In the morning we woke in plain view of the great volcanic cone
of Stromboli, rising out of the sea. We were near the island, which
seems to have no land except the volcano itself; yet houses nestle
here and there around its base. What a choice for a home--at the base
of an actual volcano! The weather was perfect as we sailed through the
Straits of Messina, but great Mount Ætna, which we hoped to see, was
hid in clouds.
The second stop in our journey was at Port Said. The Suez Canal is the
gateway of the nations. Port Said is its northern entrance. It is under
international control, and hence its government is less responsible
than that of almost any other city. It is one of the most wicked cities
of the world. Representatives of all races are congregated there. It
is not our purpose to describe this city, but to point out that here
for the first time we had a glimpse of the Orient. The fellaheen of
Egypt loaded our ship with coal, carrying great baskets on their heads.
We arrived in the night, and the coaling began almost immediately. My
wife and I got out of our cabin before day to go on deck and see these
people at work by the light of torches. A strange, weird sight it was
to Western eyes; and their shouting in strange tongues emphasized the
fact that we had indeed come to a strange land.
The Suez Canal is the natural dividing-line between the Western and the
Eastern civilizations, between the cold Northlands and the perpetually
tropical countries of Southern Asia. Looking westward and northward,
you find energy put to practical account; looking eastward, you find
lethargy and life no more aggressive that it must be to keep peoples
as they have been for a thousand years. Westward you greet progress,
but Eastward life has been stagnated for ages, and only stirs as it is
acted upon from the West. Westward you have an increasing degree of
prosperity and material comforts and advantages of modern civilization,
but Eastward you have such poverty among the millions as can not be
conceived by people more favored. Westward you have civilizations
never content with present attainment; but Eastward you have peoples
whose highest ideals are only to be and to do what their fathers were
and did before them. The West seeks to produce new things, but the
East condemns all improvement for no other reason than that it is new.
All this, and much more, is suggested by the Suez Canal, from which
you plunge downward into Asiatic civilization. Climatically you are
henceforth to know only the tropics, a climate, so far as Southern
Asia is concerned, that you will come to know henceforth as dividing
the year into two seasons, “Three months very hot, and nine months
very much hotter.” At Port Said you will be informed of the change
that is just ahead of you. Whatever you may have bought in New York
or London, you will need one more article of dress at Port Said--a
helmet, to protect your head from the tropical sun. You will never see
a day in Southern Asia in which you can go forth in the noonday sun
with an ordinary hat, or without a helmet, except at your peril; and
most of the time you will wear that protection for your head from early
morning until five in the evening, or later. You will have another
indication that you are going down into the tropics. If you have made
your journey, as we did, in the colder months, the sunniest place on
the deck has been the most comfortable until you arrive at Port Said;
but there they raise double canvas over the whole ship, and from that
on, as long as you go to and fro in the tropical seas, you will never
travel a league by sea that you do not have that same double canvas
above you when the sun is in the heavens. No wonder the Suez Canal
means so much besides commerce or travel to all who have passed through
it to Southern Asia!
Through the fifteen hundred miles of the Red Sea we took our way. Then
the Gulf of Aden was traversed, and next through the Arabian Sea our
good ship bore us on our journey. The heat, like very hot summer at
home, was upon us, though we were out at sea in December. Coming on
deck one morning before other passengers were astir, I was delighted
to see the green hills of Ceylon a few miles to our left. We had
rounded the island in the night. The decks had been scrubbed in the
early morning, as usual; the ocean was smooth, and the tropical sun
flooded sea and land, while the sweetest odor of spices filled the air.
At once I thought of “Ceylon’s spicy breezes,” but I suddenly noted
that the wind was _toward the shore_, which lay some miles away, and
then I was prepared for the sentiment of the chief steward who had
sprinkled spices out of the ship stores over the wet deck to please the
passengers’ sense of smell as they came forth to give their morning
greetings to this emerald isle of the Indian Ocean. In rounding Ceylon
we reached our lowest latitude, six degrees north. We were still six
days’ sail from Burma, and our course took us nearly northeast from
this point. The entire voyage from the Suez Canal to Burma was made
under cloudless skies and through calm waters. A day from Rangoon we
passed near the beautiful little Cocoa Islands, while the Andamans
showed above the horizon far to the southward. It is remarkable how
much interest there is among passengers when a ship is sighted, or
land appears on a long voyage. These Cocoa Islands are important as
being guides to vessels homeward or outward bound, and they mark the
line between the Bay of Bengal and the Gulf of Martahan. An important
lighthouse has been maintained there for the past fifty years. The
Andamans are shrouded in gloomy mystery, due to the fact that they are
used as a penal colony of criminals transported from India. On the
31st of December, 1890, after passing several light-ships, we came,
about noon, in sight of the low-lying shores of Burma. We had been
thirty-five days from Liverpool, and were getting weary of the sea, to
say nothing of our curiosity to land in a country new to us. But no
land could be less interesting than this shore-line of Burma, first
sighted on coming in from the sea. It lies just above the sea-level,
and besides a fringe of very small shrubbery, and here and there a
cocoanut palm-tree, it is absolutely expressionless. After lying at
anchor for three hours at the mouth of the Rangoon River, waiting for
the incoming tide, we began the last twenty miles of our journey up the
broad river to the city of Rangoon.
The passengers were made up mostly of people who were returning to
Burma after a furlough in England. The anticipation of friendly
greetings and the appearance of every familiar object along the river
created a quiver of pleasant excitement among them. Our missionary
party were almost the only ones who had not special friends in Rangoon
to meet them.
[Illustration: SWAY DAGON PAGODA]
Presently all eyes were turned up the river as the second officer
called out, “There is the Great Pagoda.” Yes, this, the greatest shrine
of the Buddhist world, rising from a little hilltop just behind the
main part of the city of Rangoon, lifted its gilded and glistening
form hundreds of feet skyward. This is the first object of special
importance that is looked for by every traveler going up the Rangoon
River. It is seen before any public building comes into view. But
presently the smoke from the great chimneys of the large rice mills of
Rangoon appeared, and then the city was outlined along a river frontage
of two or three miles. The city has no special attractions, as viewed
from the harbor; but the whole river presents an animated scene, always
interesting even to any one familiar with it, but full of startling
surprises to the newcomer to the East. With the single exception of
Port Said, our missionary party had seen nothing of Oriental life. The
panoramic view of that river and shore life seen on that last day of
1890 will remain a lifetime in the minds of our party. Steamers of many
nations and sailing-vessels under a score of flags, native crafts of
every description, steam launches by the dozen, and half a thousand
small native boats of a Chinese pattern, called “sampans,” moved
swiftly about the river, while two or three thousand people crowded
the landing and the river front. It is possible that half a hundred
nationalities were represented in that throng, but to us strangers
there were only two distinctions to be made out clearly: a few men and
women with fair skins, and the remainder of the multitude men of darker
hue. “Europeans and natives” is the general distinction used in all
India.
Some incidents at such moments in our lives, as our landing in this
strange country, make profound impressions far above their actual
importance. It was just six o’clock in the evening as we made fast
to the wharf. Suddenly, as I faced the new world life of labor just
before me, and began to contrast it with that of the past, I remembered
that just eleven years before, on that day and at that hour, allowing
for difference of latitude, I stepped off the cars in a college
town, and parted with my old life as a farmer boy for the new life
of a college student. A great change that proved to be, and this was
destined to prove even more in contrast with life hitherto. The curious
circumstance was that the two transitions corresponded by the year and
hour.
I awoke suddenly to the fact of great loneliness. There were multitudes
of people, but in the whole company not a familiar face. There were
some whose names we had heard, and they were ready to give us a cordial
welcome as fellow-workers, but we did not know them from all the others
in the throng in whose thoughts we had no place. For myself, I have
never had a more lonely moment, even when unattended in the Burma
jungles or lost on the mountains at night.
Another incident, of a painful kind, occurred. As I stood beside the
ship’s doctor, who had been coming and going to India for thirty years,
he volunteered information of the people who were boarding the ship to
greet expected friends. One young lady passenger was greeted by her
sister, whose husband stood by her side. She was a fair English lady;
he was a tall, well-proportioned man of good features, but he was
very dark. The doctor said: “That young lady is destined to a great
disappointment. Her sister is married to a Eurasian, and she, as an
English girl, will have no social recognition among English people
here because she has that Eurasian relationship.” To my inquiries
of interest, he said many things about these people, in whose veins
flow the blood of European and Asiatic, concluding with the following
slander on these people, “They inherit the vices of both Europeans
and Asiatics and the virtues of neither.” I refer to this expression
here to show how such unjust expressions fall from careless tongues;
for I have heard it scores of times, breathing out unkind, even cruel
injustice. It is a slander that is not often rebuked with the energy
its injustice calls for. As I will discuss this people in another
chapter, I only say here that for ten years I have been connected with
them, and while they have their weaknesses, this charge against them is
entirely groundless.
We were presently greeted by the small band of Methodist missionaries
and some of their friends, and taken immediately to our Girls’ School
in the heart of the town. Here we rested in easy-chairs of an uncouth
pattern, but which we have hundreds of times since had occasion to
prove capable of affording great comfort. While resting and making
the acquaintance of Miss Scott, our hostess, an agent of the Woman’s
Foreign Missionary Society, I was impressed with several features of
our new surroundings. Though it was New-Year’s Eve, the whole house was
wide open, and three sides of the sitting-room had open venetian blinds
instead of walls, to let in the air.
Then we were quickly conscious of the noise, mostly of human voices,
speaking or shouting strange speech in every direction, which the
wooden open-plank house caught up much as a violin does its sound, and
multiplied without transferring them into music. We came, by later
painful experiences, to know that one of the enemies of nerves and the
working force of the missionary in Rangoon is the ceaseless noise from
human throats that seems inseparable from this Oriental city. I have
been in some other noisy cities, but, as Bishop Thoburn once remarked,
our location in Rangoon was “the noisiest place in the world.” Before
these thoughts had taken full possession of our minds, we were greeted
by another surprise. As we leaned back in the easy-chairs and our eyes
sought the high ceiling of the room, there we saw small lizards moving
about, sometimes indeed stationary, but more often running or making
quick leaps as they caught sluggish beetles or unsuspecting flies from
the ceiling. We counted nine of them in plain view, seemingly enjoying
themselves, unmindful of the presence of the residents of the building
or the nerves or tastes of the new arrivals.
A watch-night service was held that night intended for sailors and
soldiers especially, to which I went, while my wife remained and rested
at the school with our children. At the service I saw for the first
time what is so common in all like gatherings in Eastern cities, the
strange mingling of all people who speak the English language. Being
a seaport, the sailors from every European land were present, and, so
far as they can be secured, attend this wholesome service, while the
soldiers from the garrison come in crowds, and others interested in
these meetings are there also. Every shade of Eurasians was present.
Some of the people whom I saw that night for the first time became
my friends and co-laborers in the Church and mission for the entire
time of which I write. Late that night, or in the earliest hour of the
new year, I fell asleep with my latest conscious thought, “We are in
Burma.”
CHAPTER II
First Year in Burma
We were wakened early on January 1, 1891, by the harsh cawing of a
myriad of crows, which roost in the shade-trees of the public streets
and private yards. We came afterwards to know these annoying pests,
that swarm over Rangoon all day long, as a tribe of thieves full of
all cunning and audacity. The first exhibition of their pilfering
given us, was that first morning when the early tea and toast, always
brought to you on rising in India, was passed into our room and placed
in reach of the children. The crows had been perched on the window-sill
before this, restlessly watching us within the room. But on our turning
for a moment from the tray on which the toast was placed, the crows
swooped upon it, and carried it off out of the window. This is but a
sample of the audacious annoyance suffered from their beaks and claws
continually. They are in country places also, but not so plentifully as
here in the cities, where they literally swarm. Were it to our purpose
we could write pages of these petty and cunning robberies of which they
are guilty. A very common sight is, when a coolie is going through the
streets with a basket of rice on his head, to see the crows swoop down
and fill their mouths with the rice, and be off again before the man
knows their intention, or has time even to turn around. It must have
been some such sight as this in ancient Egypt, familiar to Pharaoh’s
baker, that caused him to dream of the birds eating the bread out of
the basket that he carried on his head, and that foreshadowed the dire
results to himself. Those “birds” must have been “crows” of the Rangoon
species.
I could not wait long that first morning in Rangoon, and the first
of a new year, to get out into the streets astir with human life. I
took my first impression of many specimens of humanity that passed in
view. While the common distinctions in dress, complexion, manners,
and occupations, which mean so much when you come to know their
significance, were not recognized in this first view of the people,
I did get a very definite impression of two classes--one well formed
and well fed, and the other class, those poor weaklings, mostly of
the depressed peoples of India, who migrate to Burma. Of the latter,
I wrote at the time to friends in America, that they were specimens
of the human race that had about run their course, and must die away
from sheer weakness. Later conclusions do not differ materially from
this first decision. But I did learn later that the fine-looking
people of strong physique were Burmese, and that the province of
Burma, generally, has very few peoples of any race that compare in
feebleness with some of the immigrants from India that flock into the
cities, such as Rangoon. It is chiefly what the traveler sees in coast
towns like Rangoon, which leads so many transient passers-by to wrong
conclusions concerning Oriental countries. In Rangoon, many other
peoples are more in evidence than the Burmese.
After that early walk and breakfast, which came about ten o’clock,
the usual time, I met with Rev. Mr. Warner, and took in charge the
affairs of our mission. It is a simple thing for a preacher to go from
one pastoral charge to another in America, in every respect very much
like the Church and community he has always served; but it is entirely
different to go to a distant and unfamiliar country, and take up work
essentially different from anything you ever had to do with before.
Then, at home it is the custom for each man to be occupied with some
one specific work and its obligations; but on the mission-field, such
as Burma has been until now, there is such a variety of interests as
loads every missionary with the work that ought to be distributed
between two or three. That morning I learned that we had an English
Church in Rangoon which supported its own pastor; an English school
that numbered nearly two hundred pupils, and an Orphanage for the
poor Eurasians and Anglo-Indian children. There was also a work among
the seamen that visited the port. A woman’s workshop had been founded
some time before for helping the poor Eurasian, and other women, to
earn a living with the needle. There was also preaching going on
among the Tamils and Telegus, some converts and a fair day-school
being conducted among them. This work was mostly in Rangoon; but some
preaching was done in the villages round about, and one exhorter was
holding a little congregation of Tamils at Toungoo, one hundred and
sixty miles north from Rangoon. A further account of Methodism will
be given later, and it is only necessary here to tell how the work
appeared to me that morning when I began my labors in Burma.
[Illustration: METHODIST CHURCH, RANGOON]
We had a modest wooden church and also a parsonage, a fair-sized
building for the school, and another of equal size for the Orphanage.
Besides these buildings, we had a couple of residence bungalows,
intended for rental for the support of the Orphanage, but for which
we were badly in debt. Considering the small size of the mission,
our debts were large and troublesome. They were incurred out of the
emergencies of our work, and were not the result of bad management
in any way. These debts were to be met at once, and added much to my
concern for the mission.
Another embarrassing feature of the finances of the mission was found
in this, that we had very small missionary appropriations, and the time
had been not long before when our workers in Burma had no money from
home. The beginning of the mission had been made entirely without funds
from America.
This was the more apparent when we look at the distribution of the
missionaries. I was to take the pastorate of the English Church, and
receive my salary from it; Miss Files, the principal of the Girls’
High School, had never had any salary, except what the school could
pay her; Miss Scott, principal of the Orphanage, had half salary;
Miss Perkins, the new missionary, alone had a salary from the Woman’s
Foreign Missionary Society. Mr. Warner had less than full salary,
though appointed to native work. We had, also, a number of teachers all
paid locally, and supplies in the mission-work, none of whom received
a salary from America. Here was an outline of a situation in what
was called a “self-supporting” mission-field. How to pay debts, keep
all this work going, and make advance in mission operations with our
limited money, was my greatest responsibility. There had never been
a dollar given to the mission from America for property. The problem
was easy of statement, but difficult of solution. To plunge right
into this work, my first day in the country, and immediately become
the responsible head of the district, was beginning mission-work with
vigor and without delay. I have learned since to believe it a serious
misfortune that any missionary should be so overwhelmed with work and
responsibility on entering a foreign mission-field. All this, too, when
we had yet to adjust ourselves to life in the tropics.
We were about to prove what it meant to be suddenly dropped down into
the heart of an Oriental city, and there adjust ourselves to the most
trying conditions we had ever known. The parsonage belonging to the
English Church, which we occupied, shared the lot with the church
building. At the time the church and parsonage was to be built, it
was the policy of the Government to give a grant of land to any
religious society for a church or parsonage. The city is blocked out in
rectangular shape, but unwisely made very narrow and long. The blocks
are eight hundred feet long by one hundred and fifteen feet wide. Our
lot included one end of a block, and was one hundred feet deep. On
this lot stood the church and parsonage, facing the main street. When
the location was chosen, it was a fairly satisfactory site on which to
have a residence, and in a Western country, with Western conditions,
it might have contained a fairly comfortable residence; but in Rangoon
the natives soon began to crowd into poorly constructed buildings all
around the parsonage, and the filth, that so rapidly accumulates in
an Oriental city, piled up everywhere. The only sewerage was in open
ditches that ran on three sides of our residence. The stench of these
sewers was ever present in our nostrils, and especially offensive in
the rainless season. But the worst condition was the incessant noise
made by the natives. This neighborhood was occupied almost entirely by
Madassis, who have harsh, strident voices, and speak with a succession
of guttural sounds. They are always shouting, and quietness is almost
unknown to them. They quarrel incessantly. At the time we lived in this
locality there were six hundred of these noisy people living within a
hundred yards of the parsonage. They kept no hours for rest. All day
and all night the noise went on. Sometimes, of course, they slept,
and the native can sleep in bedlam and not even dream. But there are
hundreds astir at all hours of the day and night. Then there were
thousands of passers-by who at all hours added their voices to the din.
Besides, a heavy traffic was carried on on two sides of us. The streets
were metaled, and every wheel and hoof added to the uproar.
The parsonage was of the uncouth architectural plan characteristic of
Burma, roomy and arranged well enough for comfort in that country, had
the surroundings been endurable. But being placed upon posts, some ten
feet from the ground to the first floor, and the floor and walls being
made of single thicknesses of teak planks, these multitudinous sounds
of the neighborhood were gathered up and multiplied as a violin gathers
the sounds of the strings, and this discordant din was poured into our
ears. Added to all this noise was the intense heat, which even in the
coolest part of the year is very great, and you have conditions of life
that tax you to the utmost. My wife and I have pretty steady nerves;
but in the thirteen months we tried to live in the parsonage we did not
have more than twenty nights of unbroken sleep. Just after we entered
this residence, we received our first mail from home, and in the papers
to hand we read the speech of the senior missionary secretary at the
Missionary Committee meeting in Boston, held at the time we were
sailing from New York, in which he dwelt at length, “on the luxury
of missionary life in India.” I promptly sent him an invitation to
spend the last week preceding the next Missionary Committee meeting in
our guest-chamber, overlooking and overhearing all that happens among
this noisy throng of Tamils. I felt that I had learned more of the
actual conditions of life in an Oriental city in one week, than this
good man had learned in all the years of his missionary official life.
He did not accept the invitation.
[Illustration: NATIVES OF BURMA]
When one is overworked with unusual duties that tax nerves to the
utmost, and then lives in perpetual noise and heat day and night, he
has the ideal conditions for a short missionary career. We were to
prove all that this meant within one year from landing in the country.
Surprises and disappointments in the working force of a mission, at
least in its earlier and less well organized state, occur with great
frequency. Within less than three months, my missionary colleague, Mr.
Warner, and his wife left us, and took work in another mission. He
had been with our mission less than two years, having been sent out
from America. It may be said here that such changes, so early in a
missionary’s career, do not generally argue well for the stability of
purpose or settled convictions of the missionary, and do not usually
help the mission to which a change is made. But in our case it added to
our difficulties, as the Burmese work, to begin which Mr. Warner was
appointed, did not get started for some years afterward. There was no
other man to take up his work, and there could be no one supplied for
some time. This situation, coming so soon after I took up the work with
the high hopes of a new beginner, added to the complications.
The heat increased from January onward. The work became very laborious,
largely owing to failure to get rest at night. In May, I began to be
troubled with a strange numbness in my arms. This gradually spread to
most of the muscles of the body, and began to affect my head seriously.
At the same time, the heat, especially any direct ray of the sun,
caused very distressing nervous symptoms. Having all my life worked
hard, and having a body that had stood almost all kinds of strain and
seemed none the worse for it, I at the beginning expected to throw off
these symptoms quickly. But when I did not succeed in this, I consulted
physicians and found that they were puzzled as much as myself. Had it
been possible to go to some cooler place and take rest at the beginning
of this disorder, it is likely that I could have met the difficulty
and overcome it quickly; but there was no chance to leave the work, no
place to go to, and no one to relieve me. Steadily for five months the
trouble increased, until it was impossible even to read in an attentive
way, though under the excitement of a Sabbath’s congregation I could
talk to the people. In October, only a little over nine months after
landing in Burma, Bishop Thoburn peremptorily ordered me to the hills
of India for a change. He temporarily supplied my place at Rangoon.
I left Rangoon on the evening of the 10th of October on this painful
flight for health. My wife remained and did hard service, all too hard
as the case proved, to give the English congregations attention during
my absence. This early flight from my work with the uncertainties of
my ailment, and the long distance to the Indian Hills, which as we
supposed at the time, was the nearest place to get above the heat of
the plains, and the condition of the work in my absence, and the added
burden to my wife, all combined to give the occasion a serious aspect.
I took passage on a little vessel of the British India Steam Navigation
Company, which has a large fleet of steamers in these tropical waters.
I traveled after this many times on steamers of this company, and
always found the trip of four days to Calcutta very interesting. The
sea breeze modifies the heat until you can be in comparative comfort.
The officers are usually courteous, but somewhat reserved, for the most
part. Perhaps this show of dignity is assumed to support the important
office they hold. It may be that it is a National characteristic also.
The engineers, who number about the same on each ship as the officers,
and have about as much responsibility, and are equally capable men, are
usually very free and sociable. The officers are generally Englishmen,
and the engineers Scotchmen. I have been greatly surprised to find how
approachable most Scotchmen are. Being of a social disposition myself,
I usually get in touch with both classes; but I have secured the most
friendly response from the Scotch. This has been generally true on land
also.
The Bay of Bengal is a stormy water during the monsoon, from May until
October. At the latter time the wind turns into the northeast, and
one or two cyclones generally form as it turns the rain currents back
to the southwest, from whence they came. Our captain was nervous as
we rounded the land and made for the open sea, lest we be met by a
cyclone. But instead of a storm, the sea was as smooth as a sea of
glass all the way to the mouth of the Hoogli River, where we enter
the last portion of our voyage. It may not have been noticed that
many great seaports are really a great way from the sea, on rivers.
More than that, they are usually not on the main stream, but on some
subordinate branch of the many mouths of the great rivers. So it is
with the Hoogli, which is not the largest of the many mouths of the
Ganges. These river mouths, however, are very large streams, partly
made by the inflow and outflow of the tides. The tides alone make
navigation to Calcutta by ocean-going vessels possible, as there is
not enough water on the shoals except with high tide. Calcutta is up
the Hoogli River one hundred and twenty miles. One naturally wonders
why such a city is so far from the sea. I, at least, have had to
content myself without a reason, and like many things Indian, accept
that “which is,” and that “which remains as it is,” because it “has
been.” The approach to Calcutta by river is very dangerous. The number
of ships that have sunk, often with some of the passengers and crew,
make a startling history of tragedy. Some places on the river have
permanent names for the sunken ships that are buried in its sands. The
currents and the tides conflict often, and drive the vessel onto some
newly-made bar, and this overturns the great ship, which immediately
begins to sink. Three ships have gone down in this river in ten years,
one of them with much loss of life. After the vessel sinks well into
the sand it rights up again, and lifts its masts out of the water, to
remain for years a solemn monument to the tragedy of the river. Usually
all life-boats are swung loose and the ports all closed as the ship
moves up or down the river at these most dangerous parts. There are
specially-qualified pilots, highly paid, who take ships through this
river, and they are held to the severest account. An accident, whether
the pilot is to blame or not, calls for heavy penalties.
The river has its charming scenery. The country is flat; but the quaint
conical Bengali houses that line the shore, with their carefully-laid
thatch roofs, the cocoanut and date palms growing in great luxuriance
on the alluvial deposit of the river front, and the wide reaches of the
rich rice-fields, through which the winding river makes its way, all
present a picture of rare tropical interest and beauty.
Villages increase as you approach the city, and great oil refineries
and weaving establishments and manufactories increase as you near the
city. Some miles below the city the traveler begins to see a great
many ships, both sailing vessels and steamers, and as he enters the
harbor it is amidst a very forest of towering masts. The shipping that
goes in and out of Calcutta, carrying every flag under heaven, is
enormous.
I was greatly interested in seeing for the first time this most
important city in Southern Asia, if not in all the Orient. My stay was
too brief to get a fair view of the city, but enough to see that it is
as reported, “a city of palaces.” It is also a “city of hovels,” in
which multitudes of people do business and live in as great contrast to
the palatial surroundings, as can be found anywhere on the face of the
earth.
After a very brief visit with Bishop Thoburn and other Calcutta
missionaries, I made my way up country. This took me over the fertile
plains of Bengal, through the sacred city of Benares, though without
a stop until I reached Lucknow. Here I had a short rest, and then
proceeded to Bareilly and was the guest for a day of Dr. and Mrs.
Scott, and visited our theological school. In this visit I began an
acquaintance with our missionaries and our mission interests in these
great centers, which has extended through the years with great profit
to myself, and an enlargement of view of our Southern Asiatic missions,
that I could not have otherwise had. The heat of North India is much
modified by October; but as I was making for the mountains, with a
feverish desire to get where it was cool, I pushed on rapidly. The
railway journey ended at Katgodam, from whence I was to take a pony
and go by marches to Almora, the capital of Garwal, four ordinary days’
travel into the hills. All over the Indian Empire the Government has
built on every road public rest-houses, where the traveler can get
shelter, and usually food, at a very reasonable price. I had only the
afternoon to climb the eight miles to Bhim Tal, my first stage of the
journey. I traveled with light equipment; but in all parts of India
one must carry his bedding with him, even if he is going to an Annual
Conference. “Entertainment” among friends means many good things, but
seldom includes bedding, much less so among strangers. I secured a
pony to ride; but when it came to the bedding I had to hire a coolie
to carry that. I had great difficulty in getting a coolie to go four
days’ march back into the mountains. I could not speak a word of the
language, and this was a hindrance. I found a friendly native who could
talk for me. I secured a strong man for _four cents a day_. This was an
enhanced price exacted because I was a stranger.
I went steadily up the mountains, and with every degree of cooler air
I felt cheered. At last at beautiful Bhim Tal, a lake at an elevation
of perhaps five thousand feet, I came to the bungalow and had a good
supper. Bedtime came, and still the coolie did not come. I had to
borrow some blankets of a native and lay down, but not to sleep, as any
one accustomed to the country could have foretold. My coolie did not
arrive until sunrise.
During that day I had a view of the majestic mountains, that lives with
me still. At about ten o’clock in the morning, after an inspiring climb
up and still up, I came to the mountain pass, and turning a corner,
the great snowy range of the Himalaya Mountains rose into a cloudless
sky. The sunlight was reflected from the snow up into the blue heavens.
Sublime are these mountains! Three peaks near together range between
twenty-two thousand and twenty-five thousand feet, while the snowy
range is visible for hundreds of miles. It was a great experience.
Having never been among the mountains until that journey, and then to
have eyes, mountain hungry, feast of these piles of majestic heights,
thrilled me as no view of nature ever has done. I have seen many
beauties of natural scenery, and some of nature’s sublimity, but never
have I seen the equal of that view that burst on my enraptured vision
that glorious October day.
Making a double march the third day, I arrived at the Almora Sanitarium
of the Methodist Mission, and was welcomed by Dr. and Mrs. Badley, who
were there, the last of those who had gone up for rest that year. The
doctor was fast breathing out his life. He was dying of consumption,
but working until the last. He was busy revising his Indian Mission
Directory. His voice was gone to a whisper, and yet he worked. I helped
him as I could, and looked into his face and tried to realize the
thoughts of a man who loves work, and in the midst of a most successful
career he is cut down, and knows in every moment of waking thought
that he can live but a few days. Ten days I staid there, and then came
down the mountain road to Katgodam. On this journey I did my last
service for the sick and dying man. At Katgodam I carried him in my
arms and laid him on his bed in the car. The gentle caress from his
wasted hand, and his whispered blessing for the help I had been to him
on the hard journey, linger as a precious memory. He died three weeks
later.
From Katgodam I returned to the hills, but this time only to Naini
Tal, one day’s march up the mountains. In this wonderful hill station
I remained ten days, the guest of Rev. and Mrs. Homer Stuntz. November
had come, and by this season it was getting cool in these mountains,
frosting some at night. I here received a great encouragement in the
matter of health, as I found while living in this cool atmosphere that
my head began to clear up, and that I could read with pleasure again.
Had I been able to remain there, it is possible that I would have made
a rapid recovery; but duty seemed to call me again to Rangoon. Dr.
George Petecost was then engaged in a series of “missions” in India,
and I had secured the agreement of several Rangoon ministers and
missionaries to invite him to hold a mission in Rangoon. He was due
there in December, and it was nearing the end of November; and as I
felt better, and as I was obligated to be in Rangoon, and as the worst
heat of the latter place had gone, I hoped to continue to improve,
even if I returned. But I was quickly undeceived. No sooner was I in
the plains than all the distressing symptoms again appeared. This
condition was relieved a little when I crossed the Bay of Bengal, but
increased on landing in Rangoon. Meantime, my wife had broken down
under the strain of her work, and was seriously ill. So ended our first
year in Burma--much hard work, trying conditions, and breaking health.
Had this been all the outlook, it would have been disappointing indeed.
But the people of Rangoon had been responsive and kind. The work in
the English Church had gone forward and some conversions had resulted,
which had been of permanent worth to the Church. The lady missionaries
had completed a successful year in the school and Orphanage. The other
branches of the mission were faithfully cared for, so far as the
limited supervision given would warrant.
At this time, and indeed for the whole period of which I write, Burma
had been a district of the Bengal Conference, and as the sessions
of Conference were held almost uniformly in Calcutta or some Indian
station, we Burma missionaries usually made the trip to India to attend
the annual session. This took me, including health trips, thirty times
over the Bay of Bengal in the ten years of my missionary service. The
Indian Conferences have for many years been held as near the beginning
of the new year as may be. I left my wife very sick, and started for
Conference about the middle of January, being far from well myself, but
still at work. The Annual Conference was of great interest, and the
Central Conference, which followed immediately, even more so. I was a
member of the Central Conference also. The Central Conference of India
and Malaysia had been well organized for several years. This body, to
all intents and purposes, is a General Conference. It is an increasing
power for good. It must exist to keep Methodism in this wide area in
some organic unity. It has served this purpose admirably. At this
session of the Central Conference, held at Calcutta, in January, 1892,
two great questions had a clearly-defined statement that has become of
wide-reaching importance.
The question of territorial divisions came up early, and had the right
of way for full discussion and settlement. Our people at home can not
understand the great areas, as well as the many millions of people
in Southern Asiatic mission lands. It is all so much bigger than the
notion given by a map. At the time of which I write we had three
Conferences and the far-away mission of Malaysia. The most extensive
area was included in the Bengal Conference. One end of this Conference
included the province of Burma, and the other end reached up to and
included almost all the Northwest Indian part of our mission. Thus it
curved all around the southern and western sides of the North India
Conference, as far as Mussoorie. In length it could not be less than
two thousand miles. South India Conference included territory equally
incongruous with its name. It became apparent that we must divide up
this territory, and make more Conferences. We planned five Annual
Conferences, and raised Malaysia to a Mission Conference.
The other great question that had the earnest consideration of the
Central Conference was the indorsement of the Missionary Episcopacy.
Some of the Annual Conferences had already taken action, and the
Central Conference approved the resolutions of the Bengal Conference
indorsing and approving the Missionary Episcopacy, and asking its
continuance as contrasted with the General Superintendency. Bishop
Thoburn’s administration received, after careful debate, the first of
that series of indorsements that has lifted the Missionary Episcopacy
into a new and conspicuous place in the organism called Methodism.
These two transactions made that, my first, Central Conference of India
and Malaysia, memorable.
CHAPTER III
A Year of Changes
While still at Conference at Calcutta, I received a telegram to hasten
home, as my wife was seriously ill. Some of the brethren and I spent a
season in sympathetic counsel over this distressing situation of my own
impaired health, and the serious condition of my wife. I took a steamer
the next day, and started for Rangoon. Of course, we wished for a rapid
passage; but as often happens when we are eager for the most rapid
advance, there proves to be the greatest delay. We were delayed in the
Calcutta River forty-eight hours, owing to fogs settling down on the
water just as the tide was favorable for sailing. We had to tie up for
such time as the fog lasted, as no steamer will move on that dangerous
river in a fog. When the fog did lift, the tide had gone down, and we
had to remain at anchor till the next tide. In all my journeying up and
down the river, I have never had so much delay as on this voyage, when
I wanted to get forward the most urgently. The journey across the bay
was after the usual sort. I felt much distressed about my wife’s state,
but had great comfort in the sympathy and counsel of Dr. and Mrs.
Parker, who were fellow-passengers going home on furlough. They were
going via Rangoon, and it proved a kindly providence as they did good
service in advising us in our time of need.
As our ship approached the Rangoon River, we were again just too late
for the incoming tide, causing another long delay. So near home, and
yet we had to lie there for twelve hours! When we finally arrived
in the Rangoon Harbor, it was after the longest voyage that I have
known upon the bay. But I was immensely relieved to find that my wife
was slightly better. This was offset somewhat by the fact that I was
certainly in a much less satisfactory condition than I had been for
some weeks preceding. It was now early in February, and the heat was
becoming severe. As the heat was, or appeared to be, my greatest
drawback, and would hinder the recovery of my wife, it was decided that
the only solution of the difficulty was to make another flight to the
Indian Hills immediately for a long rest. This time the whole family
was to go. Here also Dr. Parker’s presence and counsel were of great
value. He knew India, having had long experience and the best judgment,
so we felt safe in following his advice. He had selected two of the
Indian hill sanitariums, and knew that that kind of a retreat was my
only hope. But he, and every one else at this time, supposed that my
work in Burma was ended. It was decided to ask for some one from home
to relieve me as soon as possible.
But there was the immediate difficulty of looking after the work, and
especially the English congregation. The Conference that had closed so
recently had appointed a young man, J. T. Robertson, to be my assistant
in the Rangoon English Church, so that I could give more time to the
affairs of the district. He was only a probationer in the Conference,
having been admitted to Conference at its recent session, and he had
had no experience as a pastor. More, he had come to a strange city;
but, as the case often is in our mission work, we had to take all
the risks to the work and to the man, and appoint him to the untried
responsibility of the pastorate of the English Church. That he would
have run away if he could have gotten out of the province he has often
declared; but this being impossible, he went to work with a will, and
for the next five months did very acceptable service as pastor.
Such adjustment of mission work was made as could be in the five
days that intervened after my return from Conference and our second
departure from Burma. I hoped to aid the workers somewhat by
correspondence. The journey across the water began to revive Mrs.
Smith, and her condition on arrival at Calcutta was greatly improved.
Here we sought the best medical advice. Dr. Coates, a famous Calcutta
physician for many years, gave us his counsel. He predicted that Mrs.
Smith would continue to improve rapidly, which she did. As for myself,
he said that the difficulty was very obscure, and very difficult to
deal with. He said that if I went to the hill station of Mussoorie,
where we were intending to go, it would be the very best thing I
could do. He further predicted that if I did not get better there in
four months, I would never get better in India. He stipulated “four
months,” as that would take us through the rainless hot season. If this
time were spent in Mussoorie, situated as it is at an elevation of
seven thousand feet in its cool and bracing air, it would be the best
possible place for recuperation. After resting some with friends by the
way, we arrived in that hill station on the 13th of March. The snow was
still in sight in some lower hills, and the snowy range was seen from
afar. The view of “the snows” at Mussoorie is not so commanding as from
the regions about Naini Tal, which I had visited four months before.
