Missions from the modern view

Introduction

The lectures following contribute to the solution of a problem at once intricate and fascinating. That problem is the readjustment of missionary ideals and methods to the modern state of knowledge. To admit the need of readjustment in the field of missions is to place that field in the same honorable category with every other field of lofty human enterprise. Readjustment means growth, progress, augmentation of power, as the effects of increased knowledge and experience. It would be mistaken loyalty to great leaders of the past to contend that their successors in work must occupy the same point of view and practice the same methods. The great leaders of the past, could they speak to us, would protest against such well-meant but erroneous conservatism. They themselves were prophets, gazing beyond the things they saw, and testifying beforetime of a better day to come after them. William Carey, of Serampore, was a statesman and a prophet. None can stand in his Hbrary, or look upon his buildings on the river bank, or trace the outline of his missionary policy without realizing that his mind anticipated and g INTRODUCTION

foresaw developments of opinion and method that must in time reconstruct the thinking of Christian missionaries in many particulars. The prophecies of some of these early leaders are being fulfilled. The literatures and religions of the East are studied in the West. The strategic posts of service in India and the Far East are occupied by an increasing number of men whose training, historically, philosophically, socially, qualifies them to see clearly and to handle tactfully the most splendid problem of modern times, the Christianization of the Asiatic consciousness.

It is correct and necessary that in the readjustment of missionary ideals and methods the initiative shall be taken by missionaries themselves and not by their academic advisers and critics at home. Without doubt there are aspects of the situation that can best be realized at long range, by those who are not involved in the responsibilities and limitations of denominational service abroad. Many missionaries are disqualified, by unavoidable conditions, for a judgment of authority upon the true policy of the Church in erecting Christian institutions in non-Christian lands. Stationed in remote communities ; absorbed in local operations ; restricted, perhaps, by the sectarian spirit of the ecclesiastical body to which they are responsi-

INTRODUCTION S

ble; 'deprived of opportunities for travel and extensive generalization, not a few members of the foreign missionary force are relatively unacquainted with contemporary Eastern opinion, in circles of influence. As compared with the limited field of missionaries thus situated, it is probable that an intelligent and sympathetic view is more readily attained at a distance and under conditions absolved from sectarian restraint. But the view thus obtained is likely to be invalidated, in important particulars, by lack of local knowledge. The armchair theorists of the West may endeavor to be fair, and may actually possess a substantial basis of technical information. But without first-hand knowledge of the Eastern land, the Eastern atmosphere, the Eastern mind and soul, all theory formulated in the West may be fallacious. Hence the necessity that, in the readjustment of missionary ideals and methods, the initiative shall proceed from those whose ex- .J perience in the field is co-ordinated with broad theoretical training. It is one of many splendid features of modern missionary activity that persons are to be found at important posts of foreign duty who join ripe experience with thoroughgoing culture. These are they to whom all parties in interest must look, for correct interpretations of existing conditions and

4 INTRODUCTION

fertile suggestions of procedure. It is very striking to observe that these modern leaders, although allied ecclesiastically with Churches of the West that perpetuate hereditary divergences of doctrine and practice, are agreed in certain fundamental positions. They are quite at one in recognizing that the heart of the East already contains the principle of religious aspiration, and is hungering and thirsting for God. They agree that the policy of Christian Missions toward existing religious experience must be that of Christ, Who came not to destroy but to fulfill; to conserve the reality, however dwarfed or perverted in mode of expression, and to invest that deficient reality with the rich content of the revelation of God in Christ Jesus. They agree that the Christianization of the Asiatic consciousness does not mean its transformation into the likeness of the West; and that the Mission of the Holy Ghost in the East may be to produce an Oriental Christianity different in institutional form and in temperament from the Christianity of Europe and America.