The “station” itself is built on a ridge and its spurs for a distance
of six miles or more, and contained at that time some thirty thousand
inhabitants. The European residents were made up of retired pensioners
of the Indian Government, a large garrison of English troops, and
others connected with the several schools for Europeans, and some who
engaged in trade. But here, as elsewhere, the great population was
made up of the natives. The conditions were as favorable as could be
found for rest and recuperation. There was enough sociability to keep
off loneliness, and plenty of good reading matter in libraries, and
opportunity to roam about the mountains. I lived much in the open
air when it did not take me into the direct rays of the sun. Though
the atmosphere is almost always cool at this altitude, the sunlight
searches one through in the rare atmosphere. It paints the cheeks of
every one like a peach, even the dusky faces of the natives are given a
flush of red. It is doubtful if even America has much better climatic
conditions for regaining health than many of the Indian hills. Could we
put the American style of living, and the homelike atmosphere around
the sick missionaries in these hills, it is certain that there would be
need of less home-going. If missionaries could always retreat to these
hills when in a decline before they are too much reduced, they would
gain the necessary strength to resume their duties.
I spent the time from March until the middle of June in this station,
directing the work off in Burma as best I could by letter. This was
difficult from the distance of two thousand miles. During these months
I thought of the anomaly of being presiding elder of a district so far
away, being also a sick man, and yet so hard pressed were we all, that
no other missionary could be spared from any field to take up the work
that I would have so gladly laid down. It became apparent that I was
not to meet with greatly improved health, even here. Bishop Thoburn
was away in America, and while he is one of the most hopeful of men,
he gave up all expectations that I would be able to go on in mission
work in India. He had actually selected my successor in America. But
when the time came to leave home, the brother failed him. As the time
wore away, and there was no material improvement in my condition, I
only hoped to put the mission interests in Burma in as good order as
I might be able, and then to return to America. This was the situation
on the 14th day of June. Just then the heat on the plains of India is
most terrific, and even the hot air and the dust storms reach such
altitudes as Mussoorie. At this time man and beast pant for “rain.” The
barren and parched earth seems to cry, “rain!” My letters from Rangoon
indicated serious complications in a business way, and there seemed
to be a great call to come down and put them to rights. The monsoon
had been promised to us; but it had not come, while from the plains
the heat rose as from a furnace. Thinking I could only do a little
more service for Burma anyway, just to put things to rights for my
successor, I concluded to make the plunge into that heat, and to go at
once, and return as soon as I could adjust business complications. Here
the physician who had my case said: “You dare not go into the plains.
In your condition the heat will kill you. You will leave a widowed wife
and two orphaned children, and you have no right to commit suicide.”
But I still thought it best to risk it for the work’s sake.
I can not forget the awful heat that greeted me all the way to lower
Bengal; it was the worst where I first entered the plain. Had I died
from the heat at any stage of that journey, I should not have been
surprised. But I lived. I crossed the bay again, and did three weeks
of the hardest work of my life up to that time in Rangoon. Weary to
exhaustion, I hastened to Calcutta on my return to the mountains. As
I lay on the hatch on that rough passage, I felt that my days as a
missionary were over, and that I had, without a formal good-bye, left
Burma forever.
On landing in Calcutta and getting my “land legs” again, I met one of
the surprises of my life. I made the glad discovery that I was greatly
improved in health! So certain of this did I become, that I told the
Calcutta missionaries freely that my days as a missionary were not
over. They would gladly have believed me, but were skeptical, and
warned me that when I should get back to the hills I would wilt again.
They said my apparent improvement was only due to the excitement of the
journey, and would soon wear away. But I went further in my conviction,
and sent a letter from Calcutta to Bishop Thoburn in America that I
was better, and expected to return to Burma, and that the bishop was
to strike my name off the invalid list. The improvement continued
after my return to the hills, and while I expected a long time to
elapse before I would be entirely myself, I never doubted after that
thrill of hope in Calcutta that I would become a well man again, and
continue my missionary career. It is exceedingly rare that such a
radical improvement in health occurs under such an extraordinary, if
not indeed perilous, strain as I was under on that trip to Rangoon. My
experience in all this has been given in some detail, because it shows
how a really desperate case may sometimes turn toward recovery at the
unexpected time. Had I returned to America, broken as I was, it would
have ended my missionary career. The Church, and ourselves, would have
been painfully disappointed, for I had not done what the Church or
myself expected, and it would have been taken for granted that I could
not possibly stand the tropical climate. As it turned out, I had the
honor to continue on the field, bearing heavy burdens for a rather
longer period than is usual in the first term of missionary service,
and to be permitted to write these records of nearly ten consecutive
years in mission work. This breakdown taught us a permanent lesson.
No missionary henceforth of our mission should be required to live in
the noise, dirt, and heat of the town of Rangoon, as we had to live
the first year. We determined to get to the suburbs for quieter and
healthier surroundings. At Rangoon this can be easily accomplished.
Just out of the town proper, and yet not far distant from our town
work, there is a great cantonment, or military quarter, reaching for a
mile or more. The location is higher than that of the town. The grounds
around residences are usually extensive; but it was difficult to rent a
house of any value with the mission money at our command. We secured a
tottering old house belonging to a miserly old man, who would not keep
it in any sort of repair. It leaned well over to one side, had uneven
floors, rickety stairs, and a roof so full of holes that ventilation
was perfect. Yet we got on well here during the dry season; but a later
experience remains to be given.
From my return to Rangoon both myself and wife plunged into the work
of the mission with redoubled efforts, that we were not to slacken
for years to come. Mr. Robertson was taken sick with the fever after
having stood at his post through the six months of my absence, and
his recovery was slow. I had the full pastoral duties, the business
of the mission, Government correspondence concerning the schools, and
the chaplaincy of the Wesleyan troops, as all our Rangoon pastors have
had in their turn. Besides this, I did a great deal of district work,
mostly of a pioneering kind. When it is understood that this is the way
many of our missionaries are loaded down, it must surprise others, as
well as themselves, that they hold out so long under these multiplied
labors, not forgetting that it is always under a tropical sun.
Our lives and labors moved on without special incident for all the dry
season from October, 1892, to the end of April, 1893, when we entered
the monsoon several days earlier than usual. It is here that the reader
may have the closing reference to the old house that made up the
residence of the official head of the Burma District at this period.
As I have already stated, the house did very well as a camping place
for the dry season, during which we seldom have any rain at all. But as
the time for the annual rains approached, I began to press our miserly
landlord to put the roof in order. This he agreed to do, but the
agreement he did not keep, and the rains came and caught us unprepared.
Bishop Thoburn had just arrived from Singapore on his biennial visit.
He had reached our house on the afternoon of the 24th of April. As the
afternoon wore away, there began to be signs of rain. The monsoon was
not supposed to be due for a week to three weeks yet. However, showers
often come lightly before this date. The difference between the light
showers and the “bursting of a monsoon” usually is, that the former are
light and merely premonitory of the coming rains, while they will be
followed by much burning sunshine and increasing heat. The “bursting
of the monsoon” usually lasts for days, and has often much of storm
with it, which also cools the temperature. Sometimes there is a fall of
twenty-five degrees, but not often, and this is not long maintained.
But on the evening named rain began to fall very gently, and for an
hour or two we were under the impression that it was only a shower;
but the rain continued through the night. There was no wind at all,
and this led to a most remarkable circumstance, which I do not know of
having paralleled, or that it has ever been made a matter of record,
though it made a deep impression at the time. All about Rangoon there
is a beautiful shade tree called the “padauk.” It has a short, thick
trunk and very long, spreading branches. The most remarkable feature of
the tree is that it blooms three times within six weeks, a heavy bloom
each time, and the third time the bloom bursts simultaneously with the
monsoons. Strangely enough, at the end of April, at the time of which
I write, there was every indication that the _third bloom_ was about
to break forth, though the rains, as stated, were not expected for some
time. So accurately does this tree mark the beginning of the actual
rains, that a common saying is, “The rains are at hand, the padauk is
ready to bloom the third time.” This was the situation as we went to
sleep that night, thankful for the refreshing rain, coming so gently
also that we did not see the stir of a leaf. After a very refreshing
sleep, we were wakened just at daybreak by a great crash, followed
almost immediately by another. I hastened to the veranda only to see
the great padauk trees in front of the house dripping with water, and
at the side of two of them, almost a quarter of each tree, broken and
prostrate on the earth, while the sounds of breaking trees came from
various directions on other streets. As the light increased, we looked
for a reason for the breaking of these great branches. We saw the
trees one mass of yellow bloom, and the ground covered with the fallen
flowers. The gentle rain was still falling through the motionless air.
For a space of three hours after day came the trees continued to break.
When the breeze began to blow the breaking ceased. Then we were able
to find a cause why these strong trees gave way. During the night the
millions of little flowers on the ends of those long branches opened
with the rain, and as their cups filled with water, there being no wind
to shake the water down, the weight of the water held in these flowers
acted on the branches as a great lever and broke them down. A really
wonderful natural phenomenon! It has had no repetition since, probably
due to the fact that the rain and the blooming have not been absolutely
simultaneous, with an absence of wind. As in this case when the breeze
started up, the water was shaken down and the breaking ceased. When the
flowers had fallen from the trees there could be no more danger; but
he who will look for it, can find the scars on the trees still where
their great branches were broken by the weight of their own water-laden
flowers.
The rain had done havoc in the house also. It had searched out every
hole in that perforated roof, and the water was dripping from the
ceiling into the middle of the room, and streaming down from the walls.
The rain continued for a term of eight days, almost uninterruptedly.
Housekeeping was out of the question. We tried to eat at our table,
but were driven away by the water and dust swept down from the roof
onto the food. There was no help for it. Mrs. Smith’s simple wall
decorations of bric-a-brac were all destroyed. We had to live about the
other mission premises as best we could during the days that followed.
There was a dry spot in the middle of one room where the bishop’s bed
stood, and he returned to sleep there each night to keep out of the
noise of the town. So it continued for eight days, to the end of the
bishop’s visit. I suppose that a bishop of Methodism does not meet
with this kind of entertainment often, even in India, much less in
America. It takes a good man to endure this sort of experience and
keep sweet, especially as he knows the home Church has abundant means
to house its missionaries, if it will. And be it remembered that the
Church had never given us a dollar for property in Burma at that time
in the whole history of the little mission; nor has it yet, except
through the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, which has now begun to
help with a really strong hand. But the good bishop and I determined
to buy residence property, and that on credit, as we had no money. Any
conditions of purchase were less risky and less expensive than being so
poorly housed, though this plan could not at once be carried out.
Here another painful circumstance occurred. My family had to live
in that house for the six months of the rains. Just as they were
all suffering with fever, owing to the dampness continually in the
house, a missionary paper from home came, in which there was a letter
by the same Missionary Secretary who had greeted us with the cry of
“the luxury of Indian missionaries” the first week of our life in
Rangoon, again declaring that “India was the most sumptuously provided
mission-field on earth!” This letter was intended to take the life out
of a plea for money to buy residences for our missionaries in India
and Burma that Bishop Thoburn had written. I recall this circumstance
here, solely to show how little the real conditions under which we have
worked in Burma are understood at home, even by those who at times have
had the charge of mission interests.
CHAPTER IV
The Physical Features of Burma
It is common to tell of the physical aspects of a country in one
of the first chapters of any book that may be written giving the
characteristics of any land; but the object of this book is to present,
first, a picture of life in Burma, as the writer and his associates
experienced it. There is a logical order in taking up the study of the
topography, climate, and products of Burma, as they were observed from
time to time in residence and travel through that country. That is
the way the observations herein recorded came to the writer after he
had begun the work and care of a mission in Rangoon and the adjoining
regions.
A missionary soon learns to take an interest in all that affects
the life of the people among whom he labors. He finds that climate
determines the products of a land to a great extent, and these in turn
determine the occupations of the people. He must adjust himself to
these conditions. He also finds that his plans for a people must take
in their present state and their future prospects. These conditions are
largely material. The wealth or poverty of a people determines their
spirit and possibilities to a great extent.
Americans especially, very few of whom have ever traveled or lived in
a tropical country, and who have not studied conditions in the Eastern
hemisphere, except in the best-known portion of the Oriental world,
have great need of enlargement of their views on Asiatic questions. In
nothing is this more evident than on the geography of Southern Asia.
While speaking on missions and Asiatic themes at home recently, I have
often tried to gauge the ideas of my audience by asking them to guess
the length of the Red Sea. I selected this body of water because it is
most familiar to all Bible-students. I take the Red Sea because all
have heard of it and all have seen it mapped from childhood, instead of
the Gulf of Martaban, for instance, which lies off the coast of Burma;
for most of my American readers have scarcely heard of the latter body
of water. The answers to this question from an audience, especially if
it is secured, as it usually has been, on the moment, have been at once
amusing and instructive. The guesses as to the length of the Red Sea
generally vary from “sixty” to “three hundred” miles, while a few have
gone somewhat higher. But only one answer secured in months, and that
from a schoolteacher after reflection and mental calculation, has been
_half_ the length of that historic body of water. Usually an audience
has taken a laugh at the guesser and their own mental estimate when
they have been informed that the Red Sea is about fifteen hundred miles
long. I have sometimes told the man who guessed “one hundred miles” to
multiply all his ideas of the Eastern world by fifteen, and he would
come nearer to the reality than he had been hitherto.
It is common to hear at home all the land commonly spoken of as “India”
as a land of a sameness of character, in climate, people, language, and
products. One province of it, like Burma, is a small section of the
country, just like the rest of the land, and chiefly differing from
the other portions of “India” in geographical lines. But establish
something of the largeness of these complex countries in the mind, and
also their diversity of people and physical conditions, and the man so
informed is prepared to understand that Burma may be reckoned as a land
of considerable importance in itself and worthy of special study.
Burma is a land with an area of seventy thousand square miles. It lies
between the Bay of Bengal and Assam on the west, China on the north,
and French Indo-China and Siam on the east. It also extends through
eighteen degrees of latitude, from ten to twenty-eight north. In shape
it is a little like the folded right hand, with index finger only
extended southward. Its greatest width is about four hundred miles,
while the Tennasserim Coast far to the south is but a narrow strip of
land.
The topography of the country is interesting. There are three principal
rivers, the Irrawaddy (the greatest), the Salween, and the Sitiang.
All these rise in the north, near or beyond the Burmese border, and
flow southward. Between these river basins and to the westward of the
Irrawaddy there run ranges of hills rising to mountains. They range
from small, picturesque hillocks that only serve to divide water-basins
to mountains above ten thousand feet in height. The valleys are
comparatively narrow, but very fertile. The hills are not simply
single crests running parallel with the rivers, but are extensive
successions of ranges quite regular, with indications here and there
of volcanic action. The strata are very much broken. For this reason
the coal-fields of Burma are not of much value, owing to the broken
condition of the strata. When one little portion is worked for a
distance, the vein is lost, being removed or buried too deep for work.
The Irrawaddy River deserves special mention. It rises somewhere in the
heights of Thibet near the headwaters of the Indus and the Ramaputra.
It is noteworthy that the three great rivers of Southern Asia rise
very near each other and flow to the ocean so far apart. The Irrawaddy
breaks through the hills of northern Burma, and descends into the
plains, widening and gathering volume till it reaches the sea. It has
several navigable river tributaries, of which the Chindwin is chief.
Toward the lower end of its course it connects with a network of tidal
creeks that unite with its several mouths, one of which is the Rangoon
River. This system of internal water-ways makes it possible to traverse
all portions of Lower Burma with river steamers of various sizes, from
a steam launch to river boats as large and well equipped as those of
the Mississippi. The enterprising and prosperous Flotilla Company of
Burma has a great fleet of these vessels running on the Irrawaddy and
its tributaries, while the many steamers and launches utilize the
tidal creeks. This great enterprise has no rival for this river-borne
traffic. The amount of business done on the Irrawaddy is enormous. The
Salween is navigable for only thirty miles by ocean steamers, and the
Sitiang not at all at present, though formerly sailing vessels made
ports about its mouth. Steam launches still ply on both these streams
and their tributaries. On all these inland waters there are multitudes
of native boats, of curious but most serviceable pattern. They never
modify these Eastern crafts after any Western design. It is doubtful if
modern ships have made much improvement in their water-lines over many
Eastern boats, which can be seen in different styles everywhere, from
the Red Sea all around the coasts of Southern Asia. They vary greatly
in different countries, and have become fixed along certain accepted
lines from which they do not depart, but they all seem to be good. Of
all Oriental crafts I have seen, none are more picturesque than the
Burma river boats.
[Illustration: PADDY-BOAT]
The mountain areas of Burma affect the country in many ways. They
greatly affect the rainfall. Lower Burma receives the full force of the
monsoon current as it comes in off the Indian Ocean. The consequence
is a heavy rainfall each year, and a regular and bountiful harvest.
Lower Burma has never had a famine. The amount of rainfall varies
from one hundred to three hundred inches during the rainy season
of six months. The western side of the outer range of the hills,
exposed to the same current, has even a heavier fall of rain than
the low lands bordering on the sea. The coast range of hills rises
to a considerable altitude, and as they extend north and south, the
southwest rain currents pour out their water in crossing this range,
and so have little moisture left to furnish rain in the upper valleys
of Burma. While the sea coast round about Rangoon, and the Sitiang and
Irrawaddy Valleys, have abundant rains in the lower portions, as you
go northward in each valley the rainfall steadily decreases until in
portions of Upper Burma there are great areas of land that will seldom
give a crop for lack of moisture. The soil in this arid region is as
fertile as anywhere, and where the great and enlarging canal system
of the Government is effective, they can produce enormous harvests.
But left to the uncertain rainfall, there would be only failure of
crops and famine. Happily this condition does not extend over the most
thickly-populated portion of Burma.
In another respect the hill portion of Burma is important. Compared
with the plains or plateaus of the country, there is a relatively
smaller portion of the province of low elevations than that of India
proper. The greatest level area is bordering on the sea, and is in
consequence much modified by the sea breezes, and the heat is never
very intense for a tropical country. But a large portion of the
province, which is not cooled by the breeze from the sea, has also a
moderate heat for the tropics. I attribute this condition of modified
temperature to the fact that we have no _large plains_ or plateaus.
Unlike India, where the area that becomes superheated is immense, in
Burma the area of low land is small, and therefore is continually
modified by the cooler air from the large adjacent mountain tracts.
This, it seems to me, accounts for the fact that all the seacoast of
Burma is so much cooler than the same kind of elevation of Bengal. They
both alike share the sea breeze for a certain distance; but Bengal
has hundreds of miles of low plain unbroken by high hills, while
Burma’s hills approach near the sea. This gives Burma a relatively
moderate temperature, though so far down in the tropics. All the
valleys of the tropical world are fertile. But a word should be said
about the fertility of the mountain tracts of Burma. Nearly all of
these hills and mountains that I have seen are covered with a dense
growth of forest. The Indian hills are not so. Many of the latter
are entirely barren of trees, and where there is any chance at all
they are cultivated in terraces. But the virgin forests of Burma
stretch hundreds of miles over hills and mountains. Here and there are
villagers, it is true, mostly Karens, in Lower Burma, who cultivate
only small areas; but only one year in a place, making a new clearing
each year to avoid the work of digging or plowing, and then they let
the last year’s clearing grow up to forest again, which it quickly does.
There is room for a vast population to make an easy living in the hills
of Burma alone. If those fertile hills were in America, they would be
all occupied as cattle and horse ranches, if not cultivated. Wherever
the forest is thinned or cut away, a great luxuriant growth of grass
and bamboos springs up, on which cattle feed and flourish. They can get
plenty of grazing the year round in these hills, and there would always
be a ready market for beef and for bullocks for plowing.
Among the many natural resources of Burma, there are two that require
careful attention. Here we find one of the greatest rice-growing
countries of the world. Here also are vast forests of the famous
teak wood, that is used so extensively for ship-building and other
structures.
Rice-growing is the _one_ line of cultivation that characterizes the
land of Burma. In India there are greater rice fields, because the rice
lands are more extensive. But in India they cultivate other crops, and
this even on the rice land. In India they frequently, if not generally,
grow two or more crops on the same land in one year, or different crops
on adjacent land at the same season. But the Burman grows one crop
only, and that is uniformly rice. He is a rice-grower and a rice-eater.
In the plains there is no other grain grown that is generally used
for human food. There is a little Indian corn cultivated, but not in
sufficient amount to break the force of this general statement.
The rice fields of Burma amount to over six million acres. There are
often as many as one hundred bushels of unhusked rice grown on an
acre. Of course, the average yield is far below this amount. Yet the
aggregate rice crop is enormous. It feeds all Burma, and there are
vast quantities shipped to India, China, Europe, and South America.
No year since I have been in Burma has there been insufficient rice
for her people. If rice of a different variety comes to Burma for the
immigrants that are used to the Indian article, there is also much
Burma rice shipped annually to various ports in India.
A word should be added as to rice cultivation. Perhaps all readers are
aware that rice is grown usually in water, though there is some dry
cultivation. The land is inclosed in very small fields, averaging less
than one acre, but often not more than one-tenth of that area. There
are embankments round all these fields, and several inches of water are
kept always on the ground. Sometimes the water is a foot deep. So long
as the rice can have a very little of the upper blade out of the water
it will flourish. The ground is stirred with a wooden rake like a plow
when it is covered with water. The mud is made very fine, and as deep
as this mode of cultivation, will stir it. The rice has been sown in
nurseries, and when from a foot to fifteen inches high it is pulled up,
bound into bundles of approximately one hundred plants each, and taken,
usually in boats, to the prepared field, where it is all transplanted
by hand. Often the root is divided, so that from one grain there come
to be grown several bunches of rice. In appearance a rice field looks
very much like a field of oats. The reader will hardly be prepared to
believe that it takes nearly twice as long to mature a rice crop under
a tropical sun, as it does to grow a field of oats in the northern
latitudes, especially in America. The rice is sown in the nursery in
May or June, and the ripened grain is not harvested before the last
of December or in January. It is all cut with a sickle. I have never
seen any one harvesting with any other instrument in Southern Asia.
The grain is always threshed under the feet of cattle, and winnowed
by hand. An American sees hundreds of ways wherein this crop could be
grown more economically, and some missionary will yet introduce modern
methods successfully. The missionary is the only man likely to succeed
in such a task.
When speaking of the great food-producing industries of Burma, that of
fishing should have special prominence. Burma has a vast area of swamps
submerged every rainy season, and these are classed as “fisheries,”
and a very large revenue is secured from the sale of the fish. The
fisherman makes an excellent living, and the people almost universally
are able to eat fish with their rice. So long has this been the case
that no Burman considers that he has been well fed unless he has fish
of some sort with rice every day. Then he shares the characteristic of
all Asiatics in desiring much condiment with his rice. He therefore
takes the fish, which is of fine flavor and excellent quality when
fresh, and rots it, and mixes with it peppers and other spices until
it suits his taste and smell, and then feasts! Other less Burmanized
people declare that his “gnape,” as he calls this preparation, is
simply very rotten fish.
The teak-wood forests, before mentioned, are among the most valuable
in the world. This famous wood will not shrink under the most intense
sun’s rays, nor will it expand when wet with the rain. It does not
warp, and has a smooth grain and works easily. In the tropics, when
used for building purposes, it is not eaten by white ants, which
destroy almost all other building material in hot countries. The
Government has taken hold of this industry, and protects the trees
from fires, regulates the cutting, and does all it can to maintain and
extend these exceedingly valuable forests. The cutting of the trees,
their transport to the sea, and conversion into lumber is one of the
greatest organized industries in the country. The amount of money
required to carry on this business in the process of cutting the timber
from the stump, hundreds of miles inland, gathering it out of the
forests, carrying it in rafts to the seaports, and putting it through
the great sawmills, to the final disposal to the European and other
purchasers, is enormous. The time element is a large one. It takes
years to get these logs through the process. I have often desired to
know just how long this timber has been waiting or is in transit from
the time it was felled. This at least must be several years, for the
logs often show signs of hard usage through a long period. They are
sometimes cracked and worn as if decades old.
[Illustration: THE ELEPHANT AT WORK]
It is in this timber industry that the elephants of Burma are very
useful. All travelers visiting Burma have at least seen the elephant at
work in the mills of Rangoon. They drag the great logs from the river,
place them in position to be guided to the saws, drag away the slabs
and squared lumber, pile all these in orderly heaps ready for further
handling, and manipulate the logs and ropes and their own chains in a
marvelous way. They go in and out of the mills with every part of the
great machinery running, and never make a false motion to tramp on a
carriage, become entangled in the belting, or allow a whirling saw
to touch their precious skins. Why a great beast with such strength,
joined to such intelligence and self-possession, will submit to the
feeble and often stupid man who sits on his neck, and work for man at
all, is a marvel. But the transient visitor only sees the elephant
working in the mills. This is only a small part of his task. He does
all the heavy dragging of the logs to get them to the river from the
forest where they are grown. This is often over the most difficult
ground. He will go into a thicket where no other beast can go, where a
horse or an ox could not climb at all, or if he did, would be perfectly
useless for work. But the elephant goes into these worst places and
drags the logs over fallen trees, bowlders, and through mud, not being
dismayed by muddy ditches or rocky steeps.
It is no wonder that the Government protects the herds of wild
elephants. But sometimes they invade the rice fields in great numbers.
When they do, the destruction is so great that the officials give
license to go and shoot them. Sometimes the hunters succeed in killing
a few. If they are males, the tusks are very valuable. The feet are
also skinned, including the leg, sole of the feet, and the nails,
and when so prepared are often used as waste-paper baskets, and are
regarded as great curiosities.
Burma has great ruby mines; but as these stones are not of so much
value as formerly, the mining is not to be considered as constituting a
great industry. But the oil fields of Burma are very valuable, and it
is supposed that the industry is as yet only in its early beginning.
It is said that the company that owns the chief refinery, and many of
the oil fields, will not sell any part of the stock they hold, and that
they are getting rich rapidly.
It will be seen from the foregoing facts that Burma is a great land in
itself. It belongs to the Indian Empire, and it is the richest province
in the whole country. It pays all its own expenses, which are heavy,
and gives largely to the deficit of other provinces. As a field for
mission work, there is none more promising so far as natural conditions
are concerned.
CHAPTER V
The City of Rangoon
Rangoon may not perhaps be rated as a great, but it is an important,
city. The population of Rangoon numbers above two hundred thousand,
without the usual thickly-inhabited suburbs. It is a seaport third in
importance in Southern Asia. Calcutta and Bombay are the only cities
that surpass it. The capital of the province of Burma, it is the center
of official life. Being situated so near the sea, only twenty miles
inland, and having the best of harbors and every connection with the
interior, both by rail and river, its importance as a trading center is
very great. Compared to other Indian cities, it is more important than
many with a greater population, while it is doubtful if any city in all
the seacoasts of Southern Asia is of equal importance in proportion to
its population. Then, it has the advantage of being a newly-planned
city. As such it has straight streets, crossing at right angles for
the most part, like Western cities of the modern plan. However, this
admirable arrangement has been of far less advantage than it would have
been, because the blocks are too narrow to be utilized to the best
advantage. This blunder has, unhappily, been perpetuated in the great
new addition that has been made on the eastward of the city. It would
seem that experience in this matter would have taught the municipality
better things; but like other things Oriental, I suppose, they found
it very difficult to get adapted to anything new. As the beginning was
made that way, the end must be the same. But in the one fact that the
streets are straight and at right angles, there is an advantage that
is not found in any other Oriental city. The streets are kept well
paved, and the general improvements are progressive, except in two
very important particulars. They still use poor kerosene in inferior
lamps for street lighting. Ten years ago I went to the municipal
engineer, and asked him if it was not feasible to light the city with
electricity, instead of the obsolete methods then, as now, in vogue.
He said: “Yes, it might be; but we are not so enterprising as you in
America. We will wait ten years, and see if a new thing works well
before we adopt it.” The ten years are passed, and still the smoky old
lamps send out their indifferent light and obnoxious odors--too many of
which befoul any Oriental city--because the municipal authorities have
not yet found out that electric lighting is a success. This is being
written in America, where most little towns of one or two thousand
population are being well lighted with electricity, while over the sea
the great city of Rangoon, with two hundred thousand inhabitants and
large revenues, can not yet venture on this modern system of lighting
its streets.
There is, also, a lamentable backwardness in the matter of street
railways. There is a poorly-built and poorly-kept street railway run by
steam. But there is little comfort in the car service, and the motive
power is antiquated steam engines. The street railway, such as it
is, is not extended to such limits as it should be. Were the streets
lighted with electric-lights and a system of electric cars adequate to
the city and suburbs running, these public improvements would be in
keeping with what Rangoon is in the matter of trade.
There is only one other city in Burma of nearly the same number of
inhabitants as Rangoon, and that is Mandalay, the capital of Upper
Burma. This city was the capital of independent Burma in modern
times. When the British annexed Upper Burma in 1886, they projected
the railway to the city of Mandalay, and as it already had steamer
connection with Lower Burma, its many advantages as a distributing
center maintained its continued growth. While it has a population
nearly equal to Rangoon, it has nothing else to be compared with the
latter city.
There is a very great contrast between the two cities in the matter
of racial population. While Mandalay has some immigrants from other
lands, like other cities and towns of Burma, the city as a whole is
distinctly Burman. Rangoon, on the other hand, is so foreign in its
makeup that it can not be called a Burmese city. Relatively, very few
Burmans live in the main part of the city. Here you find many peoples
of India. There are wide areas of the city given over to the Tamils,
Telegus, Bengalis, Gujaratties, and Chinese; while yet other Indian
people are found in this Indian community to the exclusion of the
Burmese. The Burmese live chiefly at both ends of the city of Rangoon,
where there is much trading in rice and other dealings of a Burmese
character. The Burmese have given way before the immigrants of India,
largely because they are an independent and proud race, and will not
do the work commonly done by the coolies and servants about the city.
They look upon the immigrant from India as an inferior, and they will
not allow themselves to be his competitor for the more menial services
and work of the city. The Burmese, therefore, collect chiefly where
they have occupation congenial to their tastes. It is significant that
the Burman will work at almost anything, where the Madrassis and other
Indian people are not working alongside of him. But where there may be
constant contrasts or comparisons in inferior positions, he will not
condescend to go. So he gives way to the native as indicated, not from
necessity, but from choice.
Rangoon is a great trade center. The two greatest industries are that
of the lumber trade and the traffic in rice. The lumber manufacture and
sale has had previous mention. I will only add that immense sawmills
line the river front at frequent intervals, and the logs lie in the
river in great rafts, or in heaps on land. There are perhaps scores of
elephants at work in connection with these mills.
The rice mills are conducted on a very large scale. The plan is common
to make advances to brokers, who go out and loan money on the growing
crop and agree to take the rice, which in the husk is called “paddy,”
at harvest time, at a given rate per hundred baskets. The basket holds
about a bushel. Usually the price ranges about one hundred rupees
for a hundred baskets, though often the rice is a fourth above or a
fourth below this amount. The rupee is equal to thirty cents. As the
price of rice is impossible of calculation so many months in advance
of harvest, the millers who advance the money to the brokers, who
are usually Burmans, and the brokers who advance the money to the
cultivators agreeing to take “paddy” at a given rate at harvest, and
the cultivators, all base their calculations upon guesses usually
wrong, the whole system has much of the elements of gambling, like the
dealing in futures on an American Board of Trade. The rice is husked
and cleaned in these great mills, and sold to buyers from abroad,
or in the local markets for food. Often the cleaned rice is sent to
Europe, and converted into some kind of intoxicants, and comes back
to curse the land out of which it grew. It is noteworthy that most of
these greater business enterprises that call for great organization
are managed by Europeans. But there are many merchants in wholesale or
retail business that are of all races. The Chinamen are busy traders,
and will doubtless have a more controlling voice in the affairs of
business as time goes forward.
Of all the trade in the country, there are two features that are a
source of unmixed evil--the trade in opium, and the trade in liquor. It
is true that the Government tries to keep the opium trade under very
severe regulations; but it is always a failure to try to regulate that
which itself feeds upon vice. The amount of liquor brought into Burma
is something enormous. It is true that there are more people that do
not drink than formerly, and those that still drink are less given
to excessive drunkenness than in earlier years; yet there are more
people in the land, and there are more of the natives, particularly
Burmese, that are using intoxicants, in imitation of Europeans, and
therefore the quantity of liquor brought to the country to supply this
demand is greater than ever before. The ship that our party went on to
Rangoon carried three missionaries and three hundred tons of liquor. I
have no doubt this would not be above the average cargo for steamers
plying between European ports and Burma. It is astonishing how this
liquor has entered into ordinary trade. Most of the great importing
houses deal in liquors. Most of the retail houses likewise. So it
becomes difficult for a young man who is hostile to the whole liquor
business to get work in any of the retail “shops,” as they are called,
without staining his hands in this unholy traffic. One of the great
reforms on the temperance questions in the East will be to develop a
sentiment antagonistic to the traffic, until liquor-selling can not be
countenanced as a respectable business.
[Illustration: THE NEW PUBLIC OFFICES, RANGOON]
Rangoon has several good public buildings, the greatest of these
being the Government House, the residence of his honor the
lieutenant-governor, and the great secretariat building, which is
situated on grounds reserved for its use, in the center of the city.
The latter building has been completed only about five years, and when
newly occupied was considerably shaken by the heavy earthquake, which
shook Rangoon and vicinity. But the damage done has been repaired, and
the great building adorns the city and serves the purpose for which it
was erected. There is also the elegant Jubilee Hall erected in honor of
Queen Victoria’s illustrious reign.
Rangoon is divided into two distinct parts. The one is on the flat land
adjoining the river, and extending a third of a mile back, and some
four miles in length. This includes most of the business portion and
all the crowded districts of the city. Here many thousands of people
literally swarm by day, and sleep twenty in a single room at night.
This portion of the city is called “The Town.” It is almost always
very dirty, except when washed by heavy rains. Here are still seen old
buildings of every sort. However, these are disappearing more rapidly
than one would anticipate, from the fact that they were originally
all constructed of wood, and during the dry weather there have been
frequent friendly fires of late years, and the town is by this means
relieved of a good many unsightly structures. Henceforth there are to
be no wooden buildings erected in the center of the city.
During the rains we are treated to a curious effect of the excessive
moisture of the climate. Many of the old houses have been roofed by
clay tiling. When this tiling is not frequently turned, the spores of
certain weeds, which have gathered on the tiles as the rains increase
and the clouds settle down in unbroken shadows over the land, spring up
and grow to the height of two feet or more, growing as thick as grass
in a meadow. This makes a house a very curious-looking object. A human
habitation or church grown all over with weeds! When the clouds break
away and the sun comes out, these weeds dry to a crisp.
Any student of a people, and most of all a missionary, is early
attracted by the religious life of men. Of the many races that mix,
but do not blend, in the population of Rangoon, each brings his own
religion from the land of his birth. Each holds to his own faith with
the greatest persistency, as a rule. Men will have dealings together
on all subjects, except in religion. Here they differ widely, and
they generally do not compromise their religious convictions or
observance. Sometimes their dispositions to each other are that of
covert hostility. But generally they get on in outward peace, but do
not think of becoming proselytes to any other religion. The religious
rites at the shrines are kept up faithfully. The great religious feasts
are observed with much pomp. The social customs that are connected with
each religion are seldom broken. So living side by side are adherents
of every religion under the sun.
In the center of Dalhousie Street in Rangoon is a large pagoda, a
shrine of the Buddhists, with its gilded conical shape rising far above
all other buildings in the vicinity, while from its umbrella-like top
there goes out on the tropical air the sweet sound of bells that hang
on the rim of the umbrella. Just across the street from this pagoda is
a mosque where the Mohammedan business men and passers-by go five times
a day to pray. Two blocks east from these is a Hindu temple, and three
or four blocks west is a Chinese temple, where their religious rites
are observed, consisting mostly of offerings to devils. These temples
are only samples. I understand there are a score of mosques in Rangoon.
The number of Hindu temples I do not know, while there are pagodas in
every quarter. There are various Chinese temples also. Throughout the
city are now found several Christian Churches. Here the gospel light is
held up to dispel the soul-darkening counsels of the Christless faiths.
At a glance at these sacred places and religious rites it will be seen
that the conflict between religious ideas and practices is general, and
probably will become world-wide. The Europeans that go to that country
must represent the Christian religion, or deteriorate religiously. The
non-Christians must stand by their own, or in time they too will become
modified. This is wholly independent of the aggressive battle that
the missionary would wage against all these non-Christian religious
systems. It is a significant fact that the missionaries who are in the
midst of the religious life, so opposed to all they hold dear in faith
and practice, have unbounded confidence in the final triumph of the
gospel in leavening the present-day pagan faiths, as it did those of
the New Testament times. I have yet to meet a hopeless missionary. This
note of the hopeful conquering missionary force is an inbreathing of
the Spirit of our Lord, who from his throne sends forth his heralds.
One fact will show how intense is the religious faith among some of the
Asiatics. The Mohammedans and the Hindus are often very hostile to each
other. If it were not for the hand of the English Government in India,
this hostility would be almost continually breaking out into open
violence in some parts of the country. As it is, it is not seldom that
religious riots occur. In 1894, during a Mohammedan feast, in which
they are accustomed to sacrifice a cow, the Mohammedans were determined
to slaughter the animal not far from a business house of a rich Hindu,
on whose premises there was also a private temple. As the Hindus
worship the cow, and as the killing of such an animal, especially in
religious services, is an abomination to them, they were naturally
much incensed, and the Mohammedans probably meant that they should be.
In this case the Mohammedans seemed to be the aggressors throughout.
The fanatical antagonism was growing dangerous. The authorities were
watching the movements of these two parties, the Mohammedans giving
most concern. Several days went by, and the feeling was at fever heat.
Sunday came, and as I rode to church with my family in the early
morning, I saw on every street companies of Mohammedans carrying clubs
faced with irons, hurrying toward the center of the town where their
greatest mosque is, and near which they meant to sacrifice the cow.
Just as I concluded the morning service, I heard the sound of distant
firing. In a few moments a Mohammedan ran by the church, with his face
partly shot away. The excitement in the city grew as the facts became
known.
[Illustration: THE MOSQUE, RANGOON]
The deputy commissioner and other officers were present at the center
of the disturbance with a small company of Seik soldiers. The mob grew
to many thousands, and the officers commanded them to disperse. This
order they refused in derisive language. Then blank cartridges were
fired to frighten the multitude, and still they refused to disperse.
As there was nothing left to do, the troops were ordered to fire into
the crowd that thronged about the mosque. Some thirty or more were
shot, several being killed outright. This dispersed the crowds, but
there was rioting for days whenever Mohammedans would find a Hindu away
from his associates, or in unfrequented or unprotected localities. Had
it not been for these rigorous measures of the authorities, the whole
community would have been given over to violence. As it was, the whole
Mohammedan community was doubly policed for six months, and the extra
expense was put on to the tax of that particular community. This was
effective in keeping order, and when the time had run its course, the
Mohammedans petitioned the local Government that if these extra police
were taken away, they would behave themselves, which they have done
ever since.
While “the Town” is such a center of life and strife, the suburbs are a
place of quiet, rest, cleanliness, and beauty unsurpassed. The military
cantonment is here, with perhaps nearly a mile square, laid out in
large blocks and roomy compounds, or yards. A rule has long been in
force in the cantonment, that there could only be one house erected on
a lot. Most of these lots contain from one to four acres. This gives
the room necessary to beautify the grounds, and to secure pure air.
The cantonment is now being curtailed, and doubtless this admirable
regulation may be modified. But as this land rises a little higher than
the town, and, being a little apart from it, it will continue to be of
great value for homes. The entire suburbs have a fine growth of trees,
many of them natural forest trees and others ornamental, and planted
for shade.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE OF SWAY DAGON PAGODA]
The chief object of all the region, the great Pagoda, is situated about
the middle of this cantonment portion of the suburbs. But the suburbs
run far beyond the cantonment. It reaches on three sides of this
reserve, while the whole region to the northward is being occupied and
built upon. There is a fine grove of forest and fruit trees extending
most of the way to Insein, nine miles from Rangoon, and nearly all
the intermediate area is built up with fine residences of Europeans,
or rich natives. The homes out in the groves, and with large fruit
gardens, furnish the ideal place for rest and refreshment after the
work of the hot day in “the Town.” It is a fact that Europeans who have
lived for a while in this portion of the city of Rangoon seem loath to
leave it for any place. If they go back to Europe, they mostly return
again to Rangoon. Government House, a large palatial building, the
residence of the lieutenant-governor, is the central attraction of all
the fine residences of this region.
There are three areas of great beauty reserved by the authorities--the
Zoological Gardens, the Cantonment Gardens, and the Royal Lakes. All
these reserves are beautiful with every variety of tree, bush, and
flower that grows in the tropics, and the grounds are laid out with
artistic care, and lakelets beautify the whole. But the “Royal Lakes”
are a series of natural and artificial water basins, all connected and
adorned with beautiful little islands and curved shore lines. A portion
of the inclosure is kept as a public park, and a winding drive is
maintained along the water’s edge, which gives an ever-changing picture
of tropical beauty. The effect of the palms, the mangoes, and other
shade and ornamental trees, toning down the fierce glare of the sun,
and these shades reflected from the clear water on a tropical evening,
is a blending of color that I have never seen anywhere equaled. The
world has many places of beauty, but of those views I have seen nothing
equals the “Royal Lakes” of Rangoon for combinations of charming
scenery in a limited area. Evening and morning this drive is crowded
with vehicles of every type. Rangoonites of every race are out taking
in the air and scenery. Here in the evening may be seen hundreds of
people dressed in the coolest apparel, visiting and resting, while
two or three evenings a week the band entertains with music. It is no
wonder that Rangoon makes an attractive city for business and pleasure
for any whose lot is cast in this tropical land. The heat is never as
intense as in Indian cities, and always in the hottest weather it is
modified with a sea-breeze. In the long and heavy rains also the people
seem to get no harm from a frequent exposure.
[Illustration: ROYAL LAKES AT EVENTIDE, RANGOON]
CHAPTER VI
Europeans, Anglo-Indians, Eurasians
All people of foreign blood from western lands, and the descendants
of these, however remote or however little the trace of Western blood
they have, are in India technically called “Europeans.” Before the law
they have the rights of a trial by jury, and in the school laws they
are classed as “Europeans.” But it is far more accurate to divide this
class into three divisions--the pure “Europeans,” the “Anglo-Indians,”
and the “Eurasians.” By this division the Europeans are people born and
reared in Europe, or America, who are now found in Southern Asia. The
Anglo-Indians are those people of mixed European blood who have been
born and reared in India. The Eurasian, as the name implies, is a man
who has both European and Asiatic blood. For the purposes of comparison
these may be named in two classes, the Western born and bred man, the
European, as distinguished from Eastern born relatives, Anglo-Indians
and Eurasians. I want it made very clear that in discussing the
characteristics and relations of these several peoples, that I am
not drawing invidious comparisons. I have no sympathy whatever with
asperities heaped upon men because of their race; neither do I
patronize any man because of his race. I long ago concluded that
character is not a matter of race; that lovable or royal manhood is
not a question of ancestry or position, but that nearly all essential
differences in men are due to environment and to personal conduct, for
which each man is responsible. But comparisons not invidious must be
made to bring out the various features of social and business life that
enter into the complex racial intermingling of Southern Asia. At best
this complexity of life can be but partially understood by readers in
America, who have never seen anything quite like it.
The characteristics of Europeans and Americans are well known in the
Western world. My subject calls for only those characteristics which
they hold in common, and these features of character as modified by
residence in the tropics and under the social conditions of Asia.
These characteristics are contrasted in a decided way, as compared
with any and all Asiatic trained men of any race or racial mixture.
These elements of character are most noticeable in the energy that
takes them to the tropics, their capacity to organize business or
government, and maintain a modern and systematic organization of
the highest efficiency, and that peculiar capacity for just and
progressive governmental domination. This energy and this capacity
for organization, which of course involves the power to work out
painstaking details, are characteristic of the Northern civilization,
and never found in the same degree, as far as I know, among any
peoples that have been bred in the tropics. It is a matter of great
importance in working out the simplest framework of a theory of racial
influence in the world to recognize the fact that all real pioneering,
all colossal accomplishments in all lands in modern times, have been
made by men bred in the colder countries of the temperate zone. These
are the men who forge the world forward in their own native climes, and
in the frigid zone, and also in the scorching tropics. The tropical
world presents no people who hold their own with these exotics, even
under their native skies. It is this quality of the European that makes
him the dominating man in India. He creates and fosters government and
business enterprises on a large scale. As a man, the European is a
mightier personal force than Asia can produce.
That this energy is largely a result of climate and social environment
is very plain when we compare the Western man with the characteristics
of the descendants of Europeans who have had only an Indian upbringing.
And in all comparisons I will class the Anglo-Indian and the Eurasian
together, for so they belong. They both follow the same habits of life,
so far as style of living is concerned, similar to that of the European
resident in India. In these respects they have much in common with all
Europeans. They are all classed together as compared with the native.
But here the similarity between the imported man and his Indian-bred
relative comes to an abrupt end. The driving and conquering energy of
the Western man is wanting in his relative of even one generation
of Asiatic breeding. It is clear that this difference, which all
observing men recognize, is purely due to environment of climate and
social customs. They are as bright in mind as the Western men. They
are excellent students to a certain point. They are specially facile
letter-writers. But the line of occupations which their Asiatic life
and conditions fit them for, is very limited indeed. The limitations
of their lives are many. The most depressing of all their conditions
grows out of the fact that they from infancy are dependent for the
greater part of all life’s duties on the native servant. The baby is
nursed by a native _ayah_; his clothes are kept in order for him by a
servant. He is fed, clothed, and cared for by half a dozen menials. His
boots are blacked for him; his books carried to school; his umbrella
held over his head; his pony is groomed, saddled, and led while he
rides, by a servant whom he is accustomed to command in everything. He
is helped and coddled out of all independence and self-helpfulness. In
all this he is not to be blamed, but pitied. In this he does as all
his relatives and neighbors do. His household and business methods,
all that he sees, is being done this way. Not one man of European
descent in India lives entirely by his own efforts, as is common in
Western countries. His dependence on menials is therefore a necessity
of respectable life, as he sees it. He is not to be blamed, for he sees
nothing better around him. But this admission does not require that
we approve the social conditions that unman him and rob him of much
energy and resourcefulness in the matter of self-help. It is a fact
that he develops a softness of character in matters of personal habit,
and lacks in the energy which is required only by long and sustained
self-dependent work. For this reason all the hardier traits of manhood
are feebly developed, or lacking. You do not find these men entering
callings where hard service is required. They do not make either
soldiers or sailors. Some of them become engineers, but they are only
found in places where the work is largely done by native helpers, and
even here few of them compete with the Scotch or German engineer.
But the difference wrought by social conditions is seen more in matters
of disposition than elsewhere. No race of the human family can boast
of good dispositions. However, we do find that Indian-born men are
unduly sensitive. They are usually easily “offended,” even to pouting.
They are sensitive of their “status,” whatever their positions may
be. A multiplied illustration of this supersensitiveness is found in
the recklessness with which men will resign from any and every post
when, for some reason or without reason, their feelings are hurt.
They will often go from comfort to beggary just because they may be
displeased with their treatment. And that which seems almost a paradox,
compared with the preceding fact, is that they will stand almost any
amount of outright snubbing from people whom they respect for some
pretentious assumption of superiority. I have been puzzled many times
to understand how it was when I went to a disgruntled man with soft
speech to pacify him, if for reason or without it he was disaffected,
to find that he would take my approach to him as a sign of weakness,
and be confirmed in his unlovely manners. But I have seen the same man
benefited by the sharpest rebuke which gave him no quarter at all.
But while the Anglo-Indians have all the disposition in common with
the Eurasian, they are distinguished in common speech in a way that
often causes much pain to high-minded Eurasians. They are called
“Half-castes” and “Niggers.” They are scorned for being born of
questionable parentage. This is by no means true of the most of these
unfortunate people, as an increasing proportion of them are born in
wedlock, and often are the children of cultured and orderly homes,
the equal of any on earth. But when true as a fact, it does not
affect their character or real moral worth. But there is a sting, the
more painful for its injustice, on the innocent child born of mixed
parentage, when born out of wedlock, which in the cruelty of social
speech attaches more shame to the innocent child than guilt to the
heartless father. I have been led to believe that this injustice
accounts for much of the supersensitiveness in the whole Eurasian
community. Then they labor under the disadvantage often of having a
very dark skin. It is a curious law of nature that the Eurasian child
often has a darker skin than even his Asiatic parent. In a country
where shades of color, light or dark, are measured by a supersensitive
scale, and social recognition is to some extent based upon this absurd
measurement, it will be seen that the Eurasian, especially if very
dark, is overmuch pained that he has not a white skin, and he feels
the fling of the term “Nigger,” often on the lips of those whose only
whiteness is in their skins.
One more characteristic of the Asiatic-bred men of European descent
may be given. They do not take kindly to burdensome responsibilities,
even after Indian pattern, especially for their own kindred and race.
In a country where there are more charitable institutions in proportion
to the population than in any other in the world, and perhaps greater
need of such institutions, yet it remains a painful fact that, with
a few exceptions--so exceptional as to make the real nobility of the
mind of the few more striking--there is a very small part of the
money necessary for their support given by the Anglo-Indians, or
Eurasians. The greatest amount of money to keep these institutions
going is given by men foreign to the country. But another like fact
of note is this, that there is not one such institution, so far as I
can learn, the burdensome responsibility of which is actually carried
by an Indian-bred man, or company of men. There are many working
faithfully in subordinate capacities. But when it comes to organizing
and maintaining such an institution, and bearing its burdens through
crises, the Indian-bred men have not been found under the load. The
suggestiveness of these facts is a commentary on either the lack of
real charity, or lack of energy to bear responsible burdens. Having
been in this sort of work in various capacities for all the time I have
been in the mission field, I feel it is due to the institutions of
this kind, and the workers who bear the burdens of the same, to point
out this failure of this branch of the Indian peoples to measure up
to a manifest duty, and to say further, that I believe this shrinking
from personal responsibility to be a direct result of training from
childhood, which teaches them to avoid unpleasant tasks and drop them
upon others. They would order a servant to do the work if it could be
done that way; but if not, then the Western man or woman must do it, or
it goes undone.
One more characteristic must be mentioned. It can not be denied that
the lack of manly independence in a majority of Indian-bred men leads
them to be forever asking somebody to do something for them. Many of
them will appeal to ministers especially, and all charitably-disposed
people, to get them into positions for which they are often wholly
unqualified. They will ask you to aid them with money; borrow or beg
without any sensibility of its unmanliness whatever. It takes a very
large part of every minister’s time to respond to these incessant calls
for “help.”
It would take reams of paper to write all the supplications, petitions,
and applications for positions, when the applicants for aid should
present themselves in person and ask for posts, conscious of their
own ability to sustain themselves. A Scotchman in Rangoon, whom I
knew, and a man with most kindly heart, in a position where he was
often besieged for employment, grew so tired of this unmanly method
of applying for employment, that he became annoyed every time he saw
a man with one of those letters of recommendation coming to him. He
warned me repeatedly that, as a minister, I ought not to write these
letters of recommendation to business men, and in later years I ceased
to do so. One constant form of this appeal for some special favor has
been repeatedly to approach the Indian Government to retain certain
positions for the special benefit of this community. The Anglo-Indian
and Eurasian associations have repeatedly memorialized the viceroy
to order these favors. Lord Curzon, the present viceroy, gave their
memorials special attention, and as a result he delivered a reply of
the most searching kind, and urged the people of this community to
carve out something worthy themselves, instead of being continually
memorializing for special favors, and refused to aid in the special
class regulations. The delegation retired, “thanking his excellency for
his sarcastic remarks.” Yet I fear it will take more sarcasm before the
right mettle is put into this people, as a class.
Now while I have written these facts as I see them, I wish to avoid
absolutely a mistake commonly made. While we point out these weaknesses
in a community, we must not stop there, as the manner of some is. There
are those who would not allow themselves to speak of the real worthy
ones among these peoples as heartily as they would of the deficiencies
of others. I want to be fair and to lean in statement where my
sympathies have always been, with the better and noble characteristics
of these unfortunate people, as I have known and valued them, and
recognize the possibility of toning up the moral fiber, if they are
taken in hand as boys and girls before being confirmed in the weakening
customs of the country.
The youth, both boys and girls, of these families have many among them
who will take a fine education. They do excellent work in school. Some
take a university course. A greater number ought to do so. They make
very good clerks where nothing but writing is to be done. This has been
the chief employment of the men hitherto. They are very fair teachers.
A few have been employed in our mission, who for painstaking care and
faithfulness can not be excelled. Some of them have been inspired
to be and do all that is worthy and noble. There are missionaries
from among these peoples whose ministry has been blessed of God,
and greatly edified the Church. It is a fact, however, that for the
last dozen years there has been almost a dearth of such applicants
for admission to our ranks. It is also true that the falling off in
these applications corresponds nearly with the time that those who
were in our Indian Conferences were advanced to the full status of
American-trained missionaries. Let this be pondered and remedied. Some
of the young people have done nobly. A few have honored themselves
and the Church by an education in America, and returned to devoted
service for their own people. But happily we have an illustrious soul
of this community, recently translated, whose going has made earth
poorer, except in hallowed memories of her sainted life, and heaven
richer. When we meet one such soul as the sainted Phœbe Rowe, we lift
up our hearts with thanks to Him who has made the Christ-life so real
in flesh that we could look upon. Phœbe Rowe was a Eurasian. She had
all the Indian conditions, but from very early life she was a devoted
Christian. In riper years she developed Christian graces to the highest
possibility. After a notable service in many capacities, she closed
her career by a long term of service as an evangelist to the poor
native Church of India. Her life and labors have been recorded, and are
the property of the Church. I only write to say of her that she was
the most perfect fruit of our Indian Mission. Bishop Thoburn, in his
address before the Central Conference in 1900, spoke of her departure,
and said, “Phœbe Rowe, the most peerless saint I have ever known.” One
such saint is a prophecy of all possible good among these people.
The climate and social conditions do affect Europeans also. This is
manifest in very many ways. From having servants to do the necessary
work for them, they easily drift into the habit of leaning back in an
easy-chair, and calling “boy” for everything they want, from a drink of
water to a toothpick. I saw an extreme case. A young Scotchman, just
out of the office in the evening, went to the Royal Lakes and called
for his boat. His servant dutifully brought it to the low platform;
waiting the pleasure of his master. The young man turned him slowly
round and sat down in the boat, but left his legs stretched on the
platform. The servant went out and lifted one leg in, and the other leg
likewise. When the whole man was in he pushed the boat off the shore,
and the master took lazily to the oars!
The habit of being waited upon in everything tends to develop the
domineering habit among almost all people. Little children often fairly
drive the servants about as they assert their pettishness. Grown-up
people often act as spoiled children in the same way. A young man who
comes from Europe from conditions where he had to do every kind of work
himself, soon learns to order his servants around with more pomp than
any born lord. The tendency of this kind trends also to extravagance in
living. It is so common for men getting a good salary to live beyond
their means. It is a common thing when an officer on good salary dies,
for his friends to take up a public subscription for his widow, who
will often be found to be without support of any kind.
In these respects, the climate and the environment are seductive. The
sterling simplicity that makes Westerners great is easily frittered
away in the East. Men go in for display. They keep what they call
“establishments.” They are much given to drink. Too often they debauch.
It is certain that a young man runs far more risk in this tropical
climate of making moral shipwreck than in Europe or America. Take away
his moral props with which he is surrounded at home, and he quickly
forms alliances to his own heart. Concubinage is very common. At
first the youth is ashamed of this relation, but later he is likely
to flaunt this sin in the face of all men. He sometimes acts as if he
were perfectly reckless of moral consequences. The good name he brought
to the country and his own loved ones at home are forgotten. It is a
common saying, “He left his morals at the Suez Canal.”
But while this is true as a tendency, it is the joy of the writer to
emphasize the fact that not a few men, young men, come from Europe to
the tropics and keep themselves pure and noble in the midst of all
that is seductive in climate or society. I have known a goodly number
of such, and count them among the most genuinely noble men that I have
met. There are men of many years in the country whose moral worth
has grown with a steady growth as the years have gone forward, and
have made themselves a name that is a rebuke to every dishonorable or
unclean life, and a tower of strength for themselves, and a mighty
bulwark against popular evils that degrade their fellow-countrymen.
These men, with their time, business sense, and their money, are always
actively on the side of right and righteousness. No people have had
more such friendships in India than the Methodist missionaries. I have
been specially honored with a wide acquaintance with such noble men.
CHAPTER VII
Characteristics of the Races of Burma
The cosmopolitan character of the population of Rangoon has been given,
and it is only necessary to add that all towns near the sea and on the
railways have the same intermingling of foreign and native peoples. But
there is a much greater preponderance of those races which are at home
in Burma. As you go inland, of all the immigrants the most ubiquitous
is the Chinese.
The Burmese are easily the chief people of Burma over any other race,
native or immigrant, in any part of Burma. Indeed, they rank high
among all peoples of Asia. I am aware that when I exalt the Burman, I
invite the criticism of the champion of other races. It is a common
observation that missionaries especially come to champion the worth
and virtues of the peoples among whom they labor, and perhaps estimate
them above their value, as compared with other races. This trait is
worth something to the world in that it brings to the front one class
of optimists of the value of men as they are, or of what they shall be.
When any man loses faith in any race, he can no longer be of signal
service to that race.
In rating the Burmese people highly, I am not aware of being
prejudiced in their favor by reason of exclusive association. Our
mission work has brought us into contact with nearly all the races in
Burma. As a result of our experience, the Burman must be given a place
second to none. Personally, I believe he has more to be said in his
favor than any other Asiatic race of which I have any knowledge.
I know it will be said that he is lazy and unreliable. The former
accusation is well-nigh universal. To undertake even to qualify this
charge of indolence is a large task; but still I am ready to say
something for the Burman’s industry. It is admitted that several of the
races of India are ploddingly industrious. The Burman’s industry is
less continuous, but I think not less genuine. He has more festivals
and idle days, but he certainly works rapidly, and for long hours, when
he works.
This is especially true of the cultivator. He is in the field a little
after daylight, and with only a short time of rest at midday he works
on till dark. In harvesting time he does the same. One evening when
darkness had fallen I was going up a tidal creek in a boat making my
way to the village of Naunguyi, when my attention was attracted by
sounds on the bank, and looking up I could see outlined against the
sky two Burmans loading a cart with rice sheaves. It would have been
too dark to see them if we had all been on a level. These men had been
working since daylight. During the threshing time the work is often
kept going on the threshing floors till midnight. Now I am persuaded
that men naturally indolent do not work in this way. In clerkships, and
as subordinate officials, they do not compare unfavorably with other
Asiatic races; while the Burmese women are notably industrious, whether
in the village, or in the bazar in the cities.
Eight or ten years ago we heard much of the hard-working, money-loving
Madrassi supplanting the Burmese land-owner and cultivator of Lower
Burma. But with a somewhat close observation I am convinced he is not
succeeding in this much faster than the Burman finds it to his own
advantage to allow the black man from across the Bay of Bengal to
succeed him. The same thing is true if it comes to larger trading.
In such lines as the Burman cares to enter, he gives a good account
of himself. If there is one man who will beat him in trade, that man
is the Chinaman. There are certain kinds of employment the Burman
dislikes, and he avoids them; but in his chosen lines he is not
discounted by comparison.
The Burmese are racially very proud. There is a good deal of dignity
in this pride, as well as of less worthy elements. Among themselves
the Burmese have no caste system, except that of the pagoda slave,
hence all kinds of work are honorable. But when the Indian, with his
caste system, comes in and classifies life into the infinitesimal
distinctions of respectability, and the reverse in all kinds of work
whereby all domestic service is put under this caste system, the proud
Burman refuses to be a servant! Who can blame him? He is a standing
protest against a system that is wholly wrong. In Upper Burma, where he
is not so much in competition with the caste man, he takes fairly well
to all manner of work.
Even when he competes with the coolie labor of other races he maintains
himself. This was strikingly illustrated in cutting the new road up
Thandaung three years ago. The officers tried Karen labor till it
failed, though the work was in their own hills. Then the Madrassis were
brought in, and they gave way after repeated trials. Then, as a last
resort, the Burmese coolies came and completed what the other races had
failed to accomplish.
It is certainly true that the Burmese race is much respected by most
Europeans. I do not think any other Asiatic race is equally respected
by foreigners resident in Burma.
The manners of the Burmese are pleasant. The Burman is a friendly man,
and approachable. There is none of the exclusive, non-communicative
characteristics about him. He will share his house and his food with
you always. His religion, while having something of bigotry in it, as
almost all religions have, is not offensive to men of other faiths.
The toleration by Buddhism of other faiths, perhaps more apparent than
real, yet is sufficient to attract much favorable comment in Burma.
One fact much to the Burman’s credit, in comparison with the other
races of Asia, is his ability to read; that is, a very large majority
of the men read, at least to some extent, and a good many women.
Lately in America we have heard the school system of the Chinese much
lauded. And since Minister Wu, at Washington, has so distinguished
himself and his race by his striking addresses, many people have jumped
at the conclusion that an ignorant Chinaman is the exception. But I am
told by those who ought to know, that in China only about one man in a
hundred, and one woman in ten thousand, can read. The Japanese alone of
Asiatic races are more literary than the Burmese.
The Burman is peculiarly proud of his knowledge of the Buddhist
doctrines. He calls them the “law.” In consequence of the system
of doctrine he upholds, he is unwilling to be taught religion by
a man whom he has hitherto believed incompetent to teach. It is
this, I believe, which makes him unwilling, as a rule, to be taught
Christianity by a Karen. All his racial and religious pride comes up as
he faces the suggestion of the Karen teaching him, whom he would always
regard in a peculiar way as a “son of the jungle.” He knows the Karen
formerly had no social standing and no written language, while his
vague demonology was wholly wanting as a system of religious teaching.
No, he is not ready to receive Christianity from the Karen.
For hundreds of years the Burmese have been the dominant people in the
land of Burma, and the Shans, Chins, and Karens were conquered and
dominated by them. They have had some able rulers, and at times have
had a strong enough government to wage war with distant people; even
with China herself they were often at war.
[Illustration: A BURMESE FAMILY]
The Burmese have a distinctly developed racial type. They, like all
peoples in Burma, China, and Siam, are of the Mongolian type of men.
Their complexion is much lighter than most Indian peoples, and they
naturally look upon the black man from across the Bay of Bengal as the
“Kalla,” dark of color and an inferior. While they have distinct racial
features, they evidently are a blending of the Chinese and the Malay.
This has been noticed particularly by comparison between the Burmese
and the Filipinos. Visitors to Manila, who are acquainted with the
Burmese, say the resemblance to the Filipino is very striking. We know
the Filipino has a Chinese and Malay infusion of blood.
The more than six millions of Burmese people are the chief people of
this land, whether studied from a governmental, racial, or missionary
point of view. To the American interested in missions it is of special
importance to remember these people. In America there is just now much
interest in carrying the gospel to eight or ten millions of people
in the Philippine Islands. This interest is largely because they are
under the American flag. Let not the millions of Burmese Buddhists be
forgotten while hastening to new fields.
The Shans take second rank among the races of Burma, though much more
attention has been given to the Karens by the missionaries. The Shans
in appearance are the most like the Chinese of any of the inhabitants
of Burma. They are racially closely related to them. Their language,
appearance, and dress bear out the resemblance.
The Shans are found widely distributed in Burma; but they live chiefly
in the hills in the northeast of the province. Like the Chins, Kachins,
and several tribes of the Karens, they seem to prefer residence in the
hills. In this they all contrast with the Burmese, who always prefer
a home on the plains, and they are never for a long time or in large
numbers resident in the hills in any part of Burma. The plains are
the richest part of the country, and as the conquering Burmese came
down from the north they naturally occupied the fertile portions of
the country, and have remained there, the weaker peoples taking to the
hills and finding their permanent home in places relatively difficult
of access and easy of defense.
The Shans are a strong race, and a little taller than either the
Burmese or the Karens. They are raisers of cattle and ponies, and
are great traders, bringing the products of the distant hills to the
railway centers.
In religion the Shans are Buddhists. They have a written language,
and the Bible has been translated into their tongue by the Baptist
missionaries.
In matters of moral purity the Shans must be rated very low. By those
best informed, it is said that their girls are nearly all corrupted
before they are grown. A missionary resident among them for years,
told me that the principal chief had in his reception room a picture
portraying all the vices known to the human race, placed on the wall
in plain view of every one who came to see him. Here men, women, and
children, when calling on the chief, looked upon this horrible picture,
and discussed it as a commonplace affair.
The missionary, who was the chief physician, told him he would not come
to his house again if he did not take that picture down from his walls.
The chief expressed surprise, and readily agreed to take the picture
away, and explained that he did not know it was wrong to have it there.
“Did not know it was wrong!” Can any one regard this absence of the
moral sense among an entire people, and not believe in the need of
Christian missions? The hundreds of thousands of Shans must be included
in the plans for the evangelization of Burma.
The Karens are a distinct people, but of a number of different tribes
or divisions. During Burmese domination they were very much oppressed.
For the most part they lived in villages apart from the Burmese. Many
of them lived far back in the hills, probably for better security, and
certainly for freedom from interference on the part of the Burmese.
Owing to this exclusive village life for long ages they have become
very clannish. The Karen, while admitting that the Burman is the
superior man, still preserves his racial pride. His village is very
dear to him. Unlike the Burman, who moves annually or monthly, if it
suits him, and seems about as much at home in one place as another,
the Karen does not easily become dislodged from the village where he
was born. Lately there has been some migration from the hills to the
richer plains, but still the community life seems to be pretty well
preserved.
This village life has its advantages and disadvantages. The cultivation
of rice is made in a community. While each man has the field which he
clears, it is so ordered that no one in the village is left entirely
destitute. The land has been held as a village, and is therefore not
easily alienated. The area belonging to a given village is great,
especially in the hills, but the amount cultivated is very little.
The style of cultivation, if indeed it should be dignified by that
name, is unique, and will never be adopted by a people of advanced
methods of agriculture. The hills are heavily wooded, and when a
suitable area is selected for the next year’s cultivation, the whole
village proceeds to cut it down with the most complete destruction.
After the forest is felled during the dry season it becomes very dry,
and just before the rain fire is touched to it, and the flames with a
terrific rush cover the entire clearing in a few moments, and consume
nearly every stick of wood. The few logs which remain are collected
and burned, and with the beginning of the rain the rice is planted on
the steep hillsides, the earth being enriched by a heavy coat of fresh
ashes. The ground is not plowed, but the grain is dropped into small
cuttings made by the thrust of a small spade-like iron on the end of a
long handle. The sprouts that spring from the roots in the ground are
cut away as the rice grows. The harvesting is with the sickle, and
when threshed is carried to the village, frequently a long distance
away, on the backs of men and heads of women, the latter carrying the
larger loads, as is usual in the East. This is most laborious and
tedious. As there are only mountain paths, and as the Karen, even when
well to do, does not care for road improvements, he climbs up and down
as his fathers have done before him for hundreds of years.
As the soil is never cultivated, they depend on the fresh ashes to
force their crop. This requires a fresh clearing every year, while a
new jungle growth springs up on the last year’s field. They do not
wish to cut the jungle oftener than once in ten years. It will be seen
how wasteful is this strange method of cultivation. How wonderful the
forest growth that will maintain itself over all these hills under such
destructive treatment!
The Christian Karens are a living miracle of the century of Christian
missions. They need much teaching yet; but when one sees these people
so uplifted from the state they were once in, be what he may, he must
believe in Christian missions. The Baptists, under God, deserve nearly
all the credit for the conversion of this people.
The Karen, as a man, is a study. He is affectionate, especially toward
his missionary. Yet he will often be guilty of conduct quite at
variance with that sentiment. Yet of this conduct he will repent again
soon; but it is a repentance usually without tears or apparent sense of
regret. He will take offense easily, and a little later reappear with
a smile on his face, as forgetful of his recent temper as a child. But
he is not a child. He enjoys a joke, even at his own expense. He is
also a very obstinate man, even when his obstinacy is against all his
own interests.
But if you would see the Karen at his best, go to his village and see
his children in school, a school which the missionary founded, but
which the village now supports. Remember the missionary gave this
people their written language. Attend the evening prayers when the
village pastor leads their devotions in their simple chapel. Hear them
sing! There is probably no more inspiring singing in the world. You
will want to hear them again. Go to church on Sunday, and hear a sermon
by a trained preacher, whose great-grandfather worshiped “gnats” or
demons, who he supposed inhabited the surrounding hills and had his
life in their malevolent control. How great is the distance from the
demon-worshiper to the intelligent and devout Christian! The missionary
was the human agent, and God the author of this transformation through
the preaching of the gospel. Yet some people would say they do not
believe in missions!
The Chins and Kachins inhabit the hills of North and Northeast Burma.
They are kindred peoples. There are possibly two hundred thousand of
them. Like other isolated people, they have everything to learn from
civilization and the Christian religion. The Government officer and the
missionary have undertaken the problem of these people.
The Chins have given much trouble to the Government within the last
few years. They lived formerly by raiding the peaceful people of the
plains. When the English Government annexed Upper Burma, it punished
them for this. Soon the whole hill country rose against the Government.
A band of soldiers was dispatched into the hills to subdue them. After
some sharp fighting they sued for peace, promising good behavior. Sir
Alexander MacKenzie, the efficient chief commissioner, was then the
head of the province of Burma. He instructed Mr. Cary, the political
officer of the Chin Hills, to bring several Chin chiefs to Rangoon to
see the city and the emblems of authority and power of the Government.
His idea was that if these savage mountainmen saw the power of the
Government they would be induced to keep the peace. He treated them
kindly, but told them they must respect their neighbor’s property
and obey the Government. But this wholesome exhortation of the chief
provincial officer of the great Indian Empire was wholly lost on these
daring, but ignorant, men of the hills. Their whole life ran riot
over all obligations recognized by civilized men. Almost immediately
they began again to rob and kill. This time they were more severely
punished. Their villages were burned and they were defeated in any
attempt to give battle, though the punitive force, almost all of native
soldiery, under the energetic and capable political officer, Mr. Cary,
was very small. They were fined fifteen hundred guns. Of course, they
protested they did not have three hundred. But under pressure they
surrendered the required number.
Here was a revelation! Every antiquated gun of Europe, of fifty or one
hundred years ago, had been brought by unscrupulous traders and sold to
these wild tribes! The sales had not been made recently, it is true;
but nevertheless the only firearms these wild men had they had secured
probably of British traders of earlier years, who disposed of them
along the coast and they had been carried inland, where years afterward
they were used in armed robberies of peaceful subjects of this empire
and against British authority. Some so-called civilized men sacrifice
much of civilization for a little gain in trade.
After the country was substantially disarmed, a large number of these
chiefs were brought to Rangoon by Mr. Cary to attend a more imposing
display of the greatness of the Government. On this occasion the
viceroy summoned them and their official head, Mr. Cary.
The viceroy is appointed for five years, and usually once in his term
he visits Burma. Lord Landsdowne was the viceroy, and held a _durbar_,
an official reception, attended by all officials and the general
public. At this durbar he recognized the eminent service of Mr. Cary,
and decorated him before the great assembly. His excellency also called
forward these Chin chiefs, and gave each a beautifully ornamented large
knife, as a token of his good will. He probably could not have given
any present so highly valued. Most half-civilized men live with their
knives in their hands.
At this time a touching incident occurred which ought to be perpetually
remembered to the credit of a brave and unselfish officer. Mr. Cary was
the honored guest at the quarters of the chief secretary of government.
The Chin chiefs were camped at the Royal Lakes, living in their usual
uncivilized manner. They probably were eating more than they ever had
eaten before in their lives. At any rate, cholera broke out among them.
On receiving report of their distress, Mr. Cary left his comfortable
quarters and the society of his superior officers, and went into the
camp of these chiefs and nursed the sick and dying. Some of them died
in his arms. The cholera is the worst epidemic of the East, and most to
be dreaded. Yet this brave man risked his life to nurse these wild men,
who had been, until very recently, trying their hardest to kill him. It
is such heroism as this on the part of British officers that makes the
British rule great throughout the world. They stop at no sacrifice of
their own lives to put turbulent countries in order, and then are no
less heroic in times of peace in serving their high trust of poor and
dependent people.
I rode all day with Mr. Cary and his fifty wild chiefs on their
homeward journey. I was greatly interested in the story of the
pacification of all that Chin and Lushai country, of which he had the
management. I was surprised that Mr. Cary attributed his practical
ability in all his arduous labors to the drill he received on an
American farm and as a cowboy in the Northwest for four years before
going to Burma. Though an Englishman, he had spent these years in
America.
The Karens, Chins, and Kachins are being rapidly converted to the
Buddhist religion. Christianity and Buddhism are in an unconscious race
to win them to one or the other of these faiths. The first to reach
them will win them to its system of religious teaching.
CHAPTER VIII
Buddhism
Burma is a land of Buddhism and pagodas. The pagodas are the shrines
of the Buddhists. They are found all over Burma in almost countless
numbers, in every condition from the newly-completed to the decayed
structure. On the higher hills and mountains they are usually built
on the most conspicuous spurs, where they can be seen to best effect
from all the region round about. In the low hills the same principle is
followed, the most conspicuous place being selected. On the flat plains
among the rice fields they make artificial mounds, to serve as the site
of their temples to be placed thereon.
In the Buddhistic system of religion the building of pagodas is
accounted one of the chief works of merit. Their preservation is
of little consequence, so that the country is dotted all over with
multitudes of abandoned pagodas, overgrown with jungle and in all
stages of decay. You can scarcely dig into any old mound anywhere in
Burma without finding the brick outlines of some ancient pagoda.