Dr. Hume's lectures admirably illustrate the readjustment of ideals and methods that has taken place already in the most intelligent circles of foreign missionary workers. These lectures are a gospel for the West. They show

INTRODUCTION 5

how far beyond much of our relatively narrow and provincial thinking many of our foremost missionaries have advanced. They summon the Church at home to rise to a higher plane of thought ; to abandon the discussion of out-worn points of controversy; to awake from the sleep of luxury, formahsm, and self -centered religious profession; to respect the aspirations and interests of Eastern peoples ; to advance to an adequate maintenance of scholarly and consecrated men who, by lives of purity and excellence, have disarmed the suspicions and won the respect of Orientals. These great missionary leaders know the situation as it exists. They know how to reach, and they are reaching, the religious consciousness of Asia. They know how to conduct wise operations for the propagation of Christianity in lands for which the Son of God gave His very life. Those operations, conceived in wisdom, conducted in love, are crippled in the most piteous manner by lack of money to maintain them. The Christian churches of the West include in their membership the possessors of enormous wealth. To them may this book speak in tones that shall*' instruct the intellect, admonish the conscience, and enlarge the heart.

Chaeles Cuthbert Hall.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

The first six chapters of this book consist of lectures which were delivered at Andover Theological Seminary, the University of Chicago, the Chicago Theological Seminary, and Bangor Theological Seminary. The last two chapters are exact illustrations of how I have given the Christian message to Indians.

R. A. Hume.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Missions from the Modern View of

II. The Historical Development of Hin-

II The Historical Development Of Hinduism

NOWADAYS it is axiomatic that we know nothing thoroughly unless we know it historically. Especially if we wish to know any subject that is apart from us, it is important to know its history ; how it came to be what it is. In order to know the ethnic religions aright we need to know them historically. As one contribution to such an effort, I offer a statement of how Hinduism came to be what it is. Hinduism is the religion of the Hindus. For the present object of these lectures, my definition of Hinduism is that it is the interpretation by the Hindus, in thought and practice, of what God has been trying to teach them about their relation to Himself and to their fellowmen. The many weaknesses and errors of Hinduism are due to the misapprehension by Hindus of the God who was ever seeking to reveal Himself to them, even while they were f eel- 4>$ ing after Him, if haply they could find Him. I believe that the statement which is now to be made is, in a large and general way, psychologically and chronologically correct. I would not claim more than that it is correct in a large and general way, for more information is likely to suggest some modifications in the description which is now made. But I believe that the religious literature of India, and the present condition of its multitudinous phases, substantiate the positions taken.

Hinduism is not one homogeneous system. It is a conglomeration of beliefs and practices, many of which are inconsistent and contradictory. This is partly because different elements have gone to make up Hinduism, and very naturally in Hinduism, as in other religions, mutually inconsistent beliefs and practices have been followed by the masses without realizing that they were inconsistent. But the same phenomenon appears more or less in all the religions of the world, and in other spheres than the strictly religious. Hinduism is a mixture of inconsistent and contradictory beliefs and practices, partly because the Hindu mind has come to be so constituted that it is not critical and that it easily ^ says " Yes " to almost anything which is presented to it. And, vice versa, the Hindu religion has helped to make the Hindu mind thus vague and in a way comprehensive. Some years ago I was asked to secure for publication in a magazine of the Chicago University, from some recognized Vaishnava authority in western India, a statement of the Vaishnava phase of Hinduism, i. e., the sect of Hinduism which considers Vishnu as the chief god. In order to ascertain who would be regarded as such an authority on Vaishnavism I went to the most prominent and influential Hindu gentleman in western India, the Hon. Mahadev Govind Ranade, who was a Justice of the High Court in Bombay and long president of the Social Conference of India. When I told him what the Chicago University wished me to secure. Judge Ranade replied, " It is impossible for you or anyone to get a statement of any phase of Hinduism which would be entirely acceptable to anyone except the writer, because there is no one recognized statement of Hinduism, and no person authorized to make a complete statement of any phase of

Hinduism." However, with a good deal of difficulty I secured a statement which was submitted first to a Hindu professor of Sanskrit in the Deccan College, Poona, who was a professing Vaishnava. But before he was willing to give even a general sanction to the statement which had been submitted to him he consulted various Hindu shastris, i. e., men learned in Hindu religious books. After such careful examination, when he returned the statement, he did not seem to feel that the paper was an exact statement of what it professed to be. Such an incident partly explains why different persons make different estimates of what Hinduism really is. Generalization is always dangerous without a very large basis of knowledge and experience, and even then only when made by a person of judicial mental habits. Mistaken estimates of Hinduism are very common, because generalizations about it have been made without adequate knowledge and without adequate recognition of the history of Hinduism. Some missionaries have unintentionally made erroneous, because too sweeping, statements of what Hinduism is, because they supposed that those phases of modem popular Hinduism with which they have come in contact among the lower classes — albeit those lower classes form a very large section of the community — were the whole of Hinduism. On the contrary, some Western visitors to India and some Hindu visitors to the West have made equally erroneous statements of what Hinduism is by too sweeping assumptions that the more spiritual conceptions of the philosophic books of the Hindus were the whole of the Hindu religion.