Pagodas are all always built after one pattern. This pattern allows of
a structure not higher than a man originally, being enlarged to the
size of the Great Pagoda at Rangoon without change of architectural
plan. In this respect the pagoda is probably the only style of building
ever planned by man that has been commonly adopted, in which this
structural possibility is found. The pattern is that of an irregular
cone built of brick and earth, most commonly of brick, with the outer
surface plastered. At the base is a little cavity, in which some
precious relic is placed, and over this rises the solid structure
of the pagoda. The base is usually circular, and the superstructure
retains the same shape, excepting that it curves irregularly to
smaller circles. The top is always finished with an umbrella-like
structure often with rings suspended from its outer rim. The rims of
the umbrellas are usually made of some kind of metal, from which are
suspended a great number of bells. The bells are usually rung by a
brass imitation of the leaf of the peepul-tree, the sacred tree of
Buddhism. This leaf is loosely, suspended alongside of the bell, and as
the gentle breeze peculiar to the tropics, especially Burma, puts them
in motion, they gently tap the exterior of the bells. You are likely to
be charmed with the delicate melodies of the bells until you come to
feel what a hollow, comfortless system Buddhism is. A pagoda is a tomb,
or at least a receptacle of relics of some revered personage. The ashes
of a priest’s body that has been cremated are often put into a pagoda.
Reputed remains of Gautama are, of course, the most valued. However
extravagant the fiction that surrounds these cherished objects, the
credulous Burman professes to believe in them absolutely. This is
conspicuously true of the great temple at Candy in Ceylon, and the
great Sway Dagon Pagoda of Rangoon. The managers of the former profess
to have in their possession one of Gautama’s eyeteeth, which is shown
to pious, or noted visitors. A story is invented accounting for the
disappearance of three of these useful dentine members, but the fourth
and only possible one, not accounted for otherwise, has found its way
by the traditional route to the temple of Candy. It is there the object
of great reverence, and pilgrimages, often from long distances, are
made to this shrine in order to look upon and worship this tooth. That
which is shown as the eyetooth of Gautama is a piece of bone about two
inches long, and half an inch thick. It is as large as the tooth of a
horse, and could not by any possibility ever have been one of any man’s
set of teeth. It is in appearance much like a piece of smoked ivory.
Yet this piece of bone is reverenced to a degree that perhaps no other
relic of Buddhist tradition possesses. After making great offerings to
their own pagodas, the Burmese, two years ago, made a beautiful golden
casket and sent a pretentious commission to Candy with this casket,
the gift of the Burmese Buddhists, as the permanent receptacle of this
much-lauded tooth.
That which makes the great Sway Dagon Pagoda famous above all others,
is that it contains relics of Gautama. The story is that Burmese
merchants made their way to India, while Gautama was alive, and
becoming converts of his teachings, or system of belief, they were
about to return to Burma, when Gautama gave them some relics of his
person, saying that while they kept these relics they would observe
his system of doctrine. He then tore off a small piece of his priestly
robe, gave them his simple begging bowl, and pulled eight hairs out
of his head, and gave them these also as keepsakes and reminders of
his teaching. These gifts they brought back to Burma, and over them
erected a small pagoda, which formed the original portion of the
present great structure that has become so far famed in the Buddhist
world. The original structure must have been as insignificant as many
that are seen elsewhere. But as time went on, and the invention, for
it could have been nothing else as in the case of the eyetooth at
Candy, was accepted, the pagoda became more and more famous, and its
size was increased until its present dimensions were reached. It is
now 1,350 feet round its base, and rises to the towering height of
328 feet. Its height is exceeded only by the pagoda at Pegu, but its
general dimensions are far greater than the latter, and its fame has no
rival. Reliable accounts of the time of building the original pagoda
are wanting. But it is pretty certain that its present dimensions were
reached some five hundred years ago. I have been unable to learn when
it was first covered with gold leaf.
[Illustration: SHRINE, SWAY DAGON PAGODA]
The structure of this pagoda has many other important features.
Round its base are found many forms of elephants, and small pagodas
that fairly line the lower circle. There are four shrines at the
cardinal points of the compass. It will have been noted that the
pagoda, unlike all other designs of sacred buildings given to worship,
has no interior chamber. Excepting the small cavity given to the
relic, there is solid masonry throughout the vast structure. But the
most striking display of the pagoda is its covering of gold leaf. From
base to top every inch is covered with this golden coat. The devout
Buddhists are always renewing this gilding. No provision is made to
prevent the rains that beat upon the pagoda for six months of each
year from washing away this golden covering. Its rusty appearance on
any part simply calls for more offerings for more regilding, by which
the devout Buddhist expects to gain much merit. I have been unable to
learn the cost of gilding the exterior, though it must be very great.
The pagoda is regilded about twice in ten years. It is difficult to
determine the cost, as the gilding is put on in patches. The renewal
has never been done systematically, but by piece-meal. Besides this,
the umbrella that crowns the pagoda and its pendent rings are studded
with precious stones and jewelry to the value of two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars. The four shrines are ornamented with hand-carving
wrought out with great pains and skill. There are two very large chests
near the entrance to the pagoda area, into which all devout Buddhists
visiting at this temple drop their offerings. These gifts are taken
care of by the trustees of the pagoda, and expended on its maintenance.
Round about the temple is an open court, which would accommodate many
thousands of visitors, and ofttimes it is crowded to its fullest
capacity. On the outside of this court, and inside the walls that make
up the four sides of the square known as pagoda hill, there is a grove
of palms and peepul-trees. The latter is the sacred tree of Buddhism,
and it is usually found wherever pagodas have been built. Underneath
these trees, and entirely surrounding the pagoda inclosure, there are
many large pavilions, most of them open to all comers, where images
of Gautama are numbered by the hundreds. A few images of Gautama are
in closed structures behind glass and iron bars. Other symbols of
the Buddha or his teaching are there also; but images of Gautama are
by far the most numerous. Gautama is represented as reclining on his
right side, with his head supported by his hand; as sitting, which is
the accepted position; and standing. These are three chosen attitudes.
These three postures are all that are commonly used. The images are
made of brass, of marble, and of alabaster. Some of them are of the
normal size of a man, and some of them are many times larger, but all
bear the impassive features of a man absorbed in meditation. These
images always bear distinctly Burmanized features.
There are also great bells about the Sway Dagon Pagoda. The larger
bells are supported on great wooden beams, and are rung by all the
worshipers, and even by the idle passer-by. But the strange thing about
all this area of the pagoda is that it is open to all peoples, and no
objects except the inclosed images are protected in any way. This is
not true of either Mohammedan mosques or Hindu temples. All Buddhists
take off their shoes or sandals before going up the steps. And if any
Asiatic should attempt to go up the stairs with shoes on, he would be
ordered to make bare his feet. Europeans are not so restricted. But
this appears to be the only special requirement for admission to the
pagoda area. So it comes to pass that the devout Buddhist strikes the
great bells with the wooden beam, or horns of an elk that are kept for
that purpose, and the next passer-by may be an idle globe-trotter, who
strikes the bell to only test the melody of its sound.
Worship at a pagoda is a study. The idea of worship in Buddhism
differs so widely from that of any other religion, that it makes the
student of comparative religions pause with astonishment. Buddhism is
very much a religion of negations at best. There is little that is
positive in it. There is no God according to pure Buddhism. It does
not teach an unending personal immortality. The character of existence
beyond death is believed to be through various transmigrations of
beasts, demons, and elevated spirits to final extinction of personal
existence in _Nirvana_. Continued existence is considered a calamity.
To extinguish personality in _Nirvana_ is the supreme goal. In that
loss of personal identity man passes from under the necessity of being
reborn. In all the struggle in which man is engaged he has no aid from
without himself. His own meritorious acts must bring him through all
lower existences, and finally drop him into the oblivion of _neikban_.
Before men can reach this goal, they must have passed through myriads
of existences, many of these lives being spent in hells filled with
all tortures. The hells of Buddhism are filled with terrors measured
only by the wildest imagination, lasting through millions of years.
Buddhism is a system in which there is no God to hear a prayer or
speak a consoling word. Then what is worship under such a religion, if
indeed it be a religion? The people and the yellow-robed priests fill
the spaces before these several shrines, and there offer flowers and
food to the images of Gautama. Or they sit upon their heels about the
open court that surrounds the pagoda, and offer their flowers toward
the pagoda, lifting them toward the top of the gilded dome, while they
laud the great teacher of Buddhism. In none of these acts is there any
real prayer. There is no confessing of sin or need, nor hope even that
Gautama can hear, as he is supposed to have ascended to _Nirvana_ and
to have attained to annihilation of conscious self. The whole of their
worship seems to be made up of laudations of the name and character of
Gautama, and his law, and the Buddhist priesthood. All worship consists
in praise of an extinct personality on the part of a man whose highest
hope is to attain unto like personal extinction! But in all the
dreary and weary struggle there is no eye to pity and no hand to help
to attain this goal of spiritual suicide.
[Illustration: FRONT OF A GAUTAMA TEMPLE]
One of the incongruities about this great pagoda I found in the fact
that the watchmen are Hindus. Perhaps no temple of non-Christians,
save that of Buddhists, is cared for by men of other faiths. Christian
Churches in Southern Asia do often employ Hindus or Mohammedans to care
for them and act as collectors of their funds. But none but Mohammedans
go into a Mohammedan mosque, and only Hindus enter a Hindu temple.
There sits a Mohammedan also inside the pagoda area selling coffee and
bread to all who wish to buy. Bishop Thoburn once remarked that perhaps
only in Burma, and that at a Buddhist place of worship, could such an
incongruous sight be witnessed.
Another feature of the pagoda area is that at its four sides, east,
west, north, and south, it is bounded by brick walls, rising four or
five feet above the pagoda area, and of several feet in thickness.
The Burmese fortified the pagoda, and the English have done likewise.
At the base is another higher wall, and inside of this a moat. The
English soldiery guard the pagoda hill, and the ordnance department
of the British garrison stationed at Rangoon is inside the outer wall
on the west of the pagoda. The guard is not seen about the court. In
the northeast corner of the pagoda area are several graves of British
officers and soldiers who fell in storming that fortress in 1852. From
the southeast corner of the inclosure you see the slope up which that
band of soldiers charged, and half down the hillside are a number of
graves which are unnamed, and around them a wall is built. Here the
common soldiers fell in that charge. They died for “Greater England.”
From the pagoda wall you can get one of the finest views in Lower
Burma. To the south and southeast lies the greater part of the city
of Rangoon. At the lower extremity of the city the Pegu and Rangoon
Rivers unite their ample breadth of waters. The great rice mills line
the river and its larger tributaries, and lift their tall chimneys
above every other building of the city. To the left the beautiful Royal
Lakes reflect the tropical sunlight in dazzling brightness, while to
the northward the sweep of vision includes many stately houses of the
residents of Kokine, the fashionable suburb of the city.
CHAPTER IX
Buddhism; How Maintained
The hoary system of Buddhism must have some elements of vitality to
keep it in existence through the twenty-six centuries of its history.
That it has long since passed the stage of its greatest power is quite
easily believed. That such a system could remain the religion of
progressive races under the light of the present and the future, as
indicated by the present, few will maintain. That the number of its
present adherents has been greatly exaggerated, there is no doubt. Some
of the peoples which have been classed as Buddhistic in religion are
clearly not distinctively of that faith.
Sir Monier Williams, in his great work on Buddhism, says that of real
Buddhists, who are not more identified with some other religion than
with it, number not over one hundred millions of adherents, instead
of five hundred millions, as some have claimed. He declares that
Christianity, and not Buddhism, is the strongest religion numerically
in the world.
But a religion with even one hundred millions of reasonably faithful
adherents of its doctrines and practices demands our respectful study.
It is not possible within the limits here defined for the writer to
discuss the many-sidedness of Buddhism, for all the elements of a faith
must have consideration in an attempt to set it forth comprehensively.
It is the writer’s intention merely to outline some features of
Buddhism most apparent to a missionary whose work lies in a Buddhist
country. Buddhism is said to be in its purest form in Burma and Ceylon.
A few general statements may be made. Buddhism never claimed to be
divine in its origin. It was originally entirely atheistic. It is
hardly entitled to be called a religion. It is the most pessimistic
philosophy ever taught among men, or even conceived as yet, by any
teacher. It inveighs against all natural desires or emotions however
exalted, and disallows the holiest relationship. Society itself could
not exist if the fundamental teachings of Buddhism were observed. All
innocent joys are prohibited among those who would attain to _Nirvana_.
It makes self-destruction the highest aim of man. To cease to be born,
and to extinguish personal consciousness, is set before its followers
as the final goal to be sought. How can such a system, so opposed to
all that men love, find millions of adherents?
There certainly is a fascination about the supreme renunciation in the
system. Gautama certainly renounced much; and doubtless many of his
followers have made such a sacrifice of desires as he. It is not here
maintained that this renunciation is wholly unselfish, but that it lies
at the foundation of Buddhism; and however unhealthful a sentiment it
is, it has always appealed to many minds. Those who will not make such
renunciations themselves revere those who do, and help sustain a system
that teaches such tenets.
Another source of the power of Buddhism is found in the system of
doctrine taught. It is all the stronger in that, as a system, it is
connected with a great teacher. It is true that Buddhism has more in it
which Gautama did not teach, than of that which he did teach. But it
is very easy for the Buddhist to connect any teaching of his religion
directly with his idea of Gautama. When a religion with a system of
doctrine meets with the nebulous beliefs and incoherent practices of
demonology, or like beliefs, it must steadily gain adherents. Buddhism
has a literature of much importance. To have sacred books, which can
be appealed to in support of the voice of the living preacher, or
teacher, is a great source of power. We see in Burma that the more
backward races are becoming Burmanized and converted to the Buddhist
religion. When they have become Buddhists, as in the case of Karens, it
is the testimony of all missionaries that they are much more difficult
to convert to Christianity. This Buddhist “law” is one of the three
objects of reverence, or worship, enjoined by Gautama.
Gautama exalted the brotherhood of monks. They have become one of the
three objects of veneration. Dressed in their yellow robes and admitted
to the monastic order, they are thereby exalted in the minds of
Buddhists far above the ordinary man. So much so, that in all addresses
to them the highest terms of honor are used. On some occasions they
are actually worshiped. When a monk, or _poungyi_, leaves the assembly
of monks, which is frequently the case, he at once drops to the level
of the ordinary man. But while he is a member of the order, he is
regarded as a superior, worthy of all reverence even by his own family.
These monks, with their yellow robes and beads and boy attendants, are
everywhere, except at weddings and festivals, though often gathering
in crowds a little apart from the latter. The daily going forth with
the begging bowl to receive the food given by the devout, or even
respectable laity, is an object-lesson in Buddhism. The distinctive
buildings called _choungs_, in which the monks always live, are found
in every village; and whole blocks of these buildings in all towns and
cities proclaim the teachers of Buddhism. These houses of the monks
are invariably the best buildings in the village. This conspicuous
advertisement of the monastic teachers does much to keep the system
which they represent ever before the people in a conspicuous way.
[Illustration: BUDDHIST MONK AND ATTENDANT]
But the monks do two distinctive services for their faith of a more
positive kind. They teach practically every boy in Burma. They teach
the boys to read, and they indoctrinate them. No boy is considered to
have a human spirit at all. He must remain an animal until he has spent
at least one day in the monastery. But aside from this approach to
the sacred order of monks, all Burmese boys attend school for some
length of time, and usually learn to read their language passably well.
They certainly learn the Buddhist doctrines. So it comes to pass that
most Burmese know what they believe, however inconsistent with this
belief they live. They also learn the elements of arithmetic, as well
as the grotesque teachings of Buddhism in geography of these teachers.
In estimating the strength of Buddhism, and its ability to maintain
itself, the monastic school, uniting a religious order with the
instruction of all the male childhood and youth, stands easily first of
all its sources of power.
There are schools conducted by laymen in almost every large village.
These schools do not generally have a continuous existence, but so
long as a teacher can get scholars he keeps his school going. In these
lay schools also some Buddhistic instruction is imparted. So that the
Buddhist youth is the exception who has not been indoctrinated with
Buddhist teaching. Without knowing why he is a Buddhist, nevertheless
he proclaims himself as a Buddhist, and will give a fair statement of
his belief. The missionary must bring his message to a mind pre-empted
by Buddhist doctrine taught by the yellow-robed monk.
From this statement of the Buddhist school system of the Burmese, and
to its power as a religious agency, the reader, as does the missionary,
will see the imperative need of Christian schools to take the place of
the Buddhist schools. Their efficiency as a missionary agency can not
be over-estimated. Each of the large missions now operating in Burma
has adopted this strategic agency with very encouraging results. Many
Buddhists do not hesitate to send their boys to a mission school if it
is equipped to do superior work. Here, then, is Christianity’s greatest
opportunity among the young. That mission will show greatest wisdom
which gives Christian schools of the higher grades special attention.
There are doctrines of Buddhism, aside from the moral precepts or
regulations for the conduct or belief of its adherents, which may be,
all unconsciously to the Buddhist, of great attraction. Buddhism, as
has been noted, like most other Eastern philosophies, teaches that men
pass through many births through countless ages, and transmigration
through men, animals, and spirits. This transmigration may be endless,
and will be, if the individual does not attain to _Nirvana_. Now, while
a man’s place in the scale of being is determined by the conduct of
the life that now is, there is nothing final in this life as affecting
destiny. If he sinks in the scale of being, he can rise in the same by
his conduct in another existence. The time taken to make his recovery
from the consequences of his demerits in this life may be ages; still
he can retain all that he has lost by a bad life here. It therefore
comports with men’s wish that they can commit acts not wholly agreeable
to the known or believed rules of conduct, and yet they believe they
can escape after a long time the consequences of such trifling with
their moral code. It is a pleasant belief of human nature, wishing
to indulge in that which is forbidden, to sacrifice some future
blessedness for a present gratification, if at the same time the man
can believe that the loss may at some future time be recovered. To a
temporizing conscience this is a very comforting doctrine.
Buddhism teaches that character and states of existence are determined
finally by a man’s unaided efforts. Human nature in all lands takes
kindly to such teaching. If men could purchase salvation at a price
in payment or sacrifice of even life itself, there would be many
applicants for eternal life, who will not receive it as a gift.
Buddhism is very complimentary to self-conceit when it teaches that
we need no God to enlighten us, no Savior to save us, but that we
can recover ourselves. That only our own acts can affect our scale
of being and ultimately determine our destiny, in every varying
merit or demerit, is believed. Building and gilding a pagoda lays
up a great store of merit, and to engage in meditation is the most
meritorious work of all. Their whole system of the merit of works
breeds inordinate conceit, and hence is a very pleasant doctrine to
men. To save themselves, and not to be saved by the vicarious sacrifice
of another, is pleasing to pride. I think all agree that this belief in
self-acquired merit is one of the strongest bulwarks of Buddhism.
The student of religion who looks for its effect on the people, is at
first perplexed at a singular paradox among the Burmese Buddhists. He
finds a religion that frowns upon the innocent joys of life, and much
more upon all spectacular demonstrations. It especially discourages
theatricals and feasting. The natural effect of such a religion would
be to depress the spirit and overshadow the life. It would pluck
up all gayety from a people. But we find the Burmese Buddhists the
gayest and most light-hearted race of the Orient. Their religion to
the contrary, they have more music, dancing, and theatricals than
any other people. And in all this they regard themselves as the most
consistent Buddhists. They even connect a festival with almost every
special religious duty. It therefore comes to pass that they harmonize
festal joys with the utter prohibition of them by their religion, and
count the practice and the “law” that interdicts it equally “good.”
By observing this fact, it is clear that the drastic prohibitions of
Buddhism have no place at all in life practice. If, therefore, this
contradiction of Buddhism does not add to its strength, it at least
allows the adherent to accept and reject such portions of the Buddhist
law as may be convenient, and as suits his fun-loving and easy-going
disposition. In this way the Burman comforts himself with the belief
that he is a devout Buddhist, and at the same time escapes all the
depressing effects on his nature that would result if he actually
undertook to keep either the letter or spirit of the Buddhist law. So
it appears this paradox is explained.
[Illustration: FUNERAL PYRE OF A BURMESE PRIEST]
Examples of their ability to turn any circumstance into a festival
is seen at their funerals. When an ordinary man dies the friends gather
and bring food, and keep up a several days’ feasting. On the day of the
funeral long lines of oxcarts are drawn up, each with some offering
for the _poungyis_, or priests. These gifts to the priests seem to
be about the only religious part of the ceremonies. Then with bands
playing, and often dancers and buffoons performing at the head of the
procession, they move away to the burial ground. On several occasions I
saw half-drunken men carrying the coffin on a tall, loosely-constructed
framework, dancing with all their might under their burden. Sometimes
it seemed the coffin would fall to the ground.
I have seen the burial of a Buddhist nun where the procession contained
sixty-one stands of presents, one for each year of the nun’s life,
carried in front of the corpse. These presents were intended for the
priests, and they enabled the donors to gain merit, make a show, and
enjoy a festival all in one. The presents were of plates, towels, and
carpets, amounting to about ten dollars a stand, or over six hundred
dollars in value in all. The _poungyis_ often preach against the
festivals, but I have never heard that they ever refused to receive the
presents, an indispensable feature of the display.
There are great festivals gotten up at the burning of a priest who
has been much venerated. He may have enjoyed a reputation for great
learning, and perhaps lived to a good old age. The body is kept, if
the priest should die in the rainy season, until the dry weather brings
a time suitable for camping in the fields. Arrangements having been
completed, a place, usually a cleared rice field, is selected, and
booths are constructed to accommodate the gathering people. Material
is procured, and a very large skeleton framework of dry poles is
constructed in imitation of the seven-fold roof of a monastery. This
framework is covered over with matting and paper, on which is much
ornament, usually of a pictorial character. Great ropes are drawn
high up into the framework, where it is designed the coffin shall be
placed before the burning. A procession is formed to bring the body in
great state, with all kinds of symbolical banners and imitations of
the sacred elephant. The casket is placed on these great ropes, and
skillfully drawn into the tower of the structure. When the body is once
in its place, the younger men hastily take up burning spears, as fire
brands, and hurl them into the combustible material, and in an instant
all is aflame. Soon there is nothing but ashes. The camp is broken up,
and the people return home. They have had a great festival lasting in
preparation over many days, and have performed a pious work of merit.
They have violated much of Buddhist teaching; but by their spectacular
festival they have helped to perpetuate Buddhism in the community. I
witnessed preparation for one such burning near Rangoon. The firing of
the pyre occurred on Sunday, amidst a great throng of all the nations
represented in Burma. The full account was given in the daily papers,
and it is said that thirty thousand dollars was spent in cremating the
one body, that of a noted monk. Recent word from Mandalay tells of the
cremation of the body of the chief bishop of Buddhism in Burma. It is
said twenty thousand people were present at this festival. Yet the
bishop had always preached that all festivity was wrong, and the whole
Buddhist people declared the “law” was good.
The same contradictions are apparent in their theological teaching. One
instance will suffice as an illustration. Fish is a common and much
appreciated article of food in Burma, and has been for centuries. The
people have come to regard fish as necessary to their food as rice.
This creates a great demand for fish, and consequently calls for a
multitude of fishermen. But by Buddhist teaching the fishermen, or
the hunter, is doomed to the deepest hell for taking life. They teach
that there are four great hells, one below another, and the fisherman
is doomed to go to the bottom of the lowest hell, and can not get out
till he spends fifty million years in each of the four hells. And only
after that could he hope to be born a man again on earth. Meantime
the well-fed Burman who fattens on the fish, who made the fisherman
necessary, thinks he not only has no responsibility for the other’s
sin, but is making good headway toward _Nirvana_! The fisherman, when
interviewed, is quite at ease. Question him of the sin of taking the
life of the fish, and he will confidently tell you: “I do not kill the
fish. I only drag it out of the water, and the hot sun kills it.” Both
declare themselves good Buddhists, and that “the Buddhist law is good.”
It leaves liberty enough for any number of specious pleas to avoid
personal responsibility for violating the Buddhist prohibitions, while
the votaries of Buddhism are still pretending to keep the “law.”
CHAPTER X
Buddhism and Christianity Contrasted
Comparative religion is one of the most fascinating studies. In
Christian lands well-informed people are ever ready to receive any
new light on any of the principal religions of the world. In the East
also there is inquiry after the tenets of differing faiths. It is true
the inquiry in the Orient is confined to a few of the most advanced
minds, and it is also doubtful if the inquiry is often fairly made. The
disposition seems to be to assume, to begin with, that some religion
like Hinduism, or Buddhism, is the religion of most truth, and then to
show that Christianity has some things in common with these faiths. The
deduction is then easily drawn that one can be an eclectic in religion.
I have seen Europeans in the East who, in an off-handed way, would
say: “It is wrong to try to convert the Burmese from their Buddhism
to Christianity. Their religion is better for them than ours would
be.” I have not heard such a remark from any one who pretended to be
a Christian in any devout or spiritual sense. He would be a Christian
only in the sense that he belonged to the European community, who are
always called “Christians” by those of other faiths.
Buddhism has had much praise for its moral precepts, and its general
practice of total abstinence from all alcoholic drinks. This
prohibition has been widely observed. It is probable that Buddhism was
the first religion to require total abstinence. Then Buddhism gave
woman a freedom that no other religion of the East allows. Contrasted
with Hinduism or Mohammedanism in this respect, Buddhism must be highly
commended. But it is another matter when men assume that one religion
is as good as another, or estimate Buddhism as a religion of comfort
and light, when it has neither.
It is not the purpose of this book to attempt a comprehensive statement
of comparative religions, much less a discussion of that idea. But
it is my purpose to set before the reader that wherein Buddhism is
contrasted with Christianity, believing that Christianity, and it
alone, satisfies the wants of any human soul. I have desired to
show wherein Buddhism fails in all essential features to measure up
to this need of man for a perfect religion. It is not intended to
disparage any incidental good that Buddhism may possess, but to show
the contrast with Christianity in its fundamental teachings. In this
I am not dependent on my own research, but can accomplish my purpose
best by quoting from Sir Monier Williams. This great scholar and author
published his works on Buddhism as a culmination of extended studies in
the great religions of the world. It is the ripest fruit of his high
scholarship. He published this work just a few years before he died.
From his chapter on “Buddhism Contrasted with Christianity” I have
quoted at length, believing his contrasts are exhaustive and entirely
truthful.
This eminent author doubts if Buddhism is a religion at all. After
postulating that every system assuming to be a religion must declare
the existence of an eternal God, and the immortality of the soul
of man, he further declares that such a system must satisfy four
requisites:
“First. It must reveal the Creator in his nature and attributes to his
creature, man.
“Secondly. It must reveal man to himself. It must impart to him a
knowledge of his own nature and history--what he is; why he was
created; whither he is tending; and whether he is at present in a state
of decadence downwards from a higher condition, or of development
upwards from a lower.
“Thirdly. It must reveal some method by which the finite creature may
communicate with the infinite Creator--some plan by which he may gain
access to him and become united with him, and be saved by him from the
consequences of his own sinful acts.
“Fourthly. Such a system must prove its title to be called a religion
by its regenerating effect on man’s nature; by its influence on his
thoughts, desires, passions, and feelings; by its power in subduing
all his evil tendencies; by its ability to transform his character and
assimilate him to the God it reveals.”
This writer claims what all must admit, that early Buddhism failed in
all these requisites, and was not a religion. It refused to admit a
personal Creator, or man’s dependence on a higher power. “It denied any
external Ego in man. It acknowledged no external revelation. It had no
priesthood--no real clergy; no real prayer; no real worship. It had no
true idea of sin, or of the need of pardon, and it condemned man to
suffer the consequences of his own sinful acts without the hope of help
from any Savior or Redeemer, and indeed from any being but himself.”
A few years ago a former bishop of Calcutta saw a Buddhist in a
temple, and asked him, “What have you been praying for?” “I have been
praying for nothing.” “To whom have you been praying?” He answered, “I
have been praying to nobody.” “What, praying for nothing to nobody?”
said the astonished bishop. This is a fair sample of the religious
expression of Buddhists.
This eminent writer admits that later Buddhism has developed a great
reverence for Buddha, the law, and the monkhood, which is some
expression of man’s sense of need. But in reality this is a cry from
the hungry heart of man for God, which Buddhism does not recognize nor
foster. Pure Buddhism is atheistic. This author also considers what
claim Gautama has to the title, “The Light of Asia.” He first points
out that “his doctrines spread only over Eastern Asia, and Confucius,
or Zoroaster, or Mohammed, might equally be called ‘The Light of
Asia.’” He also maintains that Gautama was not a true light in any
sense; that he claimed little higher than intellectual enlightenment
resulting from intense concentration of all man’s intellectual powers
in introspection. He did not claim to have any voice regarding the
origin of evil, nor concerning a personal God. His “light,” in this
respect, was “sheer darkness.” And so the system he founded is as
devoid of “light” as midnight. “All that he claimed to have discovered
was the origin of suffering and the remedy of suffering. All the light
of knowledge to which he attained came to this: That suffering arises
from indulging desires, especially the desire for the continuity
of life; that suffering is inseparable from life; that all life is
suffering; and that suffering is to be gotten rid of by the suppression
of desires, and by the extinction of personal existence.”
Here he makes his first great contrast in the teachings of Christ and
Gautama, and says in part: “It is noteworthy that both Christianity and
Buddhism agree in asserting that all creation groaneth and travaileth
in pain, in suffering, in tribulation. But mark the vast, the vital
distinction in the teaching of each. The one taught men to be patient
under affliction, and to aim at the utter annihilation of the suffering
body.” Further: “But, say the admirers of Buddhism, at least you admit
that the Buddha taught men to avoid sin, and to aim at purity and
holiness of life! Nothing of the kind. The Buddha had no idea of sin
as an offense against God; no idea of true holiness. What he said was,
Get rid of the demerit of evil actions, and accumulate a stock of
merit by good actions. And let me remark here, that the determination
to store up merit, like capital at a bank, is one of those inveterate
propensities of human nature, one of those deep-seated tendencies in
humanity which nothing but the divine force imparted by Christianity
can ever eradicate. It is forever cropping up in the heart of man, as
much in the West as in the East, as much in the North as in the South;
forever reasserting itself like a pestilential weed, or like tares
amidst wheat, forever blighting the fruit of those good instincts which
underlie man’s nature everywhere.”
He shows the contrast of Gautama and Christ; the former claiming to
be self-sent, having no divine commission and no external revelation,
while the latter claimed to be sent from God; to be the Son of God,
whose every word has divine authority; that the gospel is to be
proclaimed to every man in all generations, and that Christ himself was
the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He proceeds to contrast the Christian
Bible with the Buddhist: “The characteristics of the Christian’s Bible
are that it claims to be a supernatural revelation, yet it attaches
no mystic, talismanic virtue to the mere sound of words. On the other
hand, Buddhism utterly repudiates all claim to be a supernatural
revelation; yet the very sound of its words is believed to possess
a meritorious efficacy capable of elevating any one who hears it to
heavenly abodes in future existences. In illustration, I may advert
to a legend current in Ceylon, that once on a time five hundred bats
lived in a cave where two monks daily recited the Buddha’s law. These
bats gained such merit by simply hearing the sound of the words, that
when they died they were all reborn as men, and ultimately as gods.”
We are given another contrast in the kinds of self-sacrifice taught by
the two systems. “But again I hear the admirers of Buddhism say: Is
it not the case that the doctrine, like the doctrine of Christ, has
self-sacrifice as its keynote? Well, be it so. I admit that he related
of himself that, on a particular occasion in one of his previous
births, he plucked out his own eyes, and that on another he cut off his
own head as a sacrifice for the good of others; and that again, on a
third occasion, he cut his own body to pieces to redeem a dove from a
hawk. Yet note the vast difference of the sacrifice taught by the two
systems. Christianity demands the suppression of selfishness; Buddhism
demands the suppression of self, with the one object of extinguishing
all consciousness of self. In the one the true self is elevated and
intensified. In the other the true self is annihilated by a false form
of non-selfishness, which has for its real object not the good of
others, but the annihilation of the Ego, the utter extinction of the
illusion of personal individuality.”
The doctrines which Christ and Gautama bequeathed to their followers
present an equally great contrast. From the vast difference between
them it is comparatively easy to believe the statement from Christ that
he brought a divine revelation, and from Gautama that he was self-sent
and had no revelation to make to his followers. The contrast between
the two systems has been arranged by the same author.
“According to Christianity: Fight, and overcome the world. According to
Buddhism: Shun the world, and overcome it.
“According to Christianity: Expect a new earth when the present
earth is destroyed; a world renewed and perfected; a purified world
in which righteousness is to dwell forever. According to Buddhism:
Expect a never-ending succession of evil worlds coming into existence,
developing, decaying, perishing, and reviving, and all equally
full of everlasting misery, disappointment, illusion, change, and
transmutations.
“According to Christianity, bodily existence is subject to only one
transformation. According to Buddhism, bodily existence is continued
in six conditions, through countless bodies of men, animals, demons,
ghosts, and dwellers in various hells and heavens; and that, too,
without any progressive development, but in a constant jumble of
metamorphoses and transmutations.
“Christianity teaches that life in heaven can never be followed by a
fall to a lower state. Buddhism teaches that life in a higher heaven
may be succeeded by a life in a lower heaven, or even by a life on
earth or in one of the hells.
“According to Christianity, the body of a man may be the abode of the
Spirit of God. According to Buddhism, the body, whether of men or
higher beings, can never be the abode of anything but evil.
“According to Christianity: Present your bodies as living sacrifices,
holy, acceptable to God, and expect a change to a glorified body
hereafter. According to Buddhism: Look to final deliverance from all
bodily life, present and to come, as the greatest of all blessings,
highest of all boons, and loftiest of all aims.
“According to Christianity, a man’s body can never be changed into the
body of a beast, or bird, or insect, or loathsome vermin. According to
Buddhism, a man, and even a god, may become an animal of any kind, and
even the most loathsome vermin may again become a man or a god.
“According to Christianity: Stray not from God’s ways; offend not
against his holy laws. According to Buddhism: Stray not from the
eight-fold path of the perfect man, and offend not against yourself and
the perfect man.
“According to Christianity: Work the works of God while it is day.
According to Buddhism: Beware of action, as causing rebirth, and aim at
inaction, indifference, and apathy.
“According to the Christian Bible: Regulate and sanctify the heart,
desires, and affections. According to the Buddhist: Suppress and
destroy them utterly, if you wish for true sanctification.
“Christianity teaches that in the highest form of life, love is
intensified. Buddhism teaches that in the highest state of existence,
all love is extinguished.
“According to Christianity: Go and earn your own bread and support your
family. Marriage, it says, is honorable and the bed undefiled, and
married life is a field on which holiness may grow and develop. Nay,
more: Christ himself honored a wedding with his presence, and took up
little children in his arms and blessed them. Buddhism, on the other
hand, says: Avoid married life; shun it as if it were a burning of live
coals; or, having entered on it, abandon wife, children, and home,
and go about as celibate monks, engaging in nothing but in meditation
and recitation of the Buddha’s Law--that is to say, if you aim at the
highest degree of sanctification.”
Then comes greatest of all distinctions, which separates Christianity
and Buddhism.
“Christianity regards personal life as the most sacred of all
possessions. Life, it seems to say, is no dream, no illusion. ‘Life
is real. Life is earnest.’ Life is the most precious of all God’s
gifts. Nay, it affirms of God himself that he is the highest example of
intense life, of intense personality, the great ‘I Am That I Am,’ and
teaches us that we are to thirst for a continuance of personal life as
a gift from him, nay, more, that we are to thirst for the living God
himself and for conformity to his likeness; while Buddhism sets forth
as the highest of all aims the utter extinction of the illusion of
personal identity--the utter annihilation of the Ego--of all existence
in any form whatever, and proclaims as the true creed the ultimate
resolution of everything into nothing.”
“What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” says the Christian. “What
shall I do to inherit the eternal extinction of life?” says the
Buddhist.
Surely in this comprehensive list of contrasts the great scholar has
shown that there is an immeasurable height of moral and spiritual
philosophy, and revealed truth concerning God and man in the Christian
religion that Buddhism never conceived. It has no excellence in moral
precept that is not better stated by Christianity. Christianity sheds
a broad, clear light on the way to find salvation from sin. Buddhism
has no light, and no consolation. The human heart finds rest in the
one, but the other can not bring a moment’s peace to any anxious or
agonizing soul. Buddhism is a pessimistic, dark, and desolate system of
philosophy, mistaken for religion.
CHAPTER XI
Ripened Fruit of Non-Christian Faiths
In setting before the reader the following account of painful scenes,
most of which I have witnessed, in connection with religious rites, I
am aware that some may say that these facts, though admitted to have
taken place, are not characteristic of the religion in which they
are found. Having given much attention to this pertinent question, I
am convinced that they are some of the legitimate fruit of religious
systems without Christ. This book is not written to theorize about
religion, so much as to give an account of what a missionary sees
living in Burma in direct contact with its varied people.
The theoretical teaching of Buddhism, Mohammedanism, or Hinduism may
be one thing, while the practical religious usages may bear quite
another character. A people may naturally be very agreeable and have
many lovable traits, and yet their religious rites may degrade and not
uplift the natural man. The saddest part of the following account is
found in its degradation of the ordinary healthful sentiments of the
people, in the name of religion.
Then, again, what is done openly in the name of any religion, is done
that it may be seen and recognized as of that religion. Therefore, it
is certainly characteristic. If the observance of this is repeated, or
is related to that which is of frequent occurrence, it is certainly
characteristic. That which is here recorded is the natural fruitage of
the religions which cheat the natural hunger of the human heart for the
favor of God, whom all have sinned against, but whose loving mercy is
not known among these Christless millions.
Before giving an account of the cruelties still observed by devotees
and fanatics, it is well to remember some terrible practices which have
been abolished in recent years. These include suttee, or widow-burning,
hook-swinging, the Juggernaut, and marriage of little girls. These were
all religious practices, but they were abolished by the Government.
Theoretically and practically, the English Government in India is
neutral in religion. Only a Christian Government could be strictly
neutral in religious matters, though other Governments at times have
been tolerant of other faiths to some extent. By proclamation, the
English rule in India is neutral in religion. This proclamation is
adhered to literally, so that a Mohammedan, Hindu, or Buddhist has just
as much protection under the law as a Christian, and neither has any
powers above the other.
How, then, does it come to pass that the Government has interfered
in religious rites? This was done only when such rites actually took
life, or endangered life. The Government’s first duty is to protect
the lives of its subjects, even against self-destruction, where that
is possible. Many questionable deeds are yet done by devotees in which
the Government has not interfered, though some of them are exceedingly
cruel, because they have not actually endangered life.
But suttee, or widow-burning, has been prohibited by the Government,
though still practiced among the Hindus beyond the English border.
Bishop Thoburn gives an account of the burning of four widows in Nepal,
a little more than a quarter of a century ago. The dead husband had
been high in the service of the Indian Government, and had been honored
with a title by Queen Victoria. He was a Hindu, and he died over the
border in Nepal, and four of his widows were burned with his body. This
shows the spirit of Hinduism where it is not restrained by a Christian
law. You can not burn people on any pretext under the British flag.
Hook-swinging was another horrible practice, which was put down in
the same way. Devotees were placed on hooks suspended on long ropes
fastened high above, and the hooks fastened deep in the flesh of the
devotees. The body was then swung from side to side till its momentum
tore the hooks from the flesh, and the torn and bleeding body fell to
the ground, perhaps to die, certainly to be permanently maimed. The law
suppressed this practice, and it is no longer perpetuated except in
remote regions and under great secrecy.
The car Juggernaut, with its great idol, when drawn along the roads
at the Juggernaut festival evoked such fanaticism that men threw
themselves under its great wheels, and were crushed. This practice has
been prohibited by law. The festival is still observed, but men do not
throw themselves under the wheels. I have seen the great car, with its
hideous idol, drawn past our mission-house in Rangoon, attended by
thousands of Hindus, with all the noise and confusion of an Oriental
procession; but there is no blood on its wheels now, and no crushed
bodies are left in the street.
There was another even more terrible custom prevalent in India for
ages, in which the Government had to interfere. It has for centuries
been the custom of Hindus to give their little girls in marriage when
tender children. They were married at ten or eleven years of age, or
even at nine years. To appreciate this monstrous cruelty it should
be remembered that a child of the same age in Western lands is much
stronger than a child in India. There were many mothers in India at
twelve years of age. The cruelties of this practice of child marriage
were such that they can not be written. Let it be remembered that this
practice existed for hundreds of years, and that practically all the
Hindus approved it, although the sufferers were their own children. And
when the terribleness of the practice was so pressed on the Government
that it could not avoid taking action, and consequently framed a bill
to raise the age of consent to twelve years, before which it would
be unlawful to consummate marriage, the whole Hindu world rose up in
protest. They charged the bill to the oppression of the Government.
Fifty thousand Hindus met in public protest in the city of Calcutta.
This protest was from Hindus directed against a righteous law for the
protection of their children from this age-old cruelty!
To the writer it has been an experience of a painful kind to find a few
Americans crying out against the “Oppression of England in India,” when
they are only echoing the cry of the Hindus against the righteous law.
But the law was enacted, and has had a wholesome effect so far as it is
not evaded by false statements of the age of the girls, which are often
made.
But if England had no other justification for her Government in India
than these four enactments, the Government would have much to its
credit. But these are legal protections thrown around her people to
prevent them taking life, or perpetuating cruelty in the name of
religion. If monstrous things are still done, it is a comfort to know
that these named have been abolished.
Once each year a sect of Mohammedans torture themselves by running
through the fire. This torture occurs during the feast which follows
the Mohammedan fast, or lent. During this fast the Mohammedan community
eat nothing from sunrise to sunset. They may eat a great deal after
sunset and before sunrise. Having fasted in this manner for forty
days, they feast for three days. But this does not include all of the
community. There is a division of the Mohammedans dating back to the
death of Mohammed. A quarrel then arose over his successor as leader
of the Mohammedans. One party held to Hassan and Hoosan, the sons of
the prophet; and the opposing party stood for another leader. This
division led to war, in which Hassan and Hoosan were slain and their
party defeated. This contention has been maintained until the present,
and those of the conquering party are known as _Sunni_ Mohammedans, and
the followers of Hoosan and Hassan are called _Shia_ Mohammedans. The
latter will not feast with the other party, and take this occasion to
torture themselves by running through the fire, as a protest against
the opposing sect.
The preparations for this torture by fire are made deliberately, and
it is carried out on a large scale. First of all, they must secure
the permission of the Rangoon magistrate to this ordeal. Then they
publish the places where it will occur, for it is celebrated in
several localities on the same night. Ditches are dug deep enough to
hold a great mass of coals, and two or more rods in length. On the
day appointed, a large supply of dry wood being provided, a fire is
kindled in the ditches about noon, and is kept burning until long
after dark. Meantime the ditch has been filled with coals smoldering,
and kept alive, but not allowed to burn to ashes. As the earlier
hours of the night have been passing, multitudes of all nationalities
have gathered at the scene of fire-running. They have to be kept at a
distance by a cordon of rope stretched about a considerable circle.
As midnight passes, a spirit of expectancy takes possession of the
waiting multitude, which is increased by shouts and excitement in a
side street not far away. These are all according to the Oriental’s
idea of working up a climax of interest in his spectacular display. A
little after midnight the fanatics who have been selected to undergo
this torture come rushing from a side street, carrying banners and
shouting in increasing excitement as they enter the arena and approach
the fire on the run. Crowding close together at the end of the ditch of
fire, they wave their banners, chant, shout, and shriek until a frenzy
possesses them, and then they plunge into the fire with their bared
feet and legs! The first man to leap into the fire sinks more than
half way to his knees in the fiery pit, and the next step also, and so
through the ditch. As might be supposed, he plunges through as fast as
possible with his greatest strides. He is followed in turn by every
other of the twenty or more fanatics of his company.
They immediately collect at the other end of the ditch, and with even
greater frenzy than before scream, stamp the coals from feet, and
plunge again through the ditch. So from end to end they rush till the
coals are dragged out of the ditch clinging to their feet and legs, or
are kicked out on the surrounding ground. Then the fanatics disappear,
and the multitude of curious onlookers disperse.
This cruel practice is carried out every year among these Mohammedan
immigrants to the province of Burma. The idea seems to be a frenzied
appeal to God that their contention, settled by the sword in the
defeat of their party twelve centuries ago, was right. This particular
revolting exhibition may be a modern development; but if so, it is
but another evidence of the growth of fanatical extravagance of an
imperfect faith. But viewed in any light, it is a sad commentary on the
Christless Mohammedan world in this twentieth century of the Christian
era. It is a fact to be lamented that Christian missions are not
generally directed to the adherents of the Mohammedan faith.
Lest it be thought that such fanaticism is only representative of the
lower class of people, let this circumstance be noted. On one occasion
my wife saw this “fire-running.” Just before the expected approach
of the company designated to run through the fire, a finely-dressed
Mohammedan merchant came within the ropes, with the air of a man who
intended to act as a self-appointed master of ceremonies over these
fanatics, lest they act too outrageously. But when the excitement of
the occasion was on, and these common people were rushing through the
fire, he began to show every indication of rising excitement. He sat
down, rose up, sat down again. He took off one shoe, jumped up, and sat
down again; then off came both stockings, and he plunged into the fire
like any other of these frenzied people. This shows the terrible power
of such enormities over even the self-poised Mohammedan merchant.
Another scene we witnessed among the Hindus, even more revolting than
this annual exhibition among the Mohammedans. It was on a Sabbath-day,
and Bishop Thoburn was with us on his biennial visit to Burma. The
early morning service at the English Church had been concluded, and we
were going to the mission-house in the cantonments. The day was growing
almost intolerably hot, especially under the direct rays of the sun, as
it was in the latter part of April, the hottest time of the year. As
we rode along under the protection of our covered tum-tum, we saw just
ahead of us in the middle of the Signal Pagoda Road, the main street
between the city and the suburbs, an excited company of Hindu pilgrims
and their attendants. It is a striking fact, too, that the scene
we beheld was very near a Christian church located on that road--a
Christian church dedicated to the worship of Him who died for all
men--and here by the side of that edifice on that Lord’s-day, nearly
twenty centuries after the gospel was proclaimed to a sin-darkened
world, was enacted one of the most distressing cruelties of heathenism,
and it is doubtful if the devotees, or their attendants, even dreamed
of the salvation which every Christian temple should suggest! That
Church does nothing for missions, being content to preach only to those
who bear the Christian name.
There was a company of about twenty men, eight of whom were devotees,
while the others urged them on their terrible way. Around each
devotee’s neck was an iron ring supporting twenty-four small chains
about two feet in length. On the end of each chain was a large hook
made of wire, and these two dozen hooks were buried deep in the chest,
sides, and back of each poor man. The flesh was raised in great welts
over the buried hooks! But to add to the horrors of this torture, each
man had an iron rod about the size of a slate-pencil thrust through
both cheeks, passing through the mouth, of course. Another rod of
equal size pierced the tongue, which was drawn out of the mouth as far
as could be done without plucking it from its roots, the rod holding
it in that drawn condition, as it was held against the face by the
strained muscles. These hooks and iron rods piercing the flesh of body
and face must have produced all the agony that the human frame could
endure. Yet the cruelties of the heathen could add to even this. Most
of the poorer natives of India go barefooted. But these devotees wore
wooden sandals, not to protect the feet, but to torture them. Through
these sandals from below nails were driven and sharpened above, so that
every step each poor man took the weight of his body pressed upon the
upturned nails, and must have produced a refinement of agony. To the
natural weight of the body was added a wooden arch often used among
this class of Hindus in Rangoon as a symbol, this arch being carried
on the shoulder and adding possibly twenty pounds to press down his
tortured body upon those upturned nails! These poor deluded sons of
our unhappy race, these devotees of a Christless faith, were agonizing
along this highway under a pitiless tropical sun, making their way to
a Hindu shrine eight miles away! Their condition was indescribable.
Their attendants were urging them forward with shouts, and were dashing
water on their protruding tongues, seemingly untouched with pity at
their agony.
The very sight of this torture made the heart sick. I doubt if any
Christian man could have endured the sight for any length of time. An
indescribable faintness began to sweep over me; and the bishop, who has
a heart of great tenderness, could hardly speak; but as he turned to
me I noted an expression of anguish on his face, as he said in broken
tones: “That is the worst sight I have witnessed in thirty-five years
in India; but that is the _ripened fruit of idolatry_.”
Let the reader again recall that this occurred in the closing years of
the nineteenth century of our gospel era. Let him also be informed that
among all these thousands of Hindu immigrants to India there is not one
missionary giving his time to preaching Christ. The only reason there
is not such a missionary is because there is no money in any mission
treasury to send him. There is plenty of money in Christian hands. If
the Christian men and women of those lands that are the heirs of all
temporal blessings, and of the Christian joys of the gospel centuries,
could realize the blackness of the night that has settled down on the
Christless nations, who are heirs of thousands of years of increasing
idolatry, they would hasten the messengers of life and light to these
poor people.
If we turn to Buddhism and ask for correspondingly desperate
conditions, we are at once assured that they are not found. Its friends
would assure us of its elevated character as a religion. But I am
sure we find a sad enough condition among some of the most faithful
Buddhists, and a refinement of cruelty in all classes of the adherents
of the teachings of Gautama. The building of a pagoda is regarded as
the most meritorious deed, and even its repair or partial regilding
gives a man honor and merit. But the serving of a pagoda renders a man
an outcast. The only real outcast ever recognized in Burmese Buddhism,
which is free from the Indian caste system, is the “pagoda slave.”
Perhaps we ought to speak of this in the past tense, as the English
rule has made it possible for these slaves to find their freedom, which
was impossible under Burmese rule, though even this legal liberty is
not recognized by the Buddhists.
Under Buddhist, or Burmese, order, whole families were set apart
for the pagoda service. Once in that service they were despised by
their self-respecting co-religionists, and their children after them
forever suffered their disabilities. Sometimes a certain number of
families in a village were arbitrarily picked up and set down at the
pagoda for this purpose, henceforth to be banished from the circle of
respectability. Never could any man get out of this degraded service.
The heaviest penalties were laid upon any who tried to aid him or his
family to escape to any other calling.
Why this strange degradation of men and women who serve the pagoda,
when the building of a pagoda exalts its builder here and hereafter,
does not seem to be explained. Personally, I think it one of the
stony-hearted cruelties natural to this faith. The priests were fed
daily out of the household’s store; but the pagoda caretaker had to
fight with the ownerless dogs, with which Burma abounds, for some of
the food offered to the images of Gautama! When the slave died he could
not have respectable burial. Sometimes his body was thrown out with
the refuse for the dogs to eat. This settled policy of Buddhism may
be truly said to be one of its perfected fruits, not mentioned by the
friends of the faith from Western lands.
Under British rule these people were allowed to become sellers of
supplies for the pagoda service, or to go away where, unknown and
carefully disguising their former life, they might work into some
respectable occupation, but never with the consent of Buddhist priests
or self-respecting laymen, who had always despised the servant of the
temple. But the sight which always met the observers when visiting the
great Sway Dagon Pagoda in Rangoon until recent years, was the line
of lepers always piteously begging along its ascending steps. They
were classed with the pagoda slave, and were despised. It can not be
said that they were really pitied, even though some corn or rice and
an occasional copper coin were thrown them by the Buddhist climbing
the stair to Gautama’s shrine. These lepers were born on these steps,
diseased, rotted, and died there! A more pitiable sight was never
witnessed than these poor, suffering creatures, practically expelled
outside the bounds of Buddhist sympathy for no fault of character
or conduct. Of course, the Buddhist would say that the leper’s foul
disease was the _demerit_ of some past existence, and therefore he
suffers justly in his loathsome condition, and his ostracism from
human sympathy! But this is only another heartless invention of a much
overrated religion.
The reader will have made the contrast. Centuries of labor and millions
in gifts to raise and perfect the great pagoda and to gild it and to
bejewel its tinkling bells, all in honor of eight human hairs; while
its own faithful adherents suffer and die without so much as a shed
being built to shelter them! Millions for gilding brick and mortar, and
not the least coin to build a hospital for suffering and despairing
men! This is Buddhism’s fruitage of the centuries. Let him praise the
tender sympathies of this faith who will. To me it is one of the most
heartless systems taught among men. The leper was an outcast here, and
taught to believe millions of years of existence in hell were awaiting
him hereafter. This was his portion in Buddhism.
Turn now and witness what Christianity has done for him. Within the
decade of my writing, the Christian missions of Burma became strong
enough to put their sympathies underneath the long suffering lepers.
A Scotch leper mission is aiding the Wesleyans at Mandalay. Later
the Baptists in Moulmein, and the Catholics on their own account in
Rangoon, built leper asylums, the Government aiding also in their
support; and the lepers in every municipality in Burma have been
gathered into these Christian institutions, their sores bound up,
medicines to alleviate their sufferings given, abundant food and
suitable clothing provided, the first time to most of them during their
agonized lives. Best of all, the gospel, with its help, love, and hope,
is preached to them who had been bound to suffering for ages to come
by their own religious system! If to the question, “Do missions to the
Burmese Buddhists pay?” there could be offered only these three leper
asylums, they would warrant the answer, “Yes.”
One very hot afternoon I went with an assistant of the Wesleyan Leper
Asylum, and took twenty-five of those lepers off the steps of the
Sway Dagon Pagoda, and securing their passage money from the Rangoon
municipality, I sent them off to Mandalay. Later I visited that city
and the asylum, and there beheld one hundred and forty of the lepers
gathered from many places in Burma. They were so well cared for as to
seem almost content in spite of their physical suffering. They were
fed, clothed, and had the gospel preached to them in the true Christian
spirit. Some of them were filled with peace and joy by conscious
communion with Him who is so mightily preached by this institution of
mercy. There was one leper, with hands and feet fallen off, an eye
gone, and the tongue nearly eaten away; still on the piece of a face
that remained there shone a light seen only on the face of the man
who communes with God. In this glad vision I had my reward in having
aided in a small way to send so many afflicted ones to this Christian
haven. A thousand times since I have been made glad with the memory of
what seemed that hot afternoon a very commonplace piece of work. But
as it retreats into the past, and I know every poor sufferer will have
had Christian care all his days, it came to be recognized as one of my
greatest privileges as a missionary to have had some part in this work.
When in the future the traveler comes to Burma and visits the pagoda,
and when the resident passes through Rangoon’s streets, and is not
pained with the vision of lepers begging at his feet, let them remember
that for centuries these Buddhist lepers were spurned by their own race
and countrymen, and that it was the Christian missionaries who gathered
them into homelike asylums, there to receive loving Christian care. Let
them reflect that this contrast is one of principle in the two faiths.
The leper, agonizing in hopeless despair on the pagoda steps, was the
perfected fruit of centuries of the teaching of the purest Buddhism to
be found.
One more illustration of the practical teaching of Buddhism presents
itself. At Kemmendine, near Rangoon, is a Buddhist burial-ground.
There is a large pavilion near the entrance to the graveyard, on the
ceiling of which there have been various pictorial representations of
the teachings of Buddhism. Much of this is a portrayal of the many
Buddhist hells. But there was for years a succession of pictures along
one border representing the Buddhist priest in the process of crushing
out all sentiment and sympathy with even the greatest human distress.
The candidate for _neikban_ must destroy all desire; the last desire
to give way is that for existence. This pictorial representation was
evidently made to show the process of this suppression in progress.
The yellow-robed priest, who should represent the system, is seated
in perfect composure looking on the distress of a sick man. There is
none to attend the sick, and the priest, of course, gives no aid. The
next picture shows the man approaching the crisis of death; in the next
he is actually dying. Then follows a succession of pictures showing
other stages of dissolution, until only the scattered bones remain.
Through all the series of representations the priest sits with a face
as expressionless as marble, and has not moved a muscle. Complete
indifference to all experiences of human life is the virtue aimed at.
To show that this crushing out of all natural sensibility is a
difficult process, the artist has made another picture with a little
humor in it. The scattered bones suddenly become articulated, and the
skeleton makes a wild leap upon the priest. This unexpected jump of the
skeleton would be calculated to affright ordinary mortals to a degree;
but not so the priest. He only slightly turns his head. _He has nearly
conquered all natural sentiment._ The last picture shows a skull and
crossbone, and the motionless priest sitting in perfect composure of
features and of person. He has conquered all desire!
This is the picture on the pavilion; but now with the writer look on
the living reality. On one occasion I attended a cremation in that
burial-ground. Sometimes bodies are buried, and sometimes cremated if
the person was rich or much respected in life. The funeral pyre was
crudely made, and the burning presented a revolting sight that need
not be given in detail. When the body was nearly consumed some of the
people returned to the pavilion, and with them the widow, a grown son
and daughter, and some smaller children of the deceased. Meantime
five priests had come in from the monastery, and sat in a row upon a
platform at one end of the structure. They had not been present at the
place of burning. They had rendered no service of consolation at all,
though they may have preached at the home the usual pronouncement of
Buddhism, that all existence leads to misery, and therefore the way
out of misery is to strive to get into neikban and cease to exist.
More than this, the funeral is the occasion over all others in which
costly presents far above the ability of the family are given to the
_poungyis_, or priests. But real consoling service to the sorrowing
they give none. There is nothing springing from sympathy, pity, or hope
in this religion.
As these five well-fed priests sat on that platform, the broken-hearted
widow, son, and daughters came forward, and bowed down and worshiped
them. The bruised and broken human heart cried in anguish and must
cry for help, and Buddhism offers only the worship of a yellow-robed
priest! Buddhism has no God. It tries to crush all human pity. But
where shall the broken-hearted find rest? Worship these yellow-robed
priests! That is all. What about the priests? There they sat, and
chewed betel-nut and tobacco, spitting lazily at the cracks in the
platform, looking about idly and vacantly, utterly indifferent to the
prostrate and broken-hearted family before them! Not a look of sympathy
or pity, not even a glance of recognition cast in the direction of
the prostrate forms! This is the very real illustration in the living
priest, of the pictorial representation of the priest of the Buddhist
religion given above! The Buddhist system is devoid of hope, pity,
consolation, or even ordinary human sympathy. It is as heartless as its
own stony or brazen images of Gautama so universally worshiped. Men
become like their gods.
[Illustration: FESTIVITIES AT A POUNGYI’S CREMATION]
CHAPTER XII
Outline of Christian Missions in Burma
Christianity entered Burma with the incoming of traders and Governments
from the West, as it did in the other portions of Southern Asia.
Some of these traders and some of these representatives of nominally
Christian Governments were unscrupulous adventurers. They were seldom
men of strict moral integrity, much less spiritual Christians. They
would not measure very high by present-day social standards, much less
by the lofty standards of the gospel. They were Christians in name
only. The Portuguese gained some footing in Burma, as in all this
tropical world, in the sixteenth century, and continued with varying
influence for nearly two hundred years. They gained a foothold in
Burma, and built a city called Syrian, and still bearing that name,
just across the Pegu River from the present site of Rangoon. Here,
however, they met utter defeat and destruction at the hands of the
great Alombra, the founder of the Burmese Dynasty, of which King
Thebaw, deposed at Mandalay in 1886, was the last sovereign. This great
king completely overthrew the Portuguese Government, and with it the
only form of Christianity then known among them, that represented by
the Roman Catholic Church of that day.
These venturesome Portuguese carried with them their religious
observances, and their priests always were active missionary agents.
They built a church at Syrian, the well-defined ruins of which still
remain. They made converts among the Burmans. Whether their methods in
converting the Burmese were as unscrupulous as the Portuguese traders’
methods were, we have no detailed account. But in this matter we are
not left in much doubt, as their attempts to convert the Burmese could
not have been much different from that employed in India at the same
period, which unhappily we know only too well were in utter disregard
of the true Christian spirit. But these missionaries of the Catholic
Church counted their converts by possibly the hundred thousand.
These foreigners on their shores were then, as all are now, regarded
as representatives of the Christian religion. In Asia every man is
regarded as an adherent of some religion. Little account is taken of
whether he represents his faith or misrepresents it. His Government and
his personal and social life are supposed to flow from his religion;
so that the Christian religion, as represented by the Portuguese, was
probably despised as cordially by the Buddhists as their commercial
prestige and Government authority were hated by the Burmese people. And
when they made war to the extermination of the Portuguese settlements
and their fortified city, and sunk their ships in the river, they
also dealt a fatal blow to Catholic missions in Burma. There remains
little trace of their old-time teaching. This is very unfortunate;
for it is only just to say that even the Catholicism of two centuries
ago taught more truth concerning God and God’s dealings with men than
Buddhism ever did in its best state. Nominal Christianity, even when
half idolatrous, kept the name of God alive in the minds of men, while
they waited for a better day in which the gospel would be preached in
its purity.
With the beginning of the nineteenth century the British began to get
control of Burma, and this advantage has been followed by further
acquisitions of territory until in 1886 Upper Burma was annexed, and so
the whole land has come under the English flag. During this century,
with its better Governmental conditions, the Catholic Church has
re-established its institutions in all parts of the province. For many
years its growth was slow, and even now, in numbers, it is far exceeded
by the Baptist mission. But in the last ten years there has been a
marked growth in the Catholic community. This has been to some extent
by immigrants from India, who are Catholics. But the Church has been
aggressive in every respect. Its priests are multiplying in the cities,
and they also have occupied strategic points in the interiors. They are
especially far-seeing in the acquisition of great properties in cities
like Rangoon and in building schools and charitable institutions. They
are now engaged in building a great cathedral, to add to their already
enormous properties in the capital city, and, as usual, have chosen a
most conspicuous location, near the great Government offices.
Of course, in Burma, as elsewhere, they need the Protestant Churches,
though they will not admit it. They regard us all as heretics. But they
have been improved by Protestant missions, and need a great deal more
of the same influence. While they give Protestants no recognition,
save in an external civility, they are indebted to Protestant activity
for the revival of that which is best in their own methods of work,
especially in education; and we will still have to teach a pure,
spiritual, experimental religion as a protest against their mechanical
ritualism and exclusive pretension, and, most of all, against their
semi-idolatrous practices. A concrete example of this is found in the
usages that make the Catholic cemetery on “All Souls’ Day” look like
the adorning of a Buddhist feast; that make them still celebrate mass
annually with great pomp for the repose of the soul of their late
bishop, a noble man, whom we Protestants would gladly believe to have
been accepted of God in Christ Jesus, and not needing the unbiblical
fiction of purgatory to purify his soul and fit it to dwell with God.
But the greatest missionary labors wrought in Burma have been wrought
by the American Baptists. From Adoniram Judson, who landed in Burma in
1813, until the present generation of missionaries, there has been an
increasing force of faithful and heroic men and women who have devoted
their lives to the redemption of Burma. It is safe to say that the sum
of the work of all missionaries of all other societies combined would
not equal that done by the Baptists. It is also true that the number
of their converts from among the people of Burma equal, or exceed, the
sum of all others. The mere outline of their extensive mission, with a
history of eighty-eight years behind it, can not be given in the space
allowed in the plan of this book. It is the writer’s joy, however, to
make the fullest recognition of their great work that space will allow,
and also in justice to others and the field, to point out some of their
limitations as a mission.
It is well known that the quality of their spiritual work is of the
best. They are faithful teachers of experimental religion, and they
lead blameless lives. They are, and have been from the beginning,
faithful examples and witnesses for a sterling morality in a land
where lax morals were too common. They have been advocates of total
abstinence in a land where dram-drinking was, until recently, almost
universal, and is still deeply intrenched in social usage, as
liquor-selling is in business.
These same missionaries were pioneers in education, having extensive
schools long before the Government had an educational system. They had
given the Karens, among whom they have had their greatest successes,
a written language, as well as having led tens of thousands of them
into the Christian Church. The census of Burma in 1891 says the Karens
have been preserved as a people only by the labors of the missionaries.
These people now have many primary schools, as well as some of higher
grades.
There are two institutions of this higher education worthy of special
mention. One is the Baptist college of Rangoon, with Rev. J. N.
Cushing, D. D., and a full corps of well-equipped teachers, and an
attendance of more than five hundred students, including primary
grades. In schools of higher education in the East the lower grades
are always taught also; hence the large total. The other is their
theological school at Eusein, near Rangoon, with which Rev. D. A. W.
Smith, D. D., has been connected for nearly forty years. This school
has from one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty students
preparing for the ministry. They represent several races, but are
mostly Karens, corresponding with the greater numbers of these people
in the Baptist Churches in the province. A large amount of the money
for the support of this theological school is paid by the Karen
Churches.
Here may be noted another important feature of the successful work
of the Baptist mission. They have probably done as much toward
teaching the native Churches self-support as any other great missions
of Southern Asia. They have many churches and schools practically
supported by the villages in which they are found. It is true that
most of these are in the Karen villages, where the people live apart
from all others and do not migrate much. It is noteworthy, also, that
all peoples in Burma are in possession of far more means than in any
other portion of the Indian Empire, and they can give more easily and
more in amount than in Upper India, the Telegu missions. Yet, after all
allowances are made, the fact still remains, and it is most creditable
to the mission, that they have developed self-support to an encouraging
extent, by which other missions could profitably be instructed.
This mission has a large publishing-house, and a great quantity of
literature, mostly periodicals and tracts, is published. It also
circulates many books and pamphlets. The young Church has need of
much of this, especially the Karens. This same press issues several
different styles of Judson’s translation of the Bible into the Burmese
tongue, and also the Karen, Shan, and Kachin, translations of the
entire Bible, or portions of the Scriptures.
It is here, however, we meet a serious lack. The Burmese read more
than any other Oriental people, unless the Japanese be excepted. Yet
the literature adequate to carry on a great campaign of Christian
enlightment of these Buddhists has never yet been produced. Perhaps
this lack is due to several causes, one of which is that there are only
a comparatively few Burmese Christians. But still, all missionaries
should face this need, and provide for it.
The translation of the Bible into Burmese would alone render the name
of Judson immortal. But it has one serious defect that can not be
overlooked in writing even a sketch of missions in Burma. He, being
an ardent Baptist, has fixed the extreme Baptist teaching on the mode
of baptism on the translation of the New Testament. Other bodies
justly contend that this is not translating, but interpreting a modern
doctrinal controversy into the text of the Burmese Bible. The Baptists
declare they can not yield anything of this position, and all other
missions are equally convinced they can not use a biased text. After
long negotiations seeking ground for a compromise, but failing, it has
been decided to put out another translation of the New Testament, which
alone, in the Judson translation, bears this particular defect. This
new translation is now in progress under the direction of the British
and Foreign Bible Society. On this question the great Baptist mission
needs the teaching of other Protestant bodies on the mission-field as
they do in the home lands.
While noting the extensive work of the Baptist mission in Burma, and
so cordially rejoicing in their success, it becomes necessary to point
out another limitation of this very successful mission. This defect
is merely a limitation in the means to an end. Much as has been done,
this great society _can not evangelise Burma alone_. It is exceedingly
difficult for the people at home to understand that Burma is a very
great country, and her peoples are diverse to a degree an American who
has not lived in Southern Asia can not understand.
The population of Burma numbers more than 8,000,000. Of these the
Burmese Buddhists number more than 6,000,000. From these millions of
Buddhists there are less than 4,000 converts in all the evangelical
missions in Burma. Karens number less than 500,000, and yet there is
a Christian community of nearly 100,000 among these people. So far
as evangelization is concerned, the ingathering from the Karens has,
to date, been nearly twenty per cent, while among the Burmans it has
not been one-fifteenth of one per cent. Yet the Burmese people are
the important people of the land in numbers and influence. They are
superior people to the Karens, and they assert that superiority. It was
hoped that the Burmese would be evangelized by the Karens, but that
hope has not been realized, and it is not within practical missionary
expectation to look for it longer. There must be a stupendous and
prolonged missionary campaign made to convert the Burmese millions.
This will require every devoted man and woman of every society that can
be rallied to this gigantic task. The further fact should be noted,
also, to show its urgency. While the Karens have been converted by the
scores of thousands and the work of conversion and organization goes
right on, though at a slower pace than at one time, it is probably true
that the Karens are being Burmanized and converted to Buddhism faster
than they are being converted to Christianity. Hence our greater
missionary campaign has yet to be planned, and it must be fought out
with Buddhism, and this will require all the available men and women
and all the money all the societies now at work in Burma can get.
Here we witness a providential ordering. God has called missionaries
into Burma from various lands and set them to a common task. Each
set of missionaries may easily think they alone are, or should be,
assigned to this field; but God, whose plans are far greater than man’s
narrow vision, thrusts diverse agencies into the field, and the writer
believes each could have abundant justification of its presence and
hard work in the land.
One of the Churches longest represented in Burma is the Church of
England. It is the policy of this Church to provide some service
for its people in remote regions. With the early planting of the
British flag in Burma, as elsewhere, came some representatives of
the Established Church. They were not always very devoted men, but
some of them have been among the godliest servants of our Lord. They
usually have ministered to the English-speaking people as chaplains of
civilians or of the military. As such they are found in every locality
where Europeans or their descendants congregate. Had this considerable
number of clergy always been spiritual men, their influence for good
would have been of incalculable value. Had the majority stood for
evangelical truth, as a few have, had they been teetotalers in a
land of dram-drinking, and had they spoken with moral and spiritual
authority against the licentiousness of many, they would have saved the
people and themselves, and won an unfading crown and the favor of all
who love righteousness. Some have so lived. One such died in Rangoon a
few years ago, one of the most devoted and best loved ministers I have
ever known.
These ministers of the Church of England have had the ears of the
people as none others could have had, by reason of their social and
official standing. But because they have not always pursued their
calling with single-eyed devotion, others have been required to help
them save the neglected people.
The Church of England has not been primarily a missionary Church in
Burma, though latterly it is doing a good deal of work directly for the
non-Christian peoples. Their greatest native work is among the Karens,
who came to them years ago chiefly by a secession from the Baptist
mission. They have held most of these seceders, but have not gained
rapidly from among the heathen Karens. It is among a people like this
that strict habits of life tell so much. The Karens as a race are much
given to drunkenness. Most missionaries--all of the Baptists--are total
abstainers and constant advocates of this most wholesome practice. But
some of the Church of England and Catholic missionaries are habitual
dram-drinkers. The effect of this practice among the missionaries is
very bad in its effect on the native Church. It is not a pleasant thing
to write of these defects, but this drink-habit is so common among
Europeans, and the example of men who assume the office of missionaries
counts for so much for good or bad with native Christians who have this
vice to fight that the unwillingness of the missionaries to abstain
from strong drink is most reprehensible. This fact is only a little
less important among ministers to Europeans. I have yet to see the
minister of any class whose influence for good is not dissipated by
taking the intoxicating cup under any circumstances.
The fact that any considerable number of clergymen in a mission-field
drink intoxicating liquor will surprise most people in America, where,
if a clergyman tipples, he is at once under a social ban. But it is a
pleasure to write that the reprehensible practice is growing less in
the entire East. The Churches and ministry which make total abstinence
an unyielding rule would be needed in this mission-field for their
testimony and practice of total abstinence, if for no other reason.
We dare not gather a native Church and leave them under the curse
of drink. We dare not keep silent and by our practice encourage the
drink-habit among Europeans and their descendants. The minister or
missionary who has the temerity to do it takes great responsibility for
wrecked lives of those who follow his practice. It would seem to be
as clear as sunlight that, knowing the evil of the drink-habit in the
East, as they do, all ministers and missionaries would stand unitedly
and unwaveringly for total abstinence.
The Catholics, Baptists, and Church of England have been operating in
Burma through the greater part of the century that has just closed.
But the Methodist Episcopal mission and the Wesleyans came upon the
scene much later. Of the Methodist Episcopal missions I have written
elsewhere. It is only necessary to indicate here that, in the language
of Bishop Thoburn, “our work in Burma was thrust upon us rather than
sought by us.” It was taken up as a far-away outpost of our beginnings
in Calcutta. It has since become one of the important smaller missions
established in all strategic centers from Karachi to the Philippine
Islands. Our organization in Rangoon dates from 1879. We have only
fairly gotten our footing, and hope soon to move forward with a good
degree of momentum. A detailed account of the mission is found in
following chapters.
The Wesleyans began their work in Burma in 1886, just after the
annexation of Upper Burma. They made the great city of Mandalay their
chief center of labor, and they have occupied important towns on the
Irrawaddy River, the Chindwin, and on the railway. Their location
was wisely selected, and their advance has been made with equal good
judgment.
They wisely selected the Burmese people as their objective from the
first, and excepting their first superintendent, they have made the
mastering of the language the first duty of every new missionary. In
this they have been exceedingly clearsighted. While the mission has
not been large in numbers, it has maintained a good working force,
and had latterly sent forward re-enforcements. They maintain nine or
ten missionaries, men and women, who are in the full vigor of their
earlier manhood and womanhood, and they are steadily gathering a native
Church. Meantime, they have added English work and taken up the lepers,
mentioned elsewhere, as a specialty. They have the vigor and hope of a
healthful young mission.
There are two other special features of their mission worthy of note.
They have strongly-fortified themselves with Christian schools, one of
the most potent agencies for breaking down Buddhism. Buddhist schools
must be met by Christian schools.
Then, they require five years’ service from every young man entering
their mission before they allow him to marry. This gives a period of
probation at small outlay of money, and insures that the young man
will acquire the language and be safely proven worthy and suited to
his calling before the mission becomes responsible for his family.
It has one disadvantage. When the young missionary does marry, his
wife is a novice in the land, wholly unacquainted with the people and
their language, and can hardly hope to become her husband’s helpmate,
as she could have done if they had entered upon their missionary life
together. Yet, on the whole, it is a policy worthy of careful study and
wider application.
This outline of missions in Burma leaves much more unwritten than it
records. It is only intended to give a general survey of the forces
that are gathering which shall make the Burmese, the Shans, the Karens,
the Chins, and all the nations and tribes truly Christians. They all
aim at the speedy redemption of this stronghold of Buddhism with its
attendant demonology.
CHAPTER XIII
The Methodist Episcopal Mission, Burma
Methodism was established in Rangoon in 1879. Unlike any other mission
known to the writer, Methodism began its work in Burma, as in some
other places in India, without any financial support or any community
of Methodistic sentiment or tradition among the people to depend upon.
It is true that there are a few persons in Rangoon who had known of the
wonderful work done in Calcutta under Dr. Thoburn, and had repeatedly
invited him to come to Rangoon to preach. William Taylor had sent out
Mr. and Mrs. Carter from America to begin self-supporting work among
the English-speaking people in Rangoon. At this juncture, Dr. Thoburn
went over to Rangoon and laid the foundation of Methodism in that city.
He always remembers, with cordial appreciation, the kindness of the
Baptist missionaries in receiving him and giving him the use of their
chapel in which to preach until the size of the congregation required a
larger building. Then he went to the municipal hall where he arranged
the first Methodist society within two weeks of his first service.
The beginnings were very encouraging. Of all the English-speaking
Churches which Methodism has organized in India, that at Rangoon was
the largest in numbers and most diverse in its membership at the
beginning. Some of these original members remained with us for nearly a
score of years. Some of them proved their loyalty and faithful service
through long years and under all changes.
The self-support of this Church has been somewhat remarkable. The
Government gave the site for the church and parsonage, and the first
year a plain, wooden church edifice was erected, and also a parsonage
by its side. Mr. Carter was succeeded by Mr. Robinson as pastor. Under
this pastorate all that had been done previously was conserved and new
undertakings were begun. The church and parsonage buildings were paid
for and the Church taught Methodist usages. Considering that very few
of the members, if any, had any previous knowledge of the doctrines,
this instruction was most necessary.
From the very first until the present, a period of twenty-one years,
the Church has supported its pastor with a modest salary. If part of
that time there has been a supplemental amount paid by the Missionary
Society, this has always been more than offset by the real missionary
work done by the pastorate. Much of the time the pastor has been
presiding elder of the district, and always he has had more than his
pastorate to care for.
Rev. Mr. Robinson, aided by his devoted wife, had four years of labor
in care of the Church and the affairs of the mission. During this
busy period he began a girls’ school for the English-speaking children
and also a mission to seamen. These two institutions were begun in a
modest way as works of faith and without buildings or funds for running
expenses. They were both launched to meet a great need. Here again the
liberality of the congregation and the community of Rangoon friendly to
an active evangelism was exemplified in the contributions to support
both of these institutions. Here, as in the case of the church, the
Government was generous in its aid of the school. It was at this time
the Government was extending its newly-organized educational department
and felt generous in its plans for schools already organized. A very
desirable piece of land was given the mission to be used for our girls’
school. But a building was to be erected, and our people had no funds.
At that time the thought of receiving mission money from America was
not entertained by any. After giving the land, the Government gave over
half the cost of the first school building, and the people of Rangoon
and vicinity gave the remainder of the required funds. This has been
the order almost throughout our experience as a mission. Support of all
English branches of our work has been secured almost entirely in Burma.
It was impossible for a single missionary family to do all the work
required. The first re-enforcement sent to this field was Miss Warner,
who did enduring work in successfully superintending this school in
its infancy. Afterward she moved to another part of India, having
been married to Rev. D. O. Fox, with whom she continues in effective
missionary service.
[Illustration: METHODIST GIRLS’ SCHOOL, RANGOON]
After four years of service in Rangoon, Rev. S. P. Long came to aid Mr.
Robinson, and took work among the seamen, and assisted Mr. Robinson
in his increasing labors. The “Seamen’s Rest” became a resort for
many officers and sailors, and in all its years no seafaring man ever
received aught but good in this institution. No class of men so much
need wholesome surroundings in a seaport. It will surprise American
readers to know that many of the Sailors’ Homes and like institutions,
maintained often at Government expense in these Asiatic ports, sell
liquors to the sailors who seek shelter within their walls. Thus the
sailors meet one of their worst enemies in the house of their professed
friends. The Seamen’s Rest has sheltered and protected sailors through
all these years. So well did it do its work that, even to this day, men
who found Christ in the services maintained in the Rest and on board
ships years ago, return to tell us of the glad experience of those
days. So well is the work done that the Government for years past has
given money to pay the rent, and, sometimes, additional aid. More hard
work without adequate remuneration has been done by the superintendents
and managers of this seamen’s institution during its nearly eighteen
years of good service, than in any other institution I have ever known
in any land. It has secured these workers almost always from the
membership of the English Church. The mission to seamen should be
regarded as a part of the Church’s activity. It is such work as this,
in ways too numerous to record, that this congregation has fostered,
that led Bishop Thoburn to write, some years ago, “The Rangoon
congregation is the best working Church I have known in any land.”
In 1886, Mr. Robinson, after six years of most useful labor in
Rangoon, transferred to India, and Mr. Long took charge of the Church
in addition to his other duties. For nearly four years he met the
requirements of his position in the strength of Christian manliness.
One event of signal importance occurred during his incumbency. A
courageous young woman came out from America and became his wife. She
was a companion to her husband in all his arduous labors. But early in
1890, Mrs. Long’s health having broken down under conditions of living
already developed, which prostrated the writer and his wife two years
later, they were compelled to return to America, leaving the results
of a memorable service in Burma. Mrs. Long’s health never being fully
regained, they could not return to Burma. But it is a joy to all
their friends to know that they have been signally successful in the
pastorate at home.
The girls’ school prospered during this period also, under the care
of Miss Julia E. Wisner, who succeeded to the principalship at the
marriage of Miss Warner. She was aided by Miss Files, who came
later, when it became evident that one woman could not endure the
multiplied burdens of such a school. These ladies, as also Miss Warner,
were sent to Burma by the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, which has
done so much to aid all the missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
[Illustration: CHARLOTTE O’NEAL INSTITUTE, RANGOON]
Early in the administration of Mr. Long it became evident that the
school must be divided. A number of orphans and destitute children
had been placed in our hands, and some of the patrons paying full
fees objected to their children being placed on an equal basis with
“orphans.” There arose out of this protest, and out of the further fact
that the first building was much crowded, the necessity of securing
a second building. This was done while only thirteen hundred dollars
out of its entire cost came from America. The remainder of the five
thousand dollars required was secured by subscription in Rangoon.
This building was known as the “Orphanage,” under separate management
from the school, except that all the children had the same class-room
privileges. During 1899, Miss Fannie Scott was sent out to take charge
of the Orphanage. She continued most devotedly at her post until
failing health required her transfer to India, in September, 1891,
where she has done faithful service since. Miss Perkins succeeded Miss
Scott in charge of the Orphanage.
During the last year of Mr. Long’s service in Burma, he was joined
by Mr. Warner, who came to be his assistant. On the departure of Mr.
Long, Rev. R. C. Chancy was transferred to Burma, to be the head of the
mission and pastor of the Church. But the year 1890 was to witness
frequent changes in the small band of workers. Miss Wisner, owing to
failing health, went on furlough with the Longs, while the management
of the school fell to Miss Files. Mrs. Chancy was ill when they arrived
in Rangoon, and the old parsonage was a most unfit place for a well
person to live, much less a sick mother with the care of a family.
But as it was the only residence in the mission, and the Missionary
Society had not then, nor has it yet, been able to help us in acquiring
houses for our missionaries, it could not be helped. Mr. Chancy pushed
the mission work vigorously; but he was compelled to leave Burma for
America for his wife’s health at the end of six months. Even then he
was too late. He only reached the shores of California to see her slip
away to the other world.
Mr. Warner took charge of the work as best he could, though it would
have been too much for a far more experienced man. He held the post
until the arrival of the writer the last day of this year, as noted
elsewhere. Mr. Warner’s short administration was embarrassed by the
defection of a young woman to another mission, after she had been with
us but a very few months, having been sent out to take up Burmese.
Singular that he and his wife should follow in her footsteps soon after.
When our party of three landed in Burma, we constituted the largest
number of re-enforcements received from home by our mission at any one
time in its history. This fact shows that the mission has not been well
sustained by the home Church.
The most important personal experiences of myself and family during
the first two and a half years have been given elsewhere. I only wish
to emphasize a few facts learned in that pastorate of six years.
The Church was well attended during nearly all that time, and often
crowded. The congregation was such a collection of humanity as I
believe can be found in few other places in the world. But the very
variety gave life to it, and inspiration to the preacher. Sailors and
soldiers, wanderers from every land, English, Irish, Scotch, German,
Scandinavian, Americans, were all in the audience at once with Burma’s
own score of differentiated humanity. Once, of nine penitents in one
meeting, six different nationalities were represented. As I look back
now, two classes have impressed me more than any others of my auditors.
The one class was the faithful ones of diverse racial descent who were
regular in their attendance, and could be depended on for any and every
service the Church requires. They do not realize how valuable just
this kind of service is. In any land it takes first place in worthy
Christian fidelity. It is far above social prestige, money, or even
bright talent. But in Burma, when in the nature of the case there is so
much instability among many, this fidelity becomes the very pillar of
the Church. Our Rangoon Church has some such as worthy and as faithful
men and women as any missionary pastor they have ever had.
The other class that impressed me was the Scotchmen, who have sat in
that congregation during those years. I had not personally had much
acquaintance with the sons of this distinguished branch of our race
before going to Burma. Some of the wisest counsels I have ever received
were from Scotchmen in Rangoon. Warm friendships that I cherish highly
grew out of this acquaintance. On land and sea I have some scores of
Scotch friends, made while in the pastorate of Rangoon. All these
Scotchmen could listen to a sermon and not grow weary, if there was
anything in it to rebuke, instruct, or inspire. The Scotch are great
“sermon tasters.” To have had their sterling men in the congregation,
in our home, to have traveled with them oft by sea, and to have
counseled with not a few about the riches of “the kingdom,” makes very
precious memories of six busy years.
For nearly four years of the six that I served that Church, I had
the joy of witnessing frequent conversions at the regular services.
These Sunday evening congregations especially furnished our chief
opportunity to arrest attention and lead men to God. Often weary and
poorly prepared by stress of work during the week, yet to preach to
a crowded house of attentive hearers, and knowing that some of those
present in every such congregation had opportunity to enter a church
but seldom, and some who could attend such services avoided God’s house
except on occasions, lifted the preacher to efforts beyond what he
would ordinarily be capable of giving. This Church had among other good
qualities the desire and expectation of seeing sinners converted, and
rejoiced when God gave new-born souls to their care.
Two more facts of importance in the acquisition of property which
occurred during my residence in Rangoon may be noted. The one is
mentioned elsewhere as the purchase of residence property in the
cantonments, where we purposed also to remove our boarding department
of the Girls’ School. The other was the enlargement and connection of
the school and orphanage buildings in the center of the town.
Miss Wisner had returned from furlough and the school was prospering
under her care, as was the Orphanage under Miss Perkins. Both buildings
were too crowded for comfort, and provision for more room was urgent.
Just at this time a man left two children on our hands, and advanced
payment on them. On application to the Educational Department, we
secured from the Government an equal amount, and constructed an
addition connecting these two buildings. This completed a general
architectural design, and gave us a good commodious row of buildings
that furnished us excellent accommodations for our large day-school.
It will be seen that in all these Rangoon enterprises we are much
indebted to the Government and the Rangoon public for funds to plant
the Church, school, and Orphanage. The Government and the community
are in turn much indebted to us for founding these same institutions
and maintaining them. But all this work was done with only thirteen
hundred dollars from America. The knowledge of these facts has been
slowly understood in America. It has in some cases had exactly the
opposite effect from what it should have had. Since we have been able
to accomplish so much without much aid from America, it has been taken
for granted that we needed no mission money. The result has been that
for twenty-one years we have received less money, in proportion to the
work done or the importance of the mission, than perhaps any other
field of any Church. It ought to be that most help should go to those
who do most for themselves; but the fact that we have done much to help
ourselves has until recently had exactly the opposite effect on the
people at home.
During my pastorate in Rangoon I had many evidences of the advantageous
location of our church. It is centrally placed and open to every
good cause, and so became a gathering place for the common religious
interests of Rangoon. This was markedly true of the temperance
gatherings for a term of years. One gathering of this sort was
especially memorable. The Hon. Mr. Caine, the great English temperance
advocate, visited Burma, and he addressed a public meeting in the
interests of temperance. This meeting was held in the Methodist church,
which was crowded, though it began at a late hour. Only one other
English church in Rangoon would have been open to a meeting like this.
The Church is Methodistic to the fullest degree, but forms a common
rallying ground for the united Church interests.
At the end of 1896 I was succeeded in the pastorate by Rev. C. T.
Erickson, who had, with his wife, just arrived from America for this
pastorate. The general work of superintending the district, together
with the pastorate, always was too much for one man, and yet I had been
laden with that double task for six years. Mr. Erickson’s coming was in
answer to my often repeated request, and gave me corresponding relief.
He took up the pastorate, and I had the opportunity to give attention
to district interests. The people were as much relieved as myself, as
they wanted a pastor who could give his whole time to them. But in
a few months all our plans were disconcerted again by the return to
America of Mr. and Mrs. Erickson, on account of the latter’s health.
Just at that time we had some prospects of getting other recruits to
our mission from America, so Mr. Schilling was called in from the
Burmese work to supply the English Church for a few months, until Mr.
and Mrs. Hill, our expected re-enforcements, arrived.
Once more we were in a difficulty about the principalship of the
school. Miss Wisner, who had been in failing health for some time,
was arranging to go home on a much-needed furlough, and Miss Keeler,
who had been teaching in the school for four or five years since her
arrival from America, being needed in her department as teacher,
we were in great perplexity to secure a principal for the school.
Conference was in session about this time at Calcutta, and after much
deliberation it was decided to do a very unusual thing. Mr. and
Mrs. Hill were nearing the shores of India. Mrs. Hill was appointed
principal of the school. She had never been in India before, and
hence could have had no experience in our school affairs, or Indian
life. But Mr. Hill had been brought up in India, and had had an
intimate acquaintance with schools, and he could advise her in school
management. Mr. Hill took the pastorate of the English Church, and
Mrs. Hill conducted the school for nearly a year very satisfactorily.
The pastorate of Mr. Hill was also successful from the first, and has
continued until the present.
Toward the end of 1888 the mission was re-enforced by Miss Turrell, who
came out from England to take the principalship of the school. She is
an experienced educator, and enjoys the distinction of being the first
missionary among us who has gone forth at her own charges, donating her
own passage money and services. In the great generosity on her part she
deserves the cordial thanks of our entire mission, and especially the
good women at home whose work she had done until the present time in
the place of one of their own missionaries. Early in 1899, Miss Files
returned from her furlough with Miss Charlotte Illingworth, one of
our own Rangoon girls, who came back from college in America to take
up work as a missionary in the land and school of her early training.
Miss Keeler retired from missionary work and, after a visit to America,
returned and was married, and lives in Rangoon. After one year’s
service in the school, Miss Files was transferred to India, and is
teaching in the Wellesley Girls’ School at Naini Tal.
This somewhat detailed record of the labors of our missionaries in
Rangoon and the institutions they have built up has been given, because
a connected setting forth of this work has never been made. A new
mission as ours is often small, and the importance of the several
missionaries and their earlier work is not always appreciated until
years afterward, when perhaps the exact date can not be recalled. It is
the writer’s purpose to make mention of all the missionaries married
and single, who have been sent to Burma under the Missionary Societies
of the Methodist Church during the first twenty-one years of our work
there. To do this it has been most convenient to give at the same time
the planting and growth of our English work in Rangoon, with which,
either in Church, school, or Orphanage, all but a very few of our
missionaries have begun their labors. Those few exceptions will have
mention in the two following chapters.
The fact that Methodism in Burma was founded on self-supporting English
work, and so continued for the most part still, has the advantage
of that self-support long before the Missionary Society could have
done anything in the country, and of holding the position for later
developments, and also in securing properties from the Government for
church and schools at a time when such grants could be obtained. In all
these respects, as well as in initial evangelism among English-speaking
peoples, our mission has done nobly, and has been cordially approved
by all its friends. I am free to say that our people, as a whole,
could not have done more under the conditions under which they have
worked. More than that, if we could not have entered the field as we
did and worked as we have, there would have been no representatives of
American Methodism in Burma to this day. Hundreds of people who have
been converted, and thousands who have been uplifted by our preaching
and teaching, would have been the poorer by so much as our Church and
school have brought them. Many poor and destitute whom we have clad and
fed and taught would have missed the protection and shelter we gave
them. Many strangers who have found friends in times of temptation
in a strange and wicked city, would have missed such friends. Earth
and heaven are richer for this score of years of faithful work of our
little mission.
But this plan of founding a mission has its serious disadvantages,
which are now being realized. The foreign missions must have the
Christless peoples leaning on false faith as their great objective.
To reach this goal quickly and work it permanently, it is of vital
importance to master the language of the people among whom you work.
Happy is the missionary who has been able to devote his greatest
efforts to this end during the first year of his life in his chosen
field. He should lay a foundation in this period on which a mastery
of the language is easily possible. To do this he must be freed from
other labors and all great responsibilities for the welfare of the
mission. This opportunity has been lost to all our missionaries who
have been plunged into the English first. The responsibilities in
every post are extremely exacting. The climate exacts its tribute of
strength, and when the large measure of exhausting labor in the school
or varied pastoral duties has been met, there is neither time nor
strength to apply on a language. So it comes to pass that every such
missionary finds himself at a loss as the years move around, and he
finds he can not preach to the people in their own tongue. The time has
come when we must give the new missionaries a chance at the language as
their first and most important undertaking.
CHAPTER XIV
Preaching in Four Asiatic Languages
In other chapters are given the facts concerning the beginnings and
development of the English work in Rangoon. The beginning among
the natives is of equal interest to the inquirer after missionary
information. When a mission without resources begins operations in a
foreign country, it may be supposed that it would be very modest in
its undertaking. But in the case of Methodism in Burma, and some other
parts of Southern Asia as well, rightly or wrongly, it has pursued
exactly the opposite course. With a mere handful of workers, including
missionaries and their helpers, our people have from the beginning
undertaken about every kind of mission work possible. Within two
weeks from the time Bishop Thoburn landed in Rangoon he had organized
an English Church of seventy members and probationers, and from the
membership thus brought together there were volunteer workers raised
up to preach among peoples of three different native languages. As the
streets were always thronged with these people, it was always easy to
get a congregation. This hopeful beginning was in perfect keeping with
the theory of missions long in vogue in a large portion of India--that
from these self-supporting English Churches there would be raised up
the workers who would evangelize the heathen peoples around them.
William Taylor was the great apostle of this policy, and most of the
Methodist missions not included in the North India Conference were
founded on this theory by him and those that caught his spirit.
This theory has fatal defects we now know, but it was believed and
put to the test in the way indicated; and while it did not succeed
in accomplishing all that it was hoped at the beginning, it did
accomplish more than any other theory of missions has done in the
same time in proportion to the number of missionaries employed, while
its expenditure of mission money for years was almost nothing. This
movement carried Methodism into every city in Southern Asia that had a
considerable English-speaking population. It gave us English Churches
in all these centers. Our methods aroused other missions to do more
for these people than they had ever done before. More than this, it
committed us to general mission work over this area, and that with no
outlay of mission money until safe foundations were laid in all the
centers occupied.
Moved by this impulse and flushed with the warmth of a great revival,
these laymen in Rangoon began to preach in Tamil, Telegu, and
Hindustani. It will be noticed that all these are languages of India
proper, indicating that these English-speaking laymen had themselves
come from India, and so were familiar with the languages of the native
immigrants to Burma. But most of our English-speaking laymen were from
Madras or the Telegu country, so that the preaching in Tamil and Telegu
were continued; but for a long time we were unable to keep a layman
interested who could preach in Hindustani, and it was discontinued,
except at irregular intervals.
There were converts from among the heathen Tamil and Telegu people from
the start. They were baptized, and later on some Church organizations
were formed and some schools kept for the children of these people.
Preaching was kept up in the English Church and at half a dozen other
places in Rangoon; in Dalla, across the Rangoon River from Rangoon,
among the coolies in the mills, and in the jungle villages, and in
Toiurgoo, and later in Pegu on the railway. The Tamils and the Telegus
were generally found together, and we could sometimes get a layman
who could preach in both languages, though generally we had to engage
different preachers.
As time went on we learned several important facts about these people
and this work that we did not know at first. We very soon discovered
that we lost heavily among our converts by these immigrants returning
to their own land, and that our people were not so distributed in India
that they could care for them in their native land on their return.
But this continual loss made it out of the question to hope for much
permanency in this kind of work. Another weakness was that the men did
not bring their families with them. And while we got the men converted,
they were still connected with heathen relatives in India to whom they
would return. But the immediate weakness was in the fact that there
were few women and children to complete the Christian families and
Christian communities. So family life, school, and Sunday-school work
was not possible.
As the work extended somewhat, we were met by the fact that we must
depend on paid agents, and could not hope to go beyond a very narrow
limit by unpaid volunteer preaching and subpastoral care. Applicants
for such places were not wanting. Many of these men in course of years
applied, and in turn were found, with few exceptions, wholly unfit for
permanent responsibility. In the case of the Tamils especially, this
was true. The breakdown of this class of mission employees was nearly
complete. This was due to two causes. The one seems to be in the Tamil
race itself. They do seem to lack the element of reliability generally
in everything that has not the highest monetary value attainable as its
goal. It is astonishing how many of these employees failed us at this
point. There was the further difficulty, in that we had to employ the
men who drifted into Burma as the dislodged members of other missions
in India, who were either unwilling to accept the regulations of their
own missions, or were not of its better material. We seldom employed a
man without certificate of character, and we imported some agents under
special recommendation; but our experience with them was generally
unsatisfactory for the highest interest of the mission. But I am happy
to record that some were very true and reliable.
But the greatest weakness was on our part, in being unable to give the
missionary supervision necessary to insure the highest success. We
have never been strong enough to give a missionary to this work among
immigrants to Burma. Without this close missionary supervision, we can
not hope to succeed largely. Then we did not have the money to extend
the work largely so as to acquire the momentum, and that would place
at our disposal enough candidates to enable us to sift them and employ
only the most worthy. But a great deal of good has been done with a
very little outlay of money, and this work will be continued, though
only incidental to the larger mission plans. We must make the Burmese
people our real objective.
For reasons already given, we have been slow in taking up work among
the Burmese people. These reasons were in brief, too few missionaries
to spare even one man or woman to make the beginning, and for years
no missionary appropriation at all was made to Burma. When a little
money was given us, we made the best use of it. But we did baptize
Burmese before we had any missionary appropriations or missionary to
these people. Some inquirers from several miles out on the Pegu River
came into Rangoon, and sought out our missionaries. Bishop Thoburn
being in Rangoon at the time, a boat was secured and a party made up
to visit the village and investigate this new opening. The village
was found, and the bishop preached, with a young Eurasian girl as his
interpreter. The interest created was considerable, and before the
day was over several candidates were baptized. The initial step could
not be followed up as we could wish, but two years later I arrived in
Burma, and after some months was able to visit this village and the
surrounding country. It was a great joy to find some of these converts
still true to all they knew of the gospel. One of them could read the
Bible, and he had a copy of the good Book and some good tracts. Later
on in this region, but a little further from Rangoon, we had our first
considerable awakening among the people.
In Rangoon we had one Burmese boys’ school, which for two or three
years gave promise of much usefulness. These boys came from the
country and city, and were bright young lads from nine to fifteen
years of age. They were instructed in the secular studies, and at the
same time taught the Bible. A Sunday-school was kept up also. If this
school could have been well cared for under a missionary who knew the
language, it could have become largely useful and permanent. It finally
was broken up by the Burmese teacher going wrong. But if a trained
missionary had been in charge, another teacher could have been employed
and the school sustained. During the continuance of this school there
were a number of boys baptized in the school, and that with their
relatives’ knowledge, and there was no special opposition to it.
Bishop Thoburn was much impressed with this fact, as such an occurrence
in one of the schools in India among the Hindu or Mohammedan boys would
have broken up the school. In all the schools we have had, mostly in
large villages in the district, the same accessibility to the young
Burman has been found.
Among the missions which have become strong enough to found a good
school or system of schools, they find not only that the Burmese are
ready to send their boys and pay the fees according to the Government
school code, but that these same schools are the best missionary
agencies, both for the conversion of the Burmese and the Christian
training of prospective preachers and teachers. For the latter, years
under immediate Christian training are indispensable. As Buddhism
is founded on a system of monastic schools, where the boys are
indoctrinated in the teachings of that faith, it would seem that any
policy which looks to the overthrow of Buddhism should contemplate
replacing these Buddhist schools with Christian schools. And when we
find the Buddhists themselves seeking education in Christian schools,
and willing to pay good fees for the privilege, the prospect for the
Christian schools becoming the greatest auxiliary of evangelism is very
encouraging. It is my conviction that no nonchristian country in the
world presents the prospect of extensive usefulness of the Christian
system equal to Burma.
So eager were we to begin mission work among the Burmese, that we
took up with whatever opening presented itself. So sure were we that
we would not get the ear of the home Church, and so get the necessary
funds really to establish the Burmese mission work, that we were ready
to accept whatever the field offered that promised to give us access to
the Burmese people.
Our first opportunity was thrust upon us. We embraced it with perhaps
too much eagerness. But this is a question raised in the light of
subsequent experience which no man could foresee. In the early part of
1893, I received a message from the deputy commissioner of the Pegu
District, saying that he was opening a large tract of newly-drained
rice land to settlement and cultivation in his district, and if I
would start a colony of Burmese cultivators on it, he would put at the
disposal of the mission from two to three thousand acres of land. This
was a very singular proposition, as I had never seen that official but
once, and had never been in that part of his district, and had not
planned such an undertaking. I went up and made a hurried investigation
of the region, and found it a part of a large plain that for a short
time each year had too much water for even rice cultivation, which
grows in water often a foot deep. The Government felt certain its new
drainage canals, dug at considerable expense, would drain this plain.
And as its soil was the most fertile possible, and covered with a
light grass, which would easily yield to the ordinary native plow, it
seemed desirable to co-operate with the district officials, and take
up a large section of the land. The deputy commissioner offered to
put at our disposal three thousand acres of land, for which we were to
have a title as soon as we put it under cultivation. Having no mission
money of any account to go on in the conventional method of founding a
mission, it does not at all seem to be wondered at that this inviting
offer of land was looked upon as a providential way of founding an
industrial mission.
Just at this time, in a thickly-populated part of the district, some
forty miles away, a company of twenty-eight Burmans, whom I had not
seen before, sought me out, and asked me to help them get some land.
Taken with the offer of the land by the district officer, it seemed a
rare opportunity to get forward with our mission.
The season being far advanced, it was imperatively necessary to act
quickly because these Burmans had to make their arrangements for
the year, and the opportunity to get this land or any other so well
situated we thought would never come again. This combination of urgent
features led us to take the land and make the venture at once.
There was a great deal of planning to launch such a scheme. We did not
want to be involved financially. We did want to lay a good foundation
of evangelism and to establish schools. The plan finally adopted was
that we were to aid the Burmans in their dealings with the Government,
and in selling their rice. We were to furnish schools for their
children and to preach to them. But we were not to become financially
involved, either for the running expenses of the colony, or for the
tax due the Government. The plan was one of mutual helpfulness. To this
plan all parties cheerfully agreed.
It was nearly time for the rains to begin when the papers were secured
allowing us to move upon the land. Meantime a good many of the people
who would have gone with us a month earlier dropped out during the
delay in getting the land. But we succeeded in gathering one hundred
and twenty people, and moved on to the land about the first of May. We
still had time to build a village out of the bamboo poles and thatch,
out of which these cultivators’ houses are always made. This was rather
a hopeful beginning, and we had assurance of twice as many people to
follow.
Just at this time we met with an example of the careless disregard of a
financial obligation often found in the Burman. His cool indifference
to a promise, however well secured, is frequently refreshing in its
audacity. The Burmans were to furnish all the cattle to work the land.
We were to lay out no money whatever on the business features of the
colony. Four head men of the colony had been recognized by the deputy
commissioner. They had pledged _two hundred cattle_ security for the
tax due on the land. Their cattle would have been entirely sufficient
to cultivate at least a thousand acres the first year. But when the
houses were built and the colony began business, it became clear that
only a small number of these cattle were really in the hands of the
colonists. Their explanation was that many of the men having most
cattle dropped out, as the uncertainties of getting the land for the
crop remained over the venture. This we learned later was true in part.
More of them had dropped out because they did not want to put in all
their cattle, while some of the colonists had none, or only a few, and
they were heavily mortgaged.
But these men had pledged to the Government, officially, cattle which
they did not possess. In this they deceived us, a not very difficult
matter, as we were new to the country and unacquainted with the
characteristics of the Burmese people. But if we were deceived, the
deputy commissioner had more reason to regret having been duped, as he
was an officer in the province for many years, and supposed he knew
the Burman. He also drew up the revenue bond which they signed. He
indeed planned and extended this bond, entirely apart from the revenue
regulations, I believe. Therefore, when we reproached ourselves in not
being as farsighted as we should have been, we still could shield our
humiliation behind the much greater defeat of the pet measure of this
official.
If we had been willing simply to save the mission from all financial
obligations, and retreat from the enterprise without any dishonor, we
could have done so when we learned that these Burmans were unable to
carry out their part of the contract. But it would have been equivalent
to the utter collapse of the enterprise. While we were in no way
financially obligated to meet what they had failed to meet under our
general agreement, yet in my mind I have never been convinced that it
would have been the wisest thing to do, even if we could have foreseen
the final outcome, which we did not at that time even suspect. Then
every honorable man must give his character to the enterprise he
launches.
Our second surprise came only a few weeks later. I had secured money
outside of mission funds, for we had none of the latter, and bought
sufficient cattle for the colony. This was beyond all our agreement.
The men began work well enough, and soon had a promising beginning of
cultivation. As the young rice began to show in the fields, the water
which had been slowly rising over the plain during the increasing rains
suddenly covered all the fields to a dangerous depth. A foot of extra
water will not hurt much if it goes down within two or three days.
But this flooding of our land covered a score of square miles of the
country. Then it slowly dawned on us that the Government engineers’
drainage system was a failure, and with it our colony was doomed. We
had depended upon the work of the engineers, and their canals could
not carry off the water, and we were the sufferers. The colony slowly
melted away while the water remained.
Let it be noted that though the Burmans failed us, and some of our
acutely sympathetic friends have assured us all these years that this
failure of the Burmese character was inevitable, yet it was the failure
of the work of the Government engineers that destroyed our colony. The
Burmans were at work until the floods came, and they remained weeks
after all ordinary hope of making a crop was gone; while the failure
of the drainage scheme developed early, and the whole plain remained
flooded for six years until supplementary canals were dug. If we failed
by overconfidence in the adroit Burman, we failed with double effect
when we trusted to the skill of the Government engineers.
A very unpleasant incident occurred about the time the colony was
drowned out. The deputy commissioner, who had gone out of his way to
induce us officially to enter upon this colony scheme, turned against
us in a very unaccountable way. He misrepresented our undertaking
to his superiors. He accused us of exacting oppressive terms of the
Burmans, when the exact opposite was true. We had gone far beyond
all our agreement with them, and gave them better terms than any
other people ever gave to any cultivator in Burma. In the end it
was easy enough to show wherein this unwise official was wholly in
error. But it was not until his official opposition had wrought its
work on scattering the colony, and had made success in recognition
impossible. This episode is an unpleasant matter to record. I would
omit it entirely if it did not bear a vital relation to the defeat
of a missionary enterprise. But I am glad to be able to say that
he is the only official of British blood who ever gave our mission
or missionaries in Burma during my experience there any annoyance
or ungenerous treatment in a business way. The officials have
been courteous gentlemen always, and I have been much in business
transactions with all classes of them for a decade. Our missionaries
of long experience in other parts of the empire have been delighted in
making much the same report.
While the colony was broken up and scattered in a way that forebade
us to hope for any good to result from our undertaking, it was not
really so bad as we believed at the time. We had not baptized any of
the colonists, though a number of them had indicated that they wished
baptism in the early beginnings of the colony. When they scattered
abroad in the country doubtless they made reports very discouraging.
But we have much reason to know that there came to be quite a general
feeling that we had sought the good of the people. There have been many
evidences of this, but that which is clearest proof, is that every year
since Burmans in the same neighborhood have urged us to undertake some
such enterprise again. But there were other evidences.
The colony was begun in April, 1893, and was abandoned entirely by the
end of the year. Just at this time Rev. G. J. Schilling and wife came
to us to take up the Burmese work. I had been the only man among our
small band of missionaries for nearly three years. My assistants were
supplies picked up in the country. I got very weary often with the heat
and much work. But I was often worn greatly for lack of counsel in the
responsibilities of the mission. There have always been some of the
truest friends among the laymen in Rangoon, but naturally they can not
take the responsible care of the mission. The coming of Mr. and Mrs.
Schilling was a great joy to me and all our lady missionaries.
A little incident occurred the second day after the arrival of our
friends, which shows the playful side of missionary life. They arrived
in the afternoon, and early next morning I took Mr. Schilling with me a
day’s journey by steam launch through one of Lower Burma’s many tidal
creeks to a village where we had some Christians. We were so busy we
did not allow the new missionary even a day to look around the city
of Rangoon, but hurried him immediately into the district. I had the
journey planned, and could not delay the trip for pressure of work in
the city.
At six o’clock in the evening we arrived at the village of Thongwa, a
place of five thousand people. After some three hours’ looking about
the town we were tired, and as always in Burma when taking exercise,
very much heated. I proposed a swim in the river to cool us down so
we could sleep. Mr. Schilling, being a strong swimmer, plunged out
into the stream, and did not pause till he reached the opposite side
of the river. I, being a very moderate swimmer, remained near the
shore. But I was impressed with the dark river lined with palm-trees
on a moonless night, with no light except from the stars and a faint
glimmer from the lamps of the village. I wondered at the temerity of
my fellow-missionary on this, his first night in a tropical country!
Perhaps I was not wholly innocent in the practical joke I attempted.
Just as I heard a splash on the opposite side of the stream I called
out, “Brother Schilling, I forgot to tell you that there are alligators
in this river.” There was a splash, a plunge, and heavy breathing of a
swimmer exerting all his power in the haste to recross the stream. I
was amused at the effect of this bit of information on the missionary
recruit. But his amusement arrived only as an afterthought. His first
efforts were all spent in getting to my side of the river. He reasoned,
“In haste there is safety.” When he recovered his breath he told me
that just as I shouted “alligator” he had stepped on some slippery
member of the tribe that lives in the muddy ooze of all tropical
tidal creeks, and to his imagination the word “alligator” made that
squirming creature a very real menace to his personal safety. There
were alligators in the stream, but they were several miles further down
and, as far as I knew, quite harmless.
Another experience which befell some of us some months before this had
features about it too grim for humor, but which may be recorded to show
the reality of life in a tropical land. Shortly after the colony was
flooded, I made one of my visits to the people. Several times I had to
travel in a small boat, a dug-out log. To return to Rangoon I took to
the stream after nightfall, and traveled within a mile or two of the
railway, and then, the current of the stream becoming too swift for
the oarsman, we took to the water, and waded against the current until
we reached the station. The particular occurrence occurred when the
water was at its highest over an area many miles. The occasion of my
making these journeys at night was that I could catch a train bringing
me to Rangoon in the morning for my many duties there. As the whole
country was flooded, we undertook to guide our boat thirteen miles from
the colony to the railway all over an overflowed, treeless plain. Our
party consisted of a young Swiss I had in charge of the colony, a Malay
servant of the Swiss, who acted as steersman, and a Telegu, a very lazy
man, who would not row, and so got a free ride, grudgingly allowed
by myself. The Swiss and I had to do all the rowing, no easy task
through the protruding elephant grass, which rose several feet above
the water in some places. In addition, I undertook to pilot the boat,
the open hollow-log canoe, always difficult to keep bottom downward.
Without any object to serve as a guide, my own sense of locality, as
we had no compass, being my only resource, the downpour of rain every
half-hour--all made a combination of circumstances calculated to fill
us with doubts as to our success in reaching the railway at all, while
the dark hours of the night passed slowly on. We had no light with
us, and at times it was exceedingly dark; but the moon showed its
half-filled face occasionally. Late in the night we came near to some
abandoned grass hut. As an unusually heavy storm was approaching,
revealed to us by the beating of the rain on the quiet water of the
plain, we concluded to steer our unstable craft in through the open
doorway of the hut. There were several feet of water in the hut and on
the adjacent fields. As the hut was large enough to accommodate our
boat and the roof was intact, we hoped to have shelter until the rain
had passed.
We had our misgivings, because we feared the snakes, driven from the
grass of the plain by the water, would be finding quarters in the
house. This proved to be a very true surmise. We had just got into
the house, when our free passenger, the Telegu, took out his matchbox
and a cigar and prepared to smoke. I thought I could use that match
to better advantage, and demanded it. As the match flashed and then
burned steadily for a moment, we searched the thatch sides and roof
and bamboo supports for snakes. We were not disappointed. Here and
there were the glistening coils of snakes tucked away; but our greatest
nervous shock came on looking immediately over our heads, when we were
startled to see a very large snake coiled on top of the rafter, while
the glistening scales of his whitish belly were only two or three feet
above some of our heads. We immediately prepared to leave this place
in possession of its venomous occupants. Softly we moved lest we shake
snakes into our boat. The Swiss was very eager to avoid colliding with
a post and shaking a snake into the boat, especially as we were all
barefooted, having removed our shoes.
We took to the storm again, the worst of that weary wet night, thankful
to have escaped keeping company with the snakes. About one o’clock at
night we found the railroad, and rested until the train came. I look
back on that night’s experience with vivid recollections. The long
piloting of the boat without guide of any kind for thirteen miles, and
then to have made our exact destination, was no ordinary achievement,
of which I have always had some pride. The experience with the snakes
in the abandoned house seen by the flash of a match makes a memory too
vivid to avoid an inward squirming to this day. These disconnected
experiences are given to break the monotony of prosaic account of
mission work, and to indicate to the reader that there are realities in
journeyings about the inhabited parts of a tropical country calculated
to impress the memory.
Mr. Schilling’s coming to us was very timely. He began Burmese very
soon, in which Mr. Robertson joined him. We at once planned to open a
station for a missionary outside of Rangoon. We selected Pegu, a town
on the railway fifty-six miles from the capital city, and on the road
to Mandalay. We chose this town because it was the nearest station to
our broken-up colony, from which also we could work another region
which had been given to the people for the colony, and from whence
we could reach half a hundred villages of Burmans unsought by any
missionary. We needed a town, also, where we could have a physician
for the missionary’s family. A place was desired where land and
missionary buildings could be secured economically.
[Illustration: LARGE IMAGE AT PEGU]
Mr. Schilling was supported by the vigorous missionary Church of
Montclair, New Jersey. They paid his passage and his salary, and for
the mission house. So prompt was their response and so generous, that
the mission was very greatly uplifted. Mr. Robertson lived with Mr.
Schilling, and they both made rapid progress in learning the language.
In a few months inquirers began to be found. Some lapsed Christians
were picked up, and they tried to work them into some Christian
usefulness. Before the end of the year they were beginning to preach in
the vernacular. Altogether our prospect of doing mission work among the
Burmese was becoming promising, and we were all filled with cheer.
Within a little more than a year each of these brethren was doing
aggressive evangelistic work. Mr. Schilling remained at Pegu, and
traveled somewhat widely in the regions east and north. Mr. Robertson
was given the district south of Pegu and east of Rangoon. He lived at
Thongwa, the village where our Burmese work was first undertaken in a
systematic way. Mr. Robertson had married Miss Haskew, of Calcutta.
Mr. Schilling, at the suggestion of some of the Burmese who had been
with us in the colony enterprise, organized a new movement to build a
village near the place where we had formerly located, but not subject
to floods, into which the Christians and their families would move,
separating the Christian community and providing a school for their
children. About one hundred and fifty people came to the village, and
a simple church was built and a school begun. Quite a number of these
people were with us in the original enterprise, and they and their
friends had had some Christian instruction. Mr. Schilling preached
earnestly to the village, and baptized about thirty people in a few
months’ time. So we came to have a visible Christian community in the
wake of our colony scheme, and that within two years of our first
beginning. If, as we are accustomed to say, we failed in the colony,
still but for the colony we would not have been in that region at all.
If we had not founded the colony, we would not have had a village.
We are encouraged this much, that though we failed in our unusual
departure in this region for reasons stated, we had more to show at
the end of the two years from the failure than the most successful
enterprise on the conventional mission lines that I know of in Burma
has had during an equal length of time at the beginning of their
history. If we count the money invested, the same comparison holds good.
The village still exists, and though it has suffered many vicissitudes,
due in part to the nature of pioneer mission work, and partly to lack
of continuous missionary direction, yet we have contact with the entire
community of that region, and within the last year and a half our
missionary in charge has baptized a number of converts in the village
and community.
Before a year from the time he took up his residence in Thongwa, Mr.
Robertson’s health failed seriously, and he had to give up his labors
and go to the hills of India. This was in 1896. At first we thought he
would soon be with us again; but this was not to be. He has been kept
in India by the exigencies of his health at first, and latterly by the
exigencies of the work. The Thongwa circuit has been supplied as best
we could do it to this day, and has never had continuous missionary
residence or supervision such as is needed. It has had only such
attention as could be given it by men whose hands were more than full
elsewhere.
During 1896 two young men were sent out by individuals who wished to
do a generous thing for missions through a representative. Mr. Krull
arrived in April, and Mr. Swann came in October. Much was hoped from
this arrangement. The young men were religious, and faithful in their
efforts. A mistake had been made in both cases, in that neither man was
educated sufficiently to enable him to master a foreign tongue, or to
meet the responsibility of leadership. After a few months the supporter
of Mr. Swann declined to pay the small salary he had agreed upon, and
the young man had to retire from the field, as he was not sent out by
the Mission Board. Mr. Krull continued as an auxiliary mission agent
for nearly five years, for which he contracted, and his friend loyally
supported him to the end. Then, he being convinced that he was not
adapted to do the work of a missionary, returned and began secular
work. However, he still has responsibilities as a local preacher.
These young men were not qualified for the work for which they were
chosen. In this they were not to blame, as they could not have
understood the needs of a mission field. They were not selected by a
Mission Board. But the whole experience is added to like experience
elsewhere in proof that the best way to aid missions is through regular
channels, or through men whose judgment has been proven in responsible
positions.
Mr. Schilling’s health was impaired during 1897, and early in 1898 he
and his family returned to America. So within two years we lost two
missionary families from our ranks, greatly to the distress of those
that remained, and the detriment of the entire work. Our promising
beginnings among the Burmese suffered most.
For a year we awaited re-enforcements. Early in 1899, Rev. Mr. Leonard
and wife were sent to us from India. Mr. Leonard at once moved into the
mission-house at Pegu. Without delay he began the study of the Burmese
language, and as he had high linguistic ability, he acquired a working
use of the language. Before the end of the year he was preaching
without an interpreter, and was doing some necessary translation.
One of the first steps towards putting the Burmese work on a better
foundation was the beginning of a school for the boys of our Burmese
Christians. For years I had hoped to see this done. Pegu had been
chosen for the residence of a missionary partly with this end in view,
as it is accessible, is free from some of the evils of a great city
like Rangoon, and simple habits of life can be maintained more easily.
The last is most important. Expensive habits are so easily learned
and so difficult to unlearn, that we can not be too careful about the
training of the children of our Christian community.
This school was begun with about six boys, and soon grew to an
attendance of twenty. Some of these paid full school fees. Their
instruction was the best. They were given regular lessons in secular
subjects and daily Bible instruction. Much of the latter was committed
to memory. It would surprise some of our Sunday-schools and some of
our Christian people to find how carefully the Bible is taught in
mission schools. Mr. Leonard did most thorough work in this matter, and
we hope in this school to prepare for future service promising boys.
Those who know what it means to work with the only material available
in the beginning of a mission can appreciate our solicitude for enough
properly-trained workers. These preachers and teachers so much needed
must come from our own schools.
Mr. Leonard has been very successful in getting access to the Burmese.
He baptized more than one hundred converts from Buddhism during 1900.
This shows how accessible the Burmese people are. If it were true that
the Burmese have been exceptionally hard to reach hitherto, it is not
so now. We have access to all classes of them, and we are positive of
winning them to Christ and of founding our Church among them just as
rapidly as we can be re-enforced to do this work. Mr. Leonard has twice
the territory to look after that one missionary should have.
Our latest work to be done is that among the Chinese. We were led into
this work by two circumstances. In Rangoon we found a few Chinese
Christians who were not looked after by anybody, and to these were
added some of our own Chinese converts from Malaysia and some from
China. As Rangoon and Burma are the natural termini of the immigrants
from China by sea and overland, we have a large Chinese population in
Rangoon, and this same population is very evenly distributed in all
important villages of the province. These Chinamen marry Burmese women,
so that they become identified with the Burmese people. As we aimed at
the conversion of the Burmese, it was easy to begin preaching for those
that were Christians, and to fortify the foundation of our mission to
the Burmese.
As in other work, we had to employ just such preachers as we could
pick up. But in 1897 we secured a young man trained by Dr. West, of
Penang, who has done faithful preaching in Rangoon and vicinity. There
have been some thirty baptisms since he came to us. This work is so
important that it must be done by somebody. There is a demand for as
great a school for these people as we have founded in Singapore or
Penang. But its support is not in sight.
CHAPTER XV
A Unique Enterprise
In March, 1897, the Rangoon Orphanage was removed to the Karen Hills,
east of Tomgoo, and established on an industrial basis, where it has
been maintained these four years under the new plan, and it has become
the “Unique Institution of the East,” as one discerning official called
it.
When one starts an enterprise that is entirely new he is called upon
for his reason for doing so. So long as he proceeds exactly as other
people, he needs no apology. But in all conservative countries to go
contrary to “custom” is to invite criticism, even if one’s efforts are
an advance on the established order. One curse of India is that its
people are enslaved by “custom;” and some of these customs are very
bad, and most of them are wholly unprogressive. Custom has bound chains
on the people, and they have worn these chains so long that they have
come to love their bonds better than liberty. In most matters “change”
is undesired, and to announce that a plan is “new” is enough to condemn
it hopelessly with many, and to start a thousand tongues to attack it.
It has been shown elsewhere how pitiably situated are the poor of
European descent in all parts of Southern Asia, there is a greater
percentage of these poor dependent on some form of public or private
charity than among any people I know of in any land. Perhaps in no
country do the social customs do more to unfit the poor to help
themselves. I am persuaded also that very much of the charity of the
country, of which there is a great deal, is unwisely, if not harmfully,
bestowed. Rangoon, for instance, like all Indian cities, has a
charitable society made up of ministers and officials, which dispenses
a great deal of relief. Studying its methods as a member for six years,
I became convinced that, while very much good was done, the system
pauperized a relatively large number of people, who should have been
self-sustaining.
In this general dependent condition of a large part of these people,
there is the ever-present and acute distress of poor or abandoned
children, for which there have been established many Orphanages and
schools. All managers of these Orphanages are appealed to by indolent
or destitute parents to give free schooling, including board and
clothing, to their children. The truly orphaned, or the abandoned,
children are always touching our sympathies, and appealing irresistibly
to us for aid. The number of children born in wedlock, as well as out
of legal bonds, who are abandoned by parents or legal relatives, is
astonishingly large. The result of all these combinations is to fill
our Orphanages; for the innocent child must not be allowed to suffer
all the consequences of others’ sins. So the “Orphanages” are found
everywhere to care for these children of European descent, whether they
be Anglo-Indian or Eurasian.
The founding of the Methodist Orphanage in Rangoon has been noted
elsewhere. In managing this Orphanage for a number of years after the
custom of the country, I became convinced that while the amount of
relief and protection given to child-life during its earlier years was
exceedingly great, there was a very serious defect in the system of
conducting all such institutions. I have intimated elsewhere how little
ordinary work is done by anybody of European extraction in the whole of
Southern Asia. This applies generally to the schools, including even
the Orphanages. Everything that can be done by servants is delegated to
them. It may surprise many American readers to know that “orphanages”
and “homes” for Eurasians in India depend on the work of servants,
and very little on the inmates, much as other establishments of the
country. This, too, not only in those things where the work is beyond
the power of boys and girls to do, but in many kinds of work which it
is considered “improper” or “undignified” for them to engage in.
It is considered right and proper for the girls to learn to sew, in
addition to learning their lessons, and sometimes to arrange their own
beds. Some of them even learned to cook some kinds of food, generally
“curry and rice.” But to sweep, or scrub a floor, or thoroughly to
clean a house, to wash or iron their own clothes, much less the
clothes of others, or to take up cooking or dish-washing as a regular
task, is not thought of. Those are “menial tasks;” a “servant should
do them.” What a lady of refinement and wealth in a Western land often
does from choice, even the destitute depending on “charity” are ashamed
to do in Asia. To be dependent or even to “beg” is no disgrace; but
to be a cook, a nurse for a lady, or housekeeper, unless aided by
servants, is considered a disgrace. Indeed, these kinds of work are
never done by any one unless under great extremities. The boys and men
are even less willing to do the ordinary work of life. Clerkships and
such like only are considered “respectable” employment.
In all this it will be observed that the question is not one of
indolence or lack of energy, but one of a social system. The individual
is not so much to blame. He does not do differently from his neighbors.
In the matter of the children, the managers of the Orphanages are
responsible, in so far as they can resist the enfeebling social
conditions under which they work.
We then contemplated teaching the girls and boys under our care to
help themselves where others depended on servants; to do this as a
necessary part of a well-rounded education. Of course, we recognized
the fact that we were undertaking to modify the social order, universal
among an entire people. This was recognized as a very difficult task,
and nothing but a settled conviction that the old order was fearfully
defective led us to undertake it. Looking back now, we have much
interest in recalling the comments on this undertaking. Many assured us
that it was a work that should be done, but would fail if undertaken.
Others wanted the girls especially trained for housekeepers, “so we can
be released from dependence on the Madrassi servants.” This suggestion
was wholly philanthropic! Another said several times: “What are you
training those girls for? For servants? I want some servants.” The
author of the latter remark has never made any other contribution to
the Orphanage so far as I can learn. People who had always received
something for nothing, of whom there were many, were opposed to the
plan. The “prophets,” of whom Asia has her share, were all against
us. The “loquacious oracles,” talking about what they did not know,
as was their habit, were all against us. But we had a few friends who
gave unqualified encouragement. These were of two classes; one a small
company of brave missionaries, of whom Bishop and Mrs. Thoburn were the
representatives. The other class were those who had done most for and
given most money to the Orphanage on the old basis. These people who
gave money and sympathy, while others gave poor advice and criticism,
said, “If you only teach these boys and girls to care for themselves,
it will be the greatest service to them.” We were led to follow the
advice of our friends, who really had the problem on their hearts, and
our own convictions, and so ventured on this untried undertaking.
The first consideration was to find a more suitable location for
our Orphanage. To have undertaken to dispense with servants and all
native helpers, and to introduce an entirely new household order in
Rangoon, would have been to invite such a degree of intermeddling
by irresponsible people, as we did not care to be annoyed with.
Besides, the climate in the plains is very hot, and too oppressive
for foreigners to do the extent of physical labor required to pioneer
such an undertaking. The help that the boys and girls could give at
the beginning would be insignificant. We sought a cooler climate.
This could only be found in hills high enough to lift you into a
substantially cooler and less oppressive atmosphere.
I had been making investigation in the hills of Burma one hundred and
sixty miles north of Rangoon, for four years. The original object of
this investigation was to find a cool mountain retreat to which our
missionaries could go when worn with their labor in the plains. Other
parts of India had well-established hill stations, but Burma had none.
In my own case, when health failed, I had to go the long journey to
India, and to remain there many months. Had I been acquainted with the
hills of Burma, this could all have been avoided by a change from the
heat of the plains when I first began to decline. After my return to
Burma, I determined to find such a place in Burma, if possible.
The first intimation of an accessible place came to me on a visit to
Tomgoo, where a member of my Church lived. His name was D. Souza, a
pensioner of the Indian Survey Department of the Government. As this
good brother was closing his work prior to retiring from the service,
he came to survey Thandaung, a hill twenty-three miles northeast of
Tomgoo, the head of the district and a town on the railway. Thandaung
had been an experimental garden under the Forestry Department of the
Government in the seventies, where cinchona cultivation had been
undertaken, also tea and coffee had been planted. A school had been
established at Tomgoo, intended to teach the Karens how to grow these
products. Later the school was closed, and the cultivation on the
hills abandoned. At that time Tomgoo was the military outpost, and
the authorities built a road to Thandaung, and experiments with the
place as a hill station for their soldiers were made. When Upper Burma
was annexed in 1885, there was a great rush to Mandalay, and later to
regions beyond, where in the regions of Upper Burma various attempts to
open military hill stations were made. Thandaung was abandoned, but not
till records had been made very favorable to the place as a sanitarium
for Europeans. This record did good service for us when we came to
reinspect these hills.
Mr. D. Souza secured the most of the area of the old cantonment and
some of the buildings, with a view of making a large coffee plantation.
He had begun operations early in 1893, and I visited the place first
in June of that year. For four years I made frequent visits during
different months of the year to test the climate thoroughly. I
found the climate in delightful contrast with the plains at all
times, and surprisingly invigorating during most of the year. In this
investigation I was much aided by my former sojourn in three of the
hill stations of India--Almora, Naini Tal, and Mussoorie. It has the
altitude of the first and a cooler temperature during the hottest
weather than either of the three, while from November to May there is
no fog and no rain.
I was convinced that this most accessible hill in Burma would serve
admirably for our double need; a location for our industrial plans, for
our Orphanage, and a resort for tired missionaries.
By a vote of the Bengal-Burma Conference, I was instructed to apply
for land for the enterprise. This Conference authority was sought
because it was a good thing to be “regular” in a new undertaking, and
to have the moral support of the Conference when the difficult places
in working out the new scheme were reached. I learned afterward that
a good-natured brother remarked, “O yes, vote him the authority to go
ahead; he can only fail anyway.” The Government gave us a lease of
one hundred acres of land for the new undertaking, and preparations
were begun to move the Orphanage, together with the superintendent and
my own family, to this hill. But positive authority to go to our new
location was given at the Conference session in February of 1897. It
required much haste to close up affairs in Rangoon connected with the
Orphanage, and make the move.
Before we actually took the train we allowed all the children whose
relations were unwilling to have them go with us into this new location
and untried plan to depart from the school. Nearly a dozen left us.
People whose children had been fed and clothed and schooled for years
for nothing were entirely unwilling to have them go into the new
location, where they were to learn to work as well as to eat, and
to a small extent work for what they ate. We yielded to them, being
conscious all the time of the ingratitude displayed for years of care
of their children. Indeed, it is the legitimate fruit of a system
that gives everything to dependent people and requires no service
in return, that they should come to take your service and care as a
right, without even a grateful acknowledgment for favors. There are
cases where recipients of free care have taken the position that they
were conferring a favor on the missionaries by remaining under their
protection and care.
The experimental cinchona garden had grown up in a young forest during
the years since the Forestry Department had abandoned it. The roads
were all overgrown with rank jungle. We had a small space cleared and
a hut erected, made of bamboo mats, and supported on bamboo poles with
split bamboo used as tiles folded over each other for a roof. The floor
was two feet from the ground, and consisted of split bamboos spread
out flat and laid on bamboo poles. This hut was expected to protect us
only during the month of April, at the end of which the rains begin.
We arrived at Thandaung on March 24th, and took up our abode in the
primitive domicile. The whole structure cost thirty dollars, and
thirty-five people moved into it, Miss Perkins, the principal of the
Orphanage, and the writer and his family included. This furnished us
house room at a cost of less than a dollar each.
This frail shelter was only intended to serve as a camping-place for
five weeks at the longest. I had planned for a better house than this,
and a month earlier I had given the contract for the preliminary work
of cutting and dragging timber for the framework, thinking it would be
possible to secure some kind of permanent shelter early in the rains.
It is true this more substantial building would have to be limited to
what could be built for three hundred dollars, as that was all we had
in sight for this new enterprise.
When we arrived on the mountain I found the Karens, who had agreed to
do the work of cutting and dragging timber, had failed us entirely. But
the tropical rains did not fail. The monsoon is always on time in Lower
Burma. With the first downpour all hope of building operations was at
an end.
In consequence we went into the long monsoon in this temporary
inclosure, by courtesy called a house. We improved the shelter by
laying some sheets of corrugated iron on the roof, and weighting
them down with poles. In this house we kept school, had our sleeping
apartments, and did the cooking and baking for this large family. At
first boys and girls were rebellious against assisting in household
work, and one girl ran away twice, all the twenty-three miles to the
railway. The second time we sent her permanently to her relatives.
But in good time much advance in orderly housekeeping was made. Had
meddlesome people not followed us into even this isolated place, the
work of training would have been much easier. Work for the boys was
begun also. They cut the wood, carried the water, and milked cows; also
cultivated vegetables, and we planted some eight thousand coffee trees
the first year. It was the intention to make coffee-growing a basis for
self-support. The coffee the forestry officers had planted twenty years
before was growing finely, and was of the best quality. As we did our
own work, it would seem an easy matter to secure our own support by
this coffee cultivation alone. There were other industries projected
also.
During all the months of the first rains the health of our little
colony was excellent. There was not one but what received a toning up
by the cooler atmosphere, mountain air, and healthful work. This was a
great cheer to us all, and was the first step toward making Thandaung
known favorably for a hill station.
Thandaung itself is a charming locality. The mountain chain, or
ranges, “Karen hills,” as they are called, of which the ridge known as
“Thandaung” (iron mountain) is a part, cover a very large area, running
from the Malay peninsula to China, and from fifty to one hundred and
fifty miles wide. The highest elevations are nine or ten thousand
feet, but most of the ridges and plateaus rise no higher than three to
five thousand feet. The scenery is magnificent and varied in character.
Looking westward from our school, the mountain drops away at an angle
of about fifty-five degrees into a deep valley, down which the Pa Thi
Chang stream runs in a succession of cataracts. Then the hills rise
again, forming a vast amphitheater. Standing on the site of our school,
this splendid view is constantly before us. Looking beyond the lower
hills, the view widens until the whole of the Sitiang Valley, with its
winding river and broad lakes, light up the scenery with life. Beyond
this plain rise in succession three ranges of the low Pegu Hills, the
intervening valleys but dimly defined, while beyond all these there
is a smoky depression indicating the great valley of the Irrawaddy
River. Beyond this again, on the farthest horizon, are seen the rounded
ridges of the Arracan Hills, about one hundred and twenty miles from
Thandaung. In all this vast expanse of mountain, valley, and plain
there is not one barren rood of earth. Mountains and plains, where not
recently cleared, are covered with a tropical forest. Where there are
cultivated fields, they are matted with luxuriant green of growing
rice, or yellow with the ripened crop. This stretch of deep-green
verdure under a tropical sun throws on the vision a combination of
coloring that gives the place a “charm all its own,” as one admiring
visitor declared. When the rains have washed the atmosphere clear
of dust, the view is very clear. Houses in Tomgoo, twenty-three miles
away, are very clearly seen. The great oil-trees on the plains, some
specimens of which are left standing where a great forest has been cut
away, lift their straight gray trunks a hundred and fifty feet to the
first limb, and above this hold a majestic crown. Often have I seen,
under the reflected rays of the morning sun, those trunks of trees
defined like so many giant pencils. Yet they are twelve to fourteen
miles away. To the north and south the view is over well-rounded hills
and ridges for sixty to seventy-five miles. But it is to the east we
turn for the sublimest scenery. A little over a mile from the school
a peak rises above the surrounding heights. It is called Thandaung
Ghyi, meaning the greatest Thandaung. Climbing up the forest path, and
finally scaling a sharp and rocky height, we stand on the top, only
a rod across. From here all the western view, also north and south,
is taken. Toward the east an entirely new arrangement of the hills is
made. From where you stand there is a precipitous descent of nearly
three thousand feet into a basin fifty miles across, rimmed on the
east by a great ridge with a culminating peak called Nattaung, or
Spirit Mountain, nine thousand feet high. The Bre Hills, where the wild
Karens live, join this ridge, and the two curve until they complete the
opposite border of the basin. Never have I been able to look on the
sublime ranges of mountains and picturesque plains over this sweep of
two hundred miles of Burma’s varied surface, without a profound sense
of awe and wonder. It is so wonderful that it grows on one, though seen
daily for years.
[Illustration: MISS PERKINS AND GROUP OF GIRLS, THANDAUNG.]
Once I went with a friend to Thandaung early on a January morning.
This is the season when fogs hang heavily over the plains and reach
high up the mountain valleys; but our mountain heights are above the
fogs, in perpetual sunshine. When we reached the top of Thandaung Ghyi
an unexpected view delighted our eyes. The great basin to the east
was filled with a dense fog, and we were looking down upon it as it
floated like a great gray sea three thousand feet below. The lower
mountains here and there lifted above the fog, and their wooded tops
made beautiful islands in the sea of vapor. The sun was shining from
the opposite side, and the full flood of reflected glory fell upon our
eyes.
At another time, accompanying a Government official, I went up to get
this view. The rains had not yet ceased, but were dying away. We hoped
to reach the top before the daily storm came on. We took this chance,
as the views are the most glorious after the rains have swept the sky
of every speck of dust. But the rains beat us, and we were drenched,
while the mountain was buried in the clouds. After two hours we were
growing cold, and were about to give up the object for which we came.
Lingering a last moment, I thought I saw a rift in the clouds, and then
the streak of light broadened, the rain grew less, the darkness lifted,
and a field of blue appeared, the sun shone through the falling rain,
and suddenly all the basin below, and old Nattaung, rising above,
appeared to our entranced vision! All the heightened coloring was
intensified by our position under the shadow of the retreating cloud.
Eyes may hardly hope to see a more wonderful vision of mountain scenery
than we beheld as this vision was slowly borne from the rift in that
retreating storm.
Our new enterprise was planted under such conditions and amid such
scenes as these. While it was a discouraging task, a daily view of the
mountains round about us drove away many an occasion of low spirits.
Taken all together, we in time became a happy family, sharing a common
task. During this first monsoon our frail house several times gave way
in floor, roof, or wall; but we suffered no serious harm. In September,
as the sun was occasionally breaking through the clouds, and we were
wondering what move we would make for a better habitation, a telegram
came from Bishop Thoburn, which read, “God has sent you a thousand
dollars for a house.” If the heavens had opened suddenly, and the
money had dropped into our upturned hands, it could hardly have been
more really a providential gift in our extreme need. No wonder we all
_rejoiced aloud_! Later a letter came, telling us that a good woman
who had come from Scotland to India to visit missions, and having
brought considerable money with her to give to mission institutions,
had been in conference with Bishop and Mrs. Thoburn, and as a result
of a canvass of all the many worthy objects in which a great mission
is fostering, she chose this Thandaung school as the first to receive
her favor. She approved the undertaking, and gave a thousand dollars to
erect a building for the school. No wonder the bishop could telegraph
that God had sent the help. This was only the beginning of the
beneficence of this good woman; and the strange thing was that she had
no acquaintance with Methodists, and had been trained in a Church of
quite opposite teaching and polity from ours.
The building of our first house deserves mention. The logs were cut
from the forest and dragged to a sawpit and sawed by hand by Burmese
sawyers, in the old style of one man above and one man under the log.
This was slow and crude work; but it was the only way to get building
material. The framework was built on posts set in the ground, as has
been the universal custom in the construction of wooden houses in
Burma. The iron for the roof had to be brought from Rangoon by rail to
Tomgoo, and from there to the mountain top, by carts and coolies. This
pioneer work took time and the most constant supervision. The number
and character of men that the missionary has to work with, as well as
the mixed character of the population of Burma, may be understood from
the following account: I bought the iron of a Scotchman, who imported
it from Germany. It was delivered to a Eurasian station master, aided
by a Bengali clerk. The railroad that carried it is owned by the
Government, but managed by the Rothschilds. The iron was delivered
at Tomgoo by a Eurasian station master, aided by a Hindu clerk from
Madras, and another a Mohammedan from Upper India. A Tamil cart-man
carried it to the Sitiang River, where a Bengali Mohammedan carried it
over the ferry. A Telegu cart man hauled it to the foot of the hills.
Shan coolies carried it up to Thandaung, where Burmese carpenters
put it on the house with nails that I bought of a Chinaman, who had
imported them from America. The logs of the house had been cut from
the forest by Karens, and drawn to the sawpit by a Siamese elephant!
The missionary had the simple duty of making all the connections and
keeping the iron moving to its destination.
But we were needing the new house badly before we got it. Part of the
roof was nailed on, the frame completed, but only a very little of the
plank walls begun, when our old hut collapsed entirely. We had often
patched the rotting bamboos, but as the monsoon passed away the east
wind, as usual on those hills, began to blow with great force, and the
frail walls repeatedly gave way before it, and finally one morning the
entire roof and sides were blown away. A very wonderful providence was
manifested, in that no one of our large family was hurt. Most of the
smaller children had been romping on the east side of the house, and
the gale of wind was blowing from the east. In their play they suddenly
ran down the path fifty yards or so from the house. In that instant
the roof and poles that held it down were lifted and hurled upon the
place where they had been playing the moment before. The loose pieces
of corrugated iron cut the air like swords, and some of them were
carried far down the mountain side, which falls in precipitous descent
from that point. Had the children not been moved away for that moment
by the unseen hand of God, they must have been cruelly hurt. As it was
they were out of danger, while those of us that were in the collapsed
house suffered no harm. This is but one of many indications which we
had of the kindly Providence in all our pioneering. For nearly three
years from the beginning of this work, there was not a case of serious
sickness nor an injury of consequence by any accident suffered by any
of our little colony.
But as our old hut was gone beyond repair or reconstruction, and as the
wind was now cold, for it was November, the matter of providing shelter
became a serious matter. The frame of our new house was completed,
and a part of the roof was on, also a few planks nailed upright at
one corner. Taking this beginning as a starting, we inclosed a part
of the space of the building by bamboo mats, laid a little flooring
temporarily, and then, having divided this into two rooms, we moved
into our new quarters. The workmen went right on with the construction
of the house. We lived in the house while it was being builded. When
completed, though built of unseasoned wood, poorly sawed and roughly
put together, it was a palace compared with what we had before, and
indeed it continues to this day to do very good service.
[Illustration: FIRST PERMANENT BUILDING ON THANDAUNG]
About the time the house was completed, Miss Bellingham, the generous
donor of the thousand dollars, came to Burma to see what use we had
made of the money. She spent a week on Thandaung, to our great delight
and hers. She consented that the building might bear her name, and we
have since called it “Bellingham Home.”
Shortly after we began operations on this hill, public interest in the
place began to be shown. I wrote some letters to the Rangoon papers,
and visitors did likewise. The advantages of the place were laid before
the Government. Officials began to come up on tours of inspection. The
place grew in favor, and it was planned to give Government sanction
to making it into a station. A new road up the mountain, giving a
better grade than the old road, and the cart road across the plain was
metalled. The old travelers’ bungalow on the hill, that had fallen
into decay since the military left the place, was rebuilt. So the
improvement goes on till now. The latest plan contemplates a cart road
running entirely up the mountain, and the survey of the whole hill into
building sites. There is every promise of this becoming the favorite
resort in Burma for the people who seek a change from the heat of the
plains.
In the meantime the scheme has had a good degree of prosperity, in
spite of the fact that it was pioneer in character and location. The
irresponsible gossips continue to attack it, the fearful in heart who
love their bondage to the old order still stand agape as they see the
school continue on its way. The people who have been beating their way
through the world still cry it down. But an increasing number of people
who believe in self-dependence, and the character it develops, are in
great sympathy with this work. Some who can pay full boarding fees send
their children to us. They have adopted with us the theory that this
self-help is to be accepted as a necessary part of a well-appointed
system of education.
There has been a specially significant growth in usefulness among
the girls. They have learned to bake excellent bread, cook and serve
a variety of food in a cleanly and orderly manner, and to keep the
entire house in good taste and comfort. This is realized as a great
accomplishment when one has seen the slovenly, untidy houses commonly
found where the woman in the house does not do anything to keep the
house in order herself, and counts it impossible that she should do
what she chooses to call “coolie’s work.” A woman like this would not
know enough even to instruct good servants in keeping the house, much
less the worthless servants she can ill afford to keep, whose only
qualification is that they are as incompetent as servants as their
mistress is as head of the establishment. Yet almost universally such
women would prefer to exist in a hovel, and give orders to a miserable
servant, rather than have a decent abode, if they had to sweep, scrub,
or dust it with their own hands. In contrast to these are the girls
trained in our industrial school. They can do all things necessary to
keeping a house, and have almost forgotten that there are any servants
in the world. They have done all this, and at the same time they have
been in school, doing as good work as girls in other schools, where
they depend on servants for even buttoning their clothes.
Our girls are self-respecting young women, far beyond what they could
have been had they not received the advantages in character that come
from self-help in ordinary daily tasks.
The boys have generally profited by the outdoor work. Having nothing
to begin with, it has not been possible as yet to organize the outdoor
work as that within doors. Plans are under way, however, to develop
this branch of the school, hoping for a large industrial plant.
Enough has been done in these four years greatly to encourage those of
us who have sacrificed something in planning and carrying forward this
new feature of industrial mission work. There is to-day more material
advantage in this plant than can be shown in any institution anywhere
that I have been for the money invested. More has been done in direct
school work, for the money invested, than in almost all the English
schools with which I am acquainted. The effect of the work on the boys
and girls under our care has exceeded our highest hopes. I am sure not
one of us would be willing to go back to the old order of Orphanages.
The boys and girls themselves do not want to return to the old order.
The school has met with a degree of favor from those whose judgment is
counted of the highest value to us, by reason of the fact that they
have put money into the plant under the old order and the new also,
that we hardly dared to hope for. We have also received a bequest of
seventeen hundred dollars with which we have put up a second building.
The patronage of the school by people of means and social standing
is such as to encourage us much. It reveals the fact that the school
meets a want felt most by the people who make a financial success of
life, but see that self-help should be taught to every child regardless
of financial circumstances. These people believe that indolence,
dependence, and slovenly habits are a disgrace, and honest work in all
things is honorable.
Miss Perkins, now in the eleventh year of her continuous service on the
field, has carried on this work for more than a year, being aided by
Miss Rigby, who went to her aid in 1900.
This industrial school was founded to reteach the truth long since
forgotten in Asia that all kinds of household and manual toil are
respectable. The Lord himself was a carpenter, and washed the feet of
his disciples, which many of those who bear his name would be ashamed
to do. The school has run four years without a servant, and is stronger
than when it began. In this it is the only institution among Europeans
in all Asia that is so managed. It is absolutely unique in this. It
promises much usefulness and a large growth. But if it were closed up
to-morrow, it would still have proved by four successful years that
such a plan is possible of successful operation even in Asia.
While it is not directly a part of mission enterprise, it may be
of interest to some reader to have some account of experiences and
observations in a Burma forest. Some such experiences came to me in
connection with life on and about Thandaung. Nearly the entire distance
from Tomgoo to Thandaung is through a forest reserve of the Government.
Several miles of this forest are made up of the great trees before
mentioned. One variety produces an oil used in Europe for making
varnish. The method of extracting this oil is very curious. A deep cut
is made in the tree near the ground, and in this cut a fire is built
and kept burning until the tree is blackened ten feet or more from the
ground. Then the coals are taken out of the cut, which has become a
sort of cup, into which the oil oozes from the wound made by the fire
on the tender tree. It seems almost cruel to treat the giant trees in
this way. It is astonishing that they survive and heal over the great
blackened scars left on their sides.
Another remarkable thing observed in these forests is the growth of
notable vines and parasites. Here is to be seen a great vine, like
half a dozen grape-vines joined together, climbing high round and into
these splendid trees. The trunk is usually not large, though so tall.
Then high up on this tree a spore of the peepul-tree finds a lodgment,
and sprouts, the leaf upward, the root running downward, hugging
close to the tree as if drawing life from the trunk. Sometimes the
young growth starts a hundred feet from the ground. As its main root
descends it throws outside roots which encircle the tree, and these
roots branch again so the whole trunk is soon inclosed in a great net,
ever tightening. Here is seen a very strange thing. These roots do not
overlap, but grow right into each other when they come in contact,
and the union is made without a trace or scar. As these meshes of the
living net grow, they tighten into a hug that kills, first the vine
and then the tree. Each in turn is devoured by the great parasite. Its
net meantime becomes a solid wooden shell, reaching to the ground and
lifting its crown high among the other giants; a tree made great by the
death of two others; a tree and vine, each seemingly having as much
right to live as this parasite that preys on other forest life.
Another singular circumstance annually occurs in the forest. About
the end of January a species of great bees, as large as the American
hornet, come from migrations, nobody knows where, and rest upon the
under side of the branches in the crowns of these great monarchs of the
forest, which sometimes rise two hundred feet from the ground. About
this time some varieties of these trees are in heavy bloom, and no
doubt it is this which brings the bees. They locate on only one or two
kinds of trees, and at once begin to build honeycombs, suspending them
from the under side of the limb. They multiply rapidly, and by March
there are sometimes as many as twenty to thirty swarms on a tree. The
honeycombs are sometimes three feet long, and hang perpendicularly a
foot and a half. The study of these bees is very interesting. They
build on the same trees from year to year.
But the most impressive fact is to observe the method of collecting the
honey. The trees are perfectly smooth, and are often without a limb for
one hundred and fifty feet. The Karens usually collect the honey, and
the Burmese dealers come to the camps to buy it when first secured,
and take much of it away to the towns. How do they get the honey? The
Karens climb up these bare trunks. But how? Some of them are seven
feet thick, and can not be grasped in a man’s arms so as to enable him
to climb. The daring man drives thin bamboo pegs into the bark of the
tree, and goes up on these. More, he drives in the pegs as he climbs!
They are about eight inches long outside of the small portion imbedded
in the bark, and twenty-two inches apart. So the climber, beginning
at the ground, can only place two or three pegs before he begins his
ascent. In all this perilous climb he never has the use of more than
two of these short projections at once. On these he clings with feet
and legs while he must use both hands in driving a new one. To get the
honey, he must wait till night, and then with material for a torch, a
vessel for the honey, and a rope to lower it, he climbs up into the
darkness and out onto the great branches, where with lighted torch he
drives the bees away and cuts off the well-filled honeycomb, and lowers
it to others on the ground. In this manner he takes all the honey from
a tree. A more daring feat for a small return can hardly be imagined.
And nerves of steadier poise are required to prevent the destruction
of the climber. He receives a dollar and a half for clearing one tree.
Surely a life is regarded of little value among these people.
CHAPTER XVI
The Present Situation in Missions
The first century of modern missions has closed under circumstances of
great encouragement, not without its element of deep solicitude. The
last ten or fifteen years have brought to the home Church the report of
more triumphs of the gospel than any like period since the days of the
apostles. All lands are open, or are being opened, to the missionary.
Converts are coming by the tens of thousands annually into our mission
Churches, where even a quarter of a century ago the same missions would
have been content with scores. Missionaries formerly had only those
difficulties to adjust which met the little band of converts, while
to-day they have the problem of the rapidly-growing Church, so recently
gathered out of heathenism.
China has had an upheaval; but all missionaries believe the future
of the Chinese missions is bright with hope. The martyrdom of the
missionaries and the Chinese converts has been as heroic as any in
Christian annals. Whatever the Chinaman may or may not be generally, as
a Christian he has proven himself worthy. The persecuted young Church
will be worthy of the millions of converts that are to be gathered in
when the country has been settled again.
In Southern Asia there has been the famine, far more terrible in its
consequences than the mobs and wars in China. But the famine has been
greatly relieved, and the impress of Christianity and civilization
relieving its worst distress has been wholly good. Many thousands
of converts are presenting themselves to the Church. Baptisms were
discontinued in the famine districts during the year of greatest
distress. But since the famine has ended, we hear of two conservative
brethren baptizing eighteen hundred in three days in Gujarat, with the
prospect of eight or ten thousand others coming into the Christian
community after them in that district alone.
All over the vast Indian field people hitherto counted difficult of
access are ready to listen to the gospel. The Burmese were counted,
until recently, so fortified in their Buddhism that they could not
be induced to accept the gospel; but we find it is not so now. One
missionary, new to the field too, baptized more than one hundred last
year, and he might easily have added many more if he had been properly
supported. What could not a mission, aggressive and large enough to
have momentum, do? It would be easy to add to the young Church in
Southern Asia, being gathered by Methodism, twenty-five thousand
converts annually, if we could be re-enforced only slightly. Yet, as
it is, we must keep accessible people waiting for years till we can
receive them.
There is just now an important movement going on in far away Borneo,
the Southern limit of this vast field. There has recently been
established a colony of Chinese Christian immigrants in the island.
Bishop Warne visited them, and placed a preacher in charge. They are
immigrants from Southern China. Other Christians will follow these
pioneers. They are in immediate contact with the Dyaks, head hunters
of the island, and must have much to do in influencing and probably
beginning a work of conversion among these savages of the Borneo jungle.
All eyes are upon the Philippine Islands, where a new reformation
appears to be going on. Thousands of Catholics, who have never known
the comfort of a pure, simple faith, nor the joy of reading the Word of
God, are crying out for the full gospel light. They are appealing to
the Protestant missionaries for instruction, and they are being led to
a purer faith.
All this array of current mission facts declares that God is owning
his messengers in every land; that he is fairly crowding success on to
the missionaries, to cheer them and quicken the Church in home lands
into something of a true conception of the magnitude and urgency of his
plans for giving the gospel to every creature, and to lift the age-long
night from the Christless nations.
Thus success of missions throws a great burden of work and
responsibility upon the missionaries at the front. It can hardly be
understood in America. In the home land most pastors have Churches,
the whole machinery of which has long been in working order, and
they pursue that work along well-established lines. Their entire
surroundings are of, or are influenced by, the Christian Church, and at
least a Christianized civilization. The pastor is not required to go
outside of the well-known methods of carrying on our Church work.
In the foreign field the contrary is the case. The missionary is
compelled to be a pioneer in methods of work. He is against a living
wall of idolatrous humanity, and he often feels very sorely the lack of
human support and sympathy. He has to carry the finances of the mission
as well. Oftentimes he is the only resource the mission enterprise
has. In the Methodist mission in Southern Asia more property has been
secured by the unaided missionary than through Missionary Societies. In
addition to all the burdens of a surrounding heathenism and of mission
business, the missionary has charge of more Church members than the
average pastor at home. In the Methodist Episcopal Missions of Southern
Asia the members of Annual Conferences, including missionaries and
native members, have more than twice as many Church members to care
for, per man, than the pastors at home, the average being taken in both
cases.
The greatest need of every mission with which the writer is acquainted,
and pre-eminently so in the Methodist Episcopal Mission, is more
well-equipped missionaries. Yet this is exactly what we can not get. We
can only hope that we can maintain about the number of missionaries
on the whole field which we now have. This means if there is any
extension of the field so as to require missionaries in new places,
they must be thinned out in the older parts of the mission. The Church
has candidates for the foreign field, but the Missionary Society has no
money to send them. Recently some of the finest candidates have been
refused for the lack of money for their support, while the missionaries
on the field are fairly staggering under the load they carry, hoping
for delayed re-enforcements, who do not arrive. The disproportion of
work actually in hand, to the men and women who do that work, is most
distressing.
There are great questions of missionary policy to settle. A strong
force of missionaries, adequately superintended by men who are
acquainted with the work they superintend, is the least that can
be asked in our missions. A close and detailed oversight of all
mission interests, working out a far-sighted policy, which changes
only by light that comes by actual experience in mission work, is
of the greatest value. It is clear this superintendency can not be
accomplished by periodical visits of some official whose whole life
has been spent in the home field. A secretary or a Mission Board
is of little account in determining the internal management in any
far-distant field. An occasional visit by some such official may do
incidental good in acquainting the missionaries with the condition in
the home Church, and in bringing to the people at home fresh facts from
the field. But for administrative purposes on the field such visits
are of little or no value.
The Methodist Episcopal Missions in Southern Asia have been most
highly favored in thirteen years of the missionary episcopacy, with
Bishop Thoburn to fill the office of superintendent and leader.
His administration is sure to become more and more monumental as
time reveals its scope and character. It is now clear that no other
episcopal supervision hitherto provided by Methodism is equal to this
missionary episcopacy for the far-distant mission fields.
The success of this policy and of Bishop Thoburn in that office
determines the question of the future policy of the Church in the
administration of the mission field of Southern Asia. The General
Conference of 1900 by a decisive vote increased the missionary
episcopal force in this field, and by an equally decisive vote elected
Dr. E. W. Parker and Dr. F. W. Warne to the missionary episcopacy, and
in co-ordinate authority with Bishop Thoburn.
The election of Dr. Parker as bishop was a general recognition of his
long and pre-eminently successful missionary career. The election of
Dr. Warne to a like office was in response to a like choice of India,
for this younger, but very efficient missionary, whose pastorate
and presiding eldership in the city of Calcutta had been of such a
character as to make him well qualified for the larger office to which
he has been called. But one year has passed since their election, and a
great change has come. Bishop Warne has been eminently acceptable in
his new office, and he has traveled widely throughout the great field
where Methodism has its foothold in the southlands of Asia. But Bishop
Parker’s stalwart form has yielded, after a prolonged battle with an
obscure disease which laid its hand upon him within a few months after
his election. His death demands a reverent pause, while we drink in
renewed inspiration from reflection on his noble Christian manhood and
really pre-eminent service as a missionary.
Bishop Parker had labored over forty-two years as a missionary to
India, and it is a safe statement that in this more than twoscore years
he did more work than any missionary in India of any Church, or perhaps
in any land, in the same time. The work which he did in laying broad
foundations, winning men to Christ, calling into being valuable mission
agencies, and as a masterful, statesman-like administration in the
Church, has classified him, from two separate and distinct sources, as
“the most successful missionary in India.” Every element of his noble
Christian manhood and eminent ability measured up to the requirements
of this exceptional estimate of the missionary and his work.
He has now ascended to his heavenly reward, to be forever with the Lord
and to share in his glory. The cablegram that reached us in America was
brief, but laden with a great sorrow and a greater triumph, “Parker
translated!” We will no more have his counsels, his inspiring presence,
the grasp of his strong hand, or hear his manly voice in Indian
Conferences. For this loss we weep. He was “translated.” In this glad
triumph we are filled with joy. Death is abolished to such a saintly
follower of his Lord passing from mortal vision.
Bishop Parker was ready for other worlds. His recent testimony was
triumphant, in keeping with the godly life he lived. It was fitting
that the good bishop should take his departure from amidst the glorious
Indian hills he had loved so long. His last days were spent in Naini
Tal, amid the most varied mountain scenery in India. Here lies the
lake of wonderful clearness, stretching for a mile in length, filling
the basin. Around the lake is the mall, or broad road. From this
road others branch off, some circular and others zigzagging up the
mountains, which rise a thousand and more feet above the lake, their
sides clad from base to top with, evergreen, pines, and oak. Here
residences, churches, and schools nestle among the trees wherever
space can be found. Here tired missionaries go in May and June to rest
from the fiery heat of the plains below, and to gird themselves anew
with strength as they look upon God’s mountains. From the northern
ridge they look upon the whole mountain amphitheater with its glorious
lake “shimmering” in the sunlight, high-rimmed with its border of
living green, while to the north, stretching hundreds of miles to
east and west, rise the perpetually snow-covered Himalaya mountains.
The picture, one of nature’s wonders, has few equals for inspiring
beauty and grandeur combined. As the man looks through the rare, clear,
mountain air, on peaks and range resting in quiet strength and majesty,
he almost feels as if he was in sight of the eternal hills where God is.
Amid such scenes, with his brave wife by his side, companion of his
missionary labors about him, and a host of God-fearing Christians all
over India, among whom were a multitude of the dusky natives, waiting
in sorrow because they “should see his face no more,” the bishop was
“translated.” As his Lord on the Mount of Olivet took one look upon his
disciples, and then a cloud received him and he ascended on high, so
his servant was translated from the hills of Naini Tal; was caught up
amid the clouds to be forever with his Lord.
So the workmen fall. Others labor on, but they are overburdened. They
must be re-enforced. The young native Church must be shepherded.
Thousands of others will join the flock.
Just here we missionaries have our greatest fear. We are the Church’s
representatives. God is with us, and the doors are all open. We have
done all that men and women can do. Will the Church at home sustain us
in the great and glorious task that is appointed to us? This is our
only fear. So loyal and true are many of the hearts at home to the
cause of missions, that it seems unkind to speak of any lack. Yet,
while we love every generous impulse of those who give money and time
to that which, as missionaries, we give our lives and our loved ones,
we love our cause so much the more that we must be true to its urgent
needs and its perils for the want of a little money.
That our advance is retarded over a vast area, that many of our
institutions are imperiled, that native preachers are being dropped
for the lack of the small salary they require, and that we are being
compelled to ask of our Board to give up a section of our India Church
because missionary appropriations are cut down, is but an outline of
our care at this time. To the home Church we look for relief.
This relief can come only in one way. Our people at home, in the most
wonderful prosperity America ever knew, are not increasing their gifts
to missions with their growth in wealth. Some are, but most are not.
The aggregate of all moneys given by the Methodist Episcopal Church
for preaching the gospel in heathen lands is only about twenty-two
cents per member. This is all that is given to declare Christ to the
Christless nations! Our people are giving about forty times as much for
their own religious instruction and for the gospel in Christianized
lands. This proportion is distressing to the missionary who stands
among millions of people who have been waiting nineteen centuries, and
have never yet heard that a Savior had been born into the world.
The writer is convinced that the measurable failure to give to the
cause of missions as our people are able to give, is due to the failure
to get the information to them in an effective way. It is not the
writer’s intention to locate the responsibility or discuss a policy of
raising missionary funds, but clearly a virtual standstill in receipts
under present conditions is defeat for the missionary cause.
One fact is certain, our present methods of raising funds leaves the
majority of our people without feeling the immediate and imperative
need of this cause, or inspiring them with the certainty of gaining
a great result by the investment of money in missions. We are in the
second year of the “Thank-offering” movement, and more than eleven
million dollars have been pledged toward the “Thank-offering,” and
certainly not nearly one hundred thousand dollars of this amount has
gone to missions. Not one dollar in a hundred!
One chief reason why this disparity exists is because all other causes
have employed special agencies to reach every nook and corner of the
Church, and the cause of missions is being operated at long range and
on general principles, often as only one of the “benevolences,” and
must necessarily fail to advance to any considerable extent under
present conditions and absolute restrictions.
But there are hopeful indications. Some officials and some pastors
begin to see the situation and to inquire what can be done to relieve
the straits. A number of loyal souls are tenderly giving their most
cherished treasures to the cause of missions. In a year’s campaign at
home I have come in heart-touch with so many such that I would gladly
believe there is a multitude who cherish the cause of missions as
supreme, as it really is.
The Mission Conference in Burma, little company that it is, is being
re-enforced by a promising band of six missionaries, long overdue it is
true, but now gladly and gratefully received. Nearly all of these are
being sent by the sacrifice of people who give largely of that which
is a sacrifice to give. One missionary family is being sent out and
sustained for a part of this year by more than fifteen hundred dollars
given by the preachers of the Kansas and the St. Louis Conferences.
This very large giving of men of very small resources to a special
object that touched their hearts has put new courage into all our
little Burma Mission. In this giving they have helped put true-hearted
missionaries in the field, and I believe permanently enlarged their
sympathy for missions, if indeed they have not also indicated an
improved policy of raising mission funds.
The Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, through some of its young lady
Auxiliaries, is doing most generous things for the re-enforcements to
Burma.
Burma has waited long for even small re-enforcements, and needs yet
many other things before it is fairly launched as a mission. But with
the re-enforcements we have now in immediate prospect, we are so
encouraged we can return to our field and take up the work with renewed
courage and hope, knowing of the increased number of friends of
missions who support us with money and prayerful sympathy.
A hope I often cherished in times of great weariness and discouragement
seems in part being realized. Many times in Rangoon, when wearied to
exhaustion with the work of two or three men, I have gone up to the
Sway Dagon Pagoda, and, looking upon its gilded mass and the Burmans
chanting their meaningless laudations, I have longed for heralds
enough to bring these people the gospel instead of Buddhism, and to
replace the pagodas of the land with Christian Churches; longed for
re-enforcements that came not. Then I turned into the northeast corner
of the pagoda area and looked upon the graves of the British officers
who fell in the war of 1852 while storming that pagoda. Then down the
slope up which that band of Anglo-Saxons charged, to the graves of
soldiers who were buried where they fell. My blood warmed with the
thought that these men gave their lives without a word of complaint for
their queen whom they loved, and the flag which they raised over this
far-distant land, to the immense benefit of the land of Burma. Then I
remembered that the world-wide empire of which this is a part had been
secured and maintained by men who, as these, had laid down their lives
for the flag they loved.
From this scene and its suggestions I turned away, encouraged to hold
my post till re-enforcements would come up for the preaching of the
gospel of the Son of God, who sent me to Burma. Here was a very human
kind of encouragement. Looking up the shining pagoda shaft I saw a
sprout of the peepul-tree, the sacred tree of Buddhism, which grows
anywhere on any surface where its spores can find lodgment; which when
neglected has torn to fragments hundreds of pagodas, here springing
from the great pagoda two hundred feet from the ground. It had found an
opening through the gold leaf, or perhaps had been buried in the mortar
with which its surface had been plastered, and had sent its roots deep
into the brick mass of the pagoda; while its green branches grew in a
thriving cluster over the gilded sides. What did it matter that this
tree was two hundred feet from the ground, and had no moisture save
what its roots could extract from the dry bricks and its leaves draw
out of the air! This peepul-tree can thrive anywhere!
Beautiful symbolism! The gilded colossal pagoda represents the lifeless
system of hoary Buddhism. The growing young tree represents the
religion of Jesus Christ, filled with the life of the Son of God. It
will crumble Buddhism back to dust, as that tree, if fostered, will
destroy the pagoda, Buddhism’s most ornate symbol. Looking on this
scene, my heart took new courage, as under Divinely-given cheer, to
labor on for the salvation of the Buddhists and other people of Burma.
When describing the pagoda and its surrounding, at Adams, New York,
I dwelt at some length on the graves of the English soldiers there,
and spoke of their courage and self-sacrifice. There was a large
congregation present, nearly all of whom were strangers to me. At the
close of the service I saw a little man start from the rear of the
church and make his way down the side aisle, then across the church,
and as he came he quickened his step; and grasping my hand he exclaimed
with trembling voice: “I tried to come to church this morning, having
heard a man from Burma was to speak; but I could not get here. I live
nine miles back in the Adirondacks, and I drove in to-night to hear
you. I am so glad those graves of the English soldiers are cared for; I
was in the regiment that stormed that pagoda hill in 1852.” He wrung my
hand and shed tears of gladness because I came from Burma and brought
him a voice from the land of the stirring scenes of his soldier life of
forty-eight years ago.
There will be a day when every pagoda will crumble down, every mosque
and Hindu temple fall into decay, and Christian churches stand in their
places, and Burma, as all other parts of this needy world, will be
fully redeemed. In a brighter world there will be a time of rejoicing
over the gospel triumphs, and all who in person or by proxy aided in
the gospel victories in all the world, shall strike glad hands, like
the old soldier, and say, “I was there and helped in the glorious
work.”
CHAPTER XVII
Benefits of British Rule in Southern Asia
The missionary is one of the most interested students of government
that can be found. Good or bad government affects his work vitally.
Not only does good government give him protection from violence, but
it gives settled peace to the people among whom he preaches, and thus
provides the best conditions for the success of his calling. He can
not wait for good government where it is not; but where he has the
benefits of a settled state of society that is protected by wholesome
laws promptly executed, he is one of the first men to recognize the
priceless benefits of such government. Then he looks to the effect
of government on the general conditions of the people. His views of
government are not narrow. He looks ahead to the final effect on the
mass of the people of the Government under which he lives. From every
standpoint the missionaries whose fields lie under the British flag are
best situated of all men of like calling in foreign lands. It therefore
comes to pass that all missionaries, of whatever nationality, living
in Southern Asia are almost a unit in praise of the Government. This
Government, which has for more than forty years given protection to
life, calling, and property of its nearly three hundred million diverse
peoples, and that in unbroken peace, deserves the highest approval of
all fair-minded men.
Life is as well protected in Southern Asia as it is in almost any land.
The highest in the land and the meanest coolie are alike protected
before the law. Where any man thinks he can insult or assault with even
a little lordliness there is recourse to the law, and that within reach
of the lowliest and the poorest, and he can get evenhanded justice for
any injury, and that quickly. Perhaps in no land is the man of high
and the man of low degree dealt with with more evenhanded and prompt
justice than in Southern Asia. There are many social distinctions made
in Asia, most of all in Southern Asia, peculiar to the land, and the
Government adds its official distinctions and social ranks. But when
it comes to the law and its administration in protection against all
oppression and injustices, these social conditions have no place. It
appears to be true that in a Briton’s mind there are two places where
men of all stations have equal rights--before a court, and at the
sacramental altar in the church. Every man is protected in the exercise
of his religious faith, and must not be molested by any. To revile
another’s religion is to bring down the swift penalty of the law.
It is possible for missionaries and other travelers to come and go
anywhere in the Indian Empire without a thought as to their personal
safety, as that is assured. Even unattended ladies make long journeys,
and with only native carriers, sometimes travel in unfrequented regions
and in the darkness; but so far as I can learn, there has not for many
years been an insult offered to one of them. Some of our own workers
live and travel in remote regions, even on the extreme borders of the
empire, and sometimes these are lone women; but we do not hear of even
serious inconveniences to them on account of their isolation. This
is due chiefly to the Government, which protects life, persons, and
calling.
It is, therefore, not surprising that the missionaries are among the
most devoted supporters of the British Government in Southern Asia.
It is likely they would support any Government under which they would
find themselves called to work. They would teach their converts loyalty
and obedience to law. But it is a great gain to be able to say to all
the peoples of the Indian Empire that the Government under which they
find themselves is one of the very best the world has produced. And if
it were necessary to say it, they could truthfully add, better than
any possible Government by native rulers, better for themselves, and
better for all people in the land. It is a great pleasure to American
missionaries to acknowledge the good government of India, for in it
they find many of the best principles in which they believe. So far as
I can learn, this just tribute from the American missionaries is well
nigh universal among them, and the older they are and the longer they
have lived in any part of this great empire, the more confirmed they
are in their views.
Of all the institutions of the Government that are most to be
commended, the courts are perhaps the most notable. There are several
features of these courts which are specially commendable. They are
prompt to a degree. Long, vexatious delays over technicalities of law
are most unusual. It is not infrequent that a serious breach of law is
brought to account very soon, and finally settled. Certain it is that
money and influence and the “tricks of lawyers” can not long delay
final decision on any case. Then there is no crowding to the wall the
poor man without influence or money to aid him. The poorest can sue as
a pauper, and have his case heard in regular order with the rich man of
high station. He can get as certain justice, based on evidence. Cases
are on record in recent years to illustrate how the socially high and
even the official class have been rebuked and punished at the plaint
of the lowliest in the land. They would be well worth recording if
their publication would not be understood as too personal. It is this
absolutely even-handed justice that has called out the comment of the
native of India, “The English judge is not afraid of the face of man.”
No partiality is shown for race or condition.
The system of Government seems to be well worthy of study. There is
the viceroy, and associated with him, but not limiting his powers, a
Council representing the entire Empire. There are lieutenant-governors
over provinces. Then there are chief commissioners over portions of
the country that are not regarded of sufficient importance to have
lieutenant-governors. Under both these officials the next officers
in rank are commissioners over divisions, and these in turn have
deputy commissioners under them who administer districts. Below the
deputy commissioners there are several lesser officers, usually over
townships, but having a wide range of duties. From viceroy down to
deputy commissioners the officers have certain executive, or executive
and judicial powers combined. The higher officers have also authority
to some extent in military affairs.
The army is made up of British troops and native soldiers, with a great
preponderance of the latter. There are also many belonging to the
military police. The same division is made in the civil police. The
police department is perhaps the most difficult branch of Government to
keep efficient and free from scandal, but there are many worthy men in
the police service.
In addition to the regular administrative officers mentioned there are
departmental officers, such as an engineering corps, which has the care
of all public works. There is the growing educational department and a
medical department including care of prisons, hospitals, and a great
forestry department, that conserves the valuable forests of the empire.
There is also a department of marine with full official equipment.
There is a civil service system operating throughout all these
departments of government, including even the most subordinate
clerkships. The higher officials are usually brought out from some
part of Britain, and have been taken into Government employ after
the severest examinations. Their promotions are given by grade and
service, allowing also for special promotions for distinctive service.
Having been so placed that I have had to do with a wide range of these
officials, in most departments of the service, it becomes a great
pleasure to me to record the character of their official conduct as
I have found it in personal dealing. In the first place, they almost
without exception are men of courteous, gentlemanly manners. This alone
goes far to smooth the way in official transactions. Then I have found
them generally men who are very fair and even generous in dealings
where public interests, missionary matters, or property have been
dealt with. This is partly due to the system of aid given especially
to schools with which both the Government and the missionary have to
do, and partly due to fair dealing on general principles, which I
am led to believe from an experience all over the province of Burma
for a period of ten years, and from inquiries from others of longer
experience, is a British characteristic. This is especially true of
the better cultivated men. The snobbery of the uneducated Briton is
equal to that of the American of the same class. In the whole range of
my experience I have never met with other than manly treatment from
officials but twice, and then these were not of the higher ranks, and
one of them can not be said to be a Briton. If an officer might be
disposed to be unfair, he knows that there is a superior above him that
is ready to correct any abuse. But the whole system of Indian service
is well worth study, for it is not a creation of a day, but the best
fruit of England’s extensive colonial experiences. In this matter it
is well worth study, especially on the part of America, which has now
to enter upon the rule of large and distant possessions. It is also to
be noted that the wonder of England’s Government is that she has been
able to allow of a diversity of Governments in her several possessions
suited largely to local conditions, so that no two of her colonies are
entirely alike, and yet she has been able to give protection, justice,
and the largest measure of liberty to each country that the people are
able to utilize for their own good. In these respects it is only fair
to say her system of Government over remote and diverse peoples is the
best yet seen on this globe.
[Illustration: BURMESE FESTIVAL CART]
There is also a striking feature of the Government of municipalities
in India. Municipalities have not wholly self-government, yet they
are so ordered that the popular will has a representation, even when
it retards the actual progress of the city, as it not infrequently
does. The municipalities are governed by commissioners, about half
of whom are elected by the people, and the other half are appointed
by Government. The latter are not Government officers, however. They
may be as democratic in their votes as any member of the municipal
committee. But these commissioners are representative of the different
native races, as well as the Europeans in the city. In a city like
Rangoon there are several great race divisions that are recognized on
the municipal committee, both elective and appointive. In the election
of these commissioners appears one of the most extreme examples of the
democratic principles that the writer knows of anywhere. Perhaps it
has no parallel. In the case of the ballot, it is allowed freely to
_all Europeans and Americans_ on exactly the same conditions. They, as
aliens, never having become British subjects, and never intending to do
so, _have the ballot the same as an Englishman_. This broad democracy
has greatly surprised many Americans when I have told them of it. The
alien has a right to hold the office of city commissioner, if elected,
the peer of the native-born Briton. This is the broadest democracy
found anywhere within the defined limits of franchise.
The Government has a vast system of railroads in India amounting to
sixteen thousand miles, with many other extensions and new lines in
prospect. These roads now reach nearly all the districts which could
sustain them. They are sometimes built for military purposes, but they
are mostly directed for the carrying of traffic in times of peace.
The province of Burma, one of the later provinces to be thoroughly
developed, is having railroads to all its principal sections, and
some of these roads are being projected to the very borders. That to
Kunlon is extended to the borders of China. They also talk of a line
from Rangoon through Western China, and there is every likelihood
of connections direct with Bengal. So the old world moves under the
impetus of Western enterprise. The telegraphs attend the railway, and
exist even far outside of railway lines to all parts of the empire and
to foreign lands. Let it be remembered that probably none of these
improvements would have been thought of in the country had not it been
taken in hand by an enlightened and enterprising people from the West.
Great systems of canals have been constructed, and more than thirty
million acres of land are irrigated, and famine in this area is forever
forestalled. Larger plans are being suggested by the recent famine.
The famine relief works constructed many tanks on land too high for
irrigation from running streams.
Good pavements in cities and good roads have been made in the land
universally. These roads are nearly all metaled and kept in good order.
Public buildings of the most substantial and imposing kind are built in
all capital cities. The Government wisely erects buildings in keeping
with its own governmental ideas, and with its declared intention of
remaining in the land to work out its plans. The public parks and
gardens are on an elaborate scale, and are enjoyed by everybody.
The memorials to great men of India and the great men who have made
India British territory are placed in all public gardens. Great men
and great deeds are set before the world as they should be, that the
world may emulate them. The latest design is to build a memorial to
Queen Victoria in the city of Calcutta, to which many of the rajahs of
India are subscribing. The building is to cost perhaps more than five
million dollars, and while it is a great memorial to Queen Victoria, it
is to be a museum of great men of India as well. There will be other
memorials established in other cities of the Indian Empire also. The
taxes of the Government are reasonable. They are mostly placed directly
on the earning power of the individual, or tax upon land assessed in
proportion to the amount of grain it produces, There is also a tax on
houses in villages outside municipalities. The land tax is very just.
If the land produces regular good crops, it is taxed accordingly. If
there is a failure of crops, the tax is reduced or remitted. As land
needs rest, it is allowed a tax at fallow rates, which is very light
indeed. The income tax is collected chiefly in cities, but of all
Government employees, beginning with the viceroy. This tax is two per
cent per month. This is to be paid out of the monthly salary. But it is
said this tax only reaches one out of three hundred and fifty of the
native-born inhabitants of India.
The Government claims to own the land, very much as the American
Government owns the public lands. But, of course, the greater part of
this land comes into the ownership of the people, and is transferable
as elsewhere in the world. In the comparatively rich province of
Burma, where there has been until recently much of the very best land
of the tropical world lying idle, grown into grass and forests--land
that never was cultivated, the land is given out freely to would-be
cultivators. They only have to show that they are prepared to cultivate
it. They have to pay nothing but for its survey. When it is cultivated
they get a title to it, and then they can sell it as the actual owners.
If it is grass land, the cultivators are allowed one year exemption
from tax. If forest land, ten years are allowed exemption. A more
liberal plan could not be devised than this. It is just here that
England’s policy in the country is shown. If a Burman asks for a piece
of land, and a European, any Englishman indeed, asks for the same
piece of land, the Burman will surely get it. One becomes more and
more convinced that the policy of Government in India is to govern for
the best interests of the Government. There is another great plan of
Government to aid agriculture. The people of all parts of the Indian
Empire are chiefly agricultural. They are like all Asiatics, great
borrowers of money. They generally mortgage the crop by the time it
springs out of the soil. The native money-lender demands as much as
three per cent a month; but here the Government comes forward, and
agrees to loan the agriculturalist money at six per cent a year, and
allow him to repay it in partial payments. This is eminently fair, and
any man can get it who can show that he can repay it, and can give two
personal securities. This seems a very liberal proposition.
The Government has also devised a great school system to aid in popular
education. The schools of Southern Asia have been almost entirely
in the hands of the various religions of the land. The Government
has undertaken to work out a plan by which a very large part of this
education can be put under popular control, and yet be allowed to
remain under the direction of the various religious communities that
conduct schools. Of course, under the old order there was but a small
part of the community allowed to go to school, and the teaching was of
an inferior kind. Government would promote education and give a fixed
standard. To do this they had to put the secular instruction of all
schools under the Government, and allow the religious instruction to
be carried out according to the ideas of every society concerned. So
that we witness Mohammedan, Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist schools,
all drawing aid from Government, and all passing the same Government
examinations in secular subjects, but each imparting its own religious
instructions. To aid in this educational scheme, the Government will
give grants in putting up buildings, in paying accredited teachers, and
in giving grants to current expenses on passes secured in Government
examinations. In addition, the Government has built up certain schools
entirely under its control, where no religion is taught.
In all this it will be seen that the Government, in keeping with its
declared purpose and position, is neutral in the matter of religion. It
ought to be clear to all who will see it, that the Christian Church
should avail itself of all this educational plan that is possible, so
as to mold the minds of all the young in Christian principles. Nearly
all mission schools are identified with this educational system, but
there is opportunity for much more of the same kind of work.
There is another great and merciful arm of Government to be mentioned.
In every municipality, and even in large villages, there is hospital
treatment for all who need medical or surgical aid. All this is freely
given to every applicant.
All cities and large towns have great hospitals where medicines
and food and shelter in bad cases are given freely to men of all
races and creeds. No disease is turned away, and no sick man denied
attention. This charitable effort of Government is far-reaching in its
beneficence. It is not so valuable as it might be, because it has a
prejudice of the populace to deal with. But the amount of suffering
that is relieved by Government in all the empire is enormous.
In cases of epidemics there is a Government order to fight the disease
in an organized way. If it is smallpox, which is very prevalent,
public vaccination is enforced. Cholera epidemics are taken in hand
vigorously, water purified, and quarantine established, until the
pestilence is put under control.
The last four years has called out all the agencies of a great
Government to battle with the Bubonic plague and the famine. It is now
more than four years since the plague began its ravages in India,
and a little over three years since the famine began its course of
devastation. Both of these dire visitations were grappled with from the
start, and the battle is still being waged.
A competent board of physicians and a large force of skilled nurses
were quickly organized, and they have been unremitting in their
efforts, and many of these have fallen victims to their difficult and
dangerous duty. A system of inspection was at once established on all
railroads and steamship lines throughout India and along its coasts.
Every traveler, irrespective of race or rank, has been examined by
medical experts. Yet in spite of this precaution the deadly scourge
has insidiously worked its way almost throughout the empire. But still
the Government grapples with the pestilence. One can feel something of
its terrors when it is noted that ninety-four per cent of all who are
seized by the plague die. Six hundred thousand have died of the plague
in five years. The greatest hostility has been shown at times by the
native population, in opposing the most necessary plague regulations.
With plague almost all over the empire, the Government had at the same
time to undertake a most extensive plan for relieving a famine that
was ever undertaken by any Government in human history. The famine
had only one immediate cause--the lack of rain. The greater rains
over almost all India occur between June and September. For years on
overlapping territory the rains failed, or were deficient. The world
knows the story. One-fourth of the nearly three hundred millions of
this population of the empire were in the terrors of famine, with
its slow starvation of man and beast, with its attendant cholera,
plague, and other diseases. It is worthy of cordial recognition and
perpetual memory that this gigantic specter was met by a Christian
Government. It was not a Mohammedan or Hindu people which fought back
this monster calamity, but a Government and a people whose sympathies
were Christian. The Christians hurried to the relief of those of
non-Christian belief and alien people, and hardly thought of their
race or religion. They only knew they were starving communities of
fellow-beings, and they put forth supreme efforts to relieve their
hunger and other ills due to the famine. Yes, this was done by a
Christian Government, aided by private Christian beneficence of distant
lands, while their own co-religionists, having money in many cases,
owning nearly all the grain in the empire, enough to have fed all the
hungry at every stage of the famine, gave practically nothing for
famine relief! They held their feasts, organized their tiger hunts,
looked on the dance of the impure nautch-girl, and reveled while their
people starved and died, or owed their life to a foreign race of the
Christian faith.
The Government of India spent $92,650,000 on famine relief during 1899
and 1900. The relief works were open nearly two years before that,
and help on a large scale continues still. This is the most gigantic
effort of all human history to meet a great national calamity. Strange
that these noble and statesman-like efforts should have been belittled
by any, much less by some who should have known better.
The census of 1901 has been gathered, and these columns of figures tell
their sad story of suffering and death in the famine districts. Of
India’s two hundred and eighty-six millions of ten years ago, sixty-six
millions were residents in native-protected States. The census of 1901
shows that British India increased its population by ten millions,
while the peoples of the native States decreased three millions.
British territory increased its population by four and one-half per
cent, and the-native States decreased by four and one-half per cent.
A close inspection of the figures shows the decrease to be largely due
to the famine. What would have been the death-rate but for the English
Government’s immense relief?
The missionaries worked hand in hand with the British officers, and I
have never heard that either has ever spoken except in words of praise
of the other’s labors. This proves that good Governments and faithful
missionaries are invaluable to each other.
A crowning proof of the good government of Britain in India, is in
the fact that her population does not migrate to any adjacent State
where there is limited or unlimited native rule. But from all such
States there is a steady stream of immigration pouring into British
territory. None of India’s peoples migrate in any numbers to any
Oriental or Occidental country, but from every Oriental land there
are immigrants to sojourn or to settle in India under the justice,
protection, and peace of British rule.
The tropical world is fast coming under Western domination. These lands
must be lifted by new blood from the North and West, and must serve
the needs of our race. While this process is going on, the world can
afford to be happy over the fact that so large a part of the tropical
countries is under British rule.
Transcriber’s Notes
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