According to the definition of religion used in these lectures, if the religion of any people be taken as their interpretation of what God has been trying to teach them, then a correct statement of the Christian religion would not be a summary of the most spiritual teachings of Jesus Christ. It would be the interpretation in thought and in practice by the Christians in question of the teachings and person of Jesus Christ. Similarly, in a large and broad sense Hinduism is not the most spiritual conception of the most philosophic books. It is the interpretation by the Hindus from early times to the present of their relations to God and men.

In accordance with the modern view of God and the world, which was claimed in the former lecture as the true way for the wise missionary of these times to study Hinduism, I believe that a survey of how it has come to be what it is will show the goodness of God in seeking to reveal Himself to His Hindu children, while it will also show how sadly they have often misunderstood Him. Since God is light and in Him is no darkness at all, He Himself has always been wishing and trying to reveal Himself to His Hindu children as well as to His other children. In fact, it was because He was seeking them that they felt after Him. But even yet the Hindu has not adequately recognized that supreme characteristic of God which Jesus Christ revealed, viz., that God needs His human children, and so longs for them that He counts no sacrifice or effort too great to bring them all into intimate filial relations with Himself.

This study of the historic development of Hinduism will probably give another surprising revelation to some in Christian lands, viz., that just as no feature of the religious history of Israel is more characteristic and inspiring than the frequency with which protestant reformers, or prophets, came to protest against formality, injustice, and impurity among the Hebrews, and to call them back face to face with a righteous, living God, and thereby to strengthen them in trouble and to purify them, so in India there have been many protestants against the imperfections of current religious thought, and many theistic reformers of unsatisfactory living. Probably more protestant reformers have appeared in the religious history of India than in the religious history of Israel; perhaps more than in the Christian Church. While this statement may seem surprising to some, is it not what we should expect from such a living, righteous, spiritual, loving God, as has been revealed to us by Jesus Christ ? The Lord Jesus never implied or said that God the Father of the spirits of all men had through what Jesus himself did or said become different from what He evermore had been and must be. Jesus Christ came to reveal the Father, not to make God a Father. " The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath revealed Him," not made him different. " He that hath seen the Son hath seen the Father," i, e,, hath seen God as He evermore is, not as He has become changed to be through Christ's revelation.

This study will also illustrate the correctness of the remark in a former lecture that one common weakness in the religion of any man or people consists in a mistake about proportion, in one-sidedness, in over-emphasis of one phase of truth and in neglect of other phases. It will also bring into new clearness and significance the fact that Jesus Christ is the one in whom the fullness of God dwells: and that as in the fullness of time twenty centuries ago He came to fulfill what was in the bud in the Judaic system, so in the present fullness of time for India He seeks to fulfill all partial and imperfect apprehensions of truth which in mixed measure or in great error have been perceived by the religious teachers of that country. Such a study will also bring into prominence the marvelous patience of God in dealing with His human children: a patience so beautifully expressed in the Biblical phrase, "With God a thousand years are as one day."

This delineation of the historical development of Hinduism will also bring out the usual double tendency in thought and life everywhere — ^both the upward and the downward pull. What Paul taught on this point is the ordinary experience in aU human nature ; not only the human nature of the Jew and the Greek, but also of the Hindu. The spirit and the flesh are at enmity with one another. That is, God is ever trying to pull men up, and the lower elements of human nature are always trying to pull men away from God. Because the downward tendency often had temporary victory in Israel, God sent protestant reformers or prophets to that chosen people of His. So, because the downward tendency has been more characteristic of Hinduism than of the religion of Israel, God has sent protestant reformers to that people also. The higher the spiritual vision which was reached by any of the religious leaders and thinkers of India, the sadder the fruits of modern popular Hinduism appear in the well-nigh universal prevalence of idolatry, ignorance, superstition, and caste in that country, until the glorious Gospel of the blessed God as revealed in Jesus Christ has brought to that land its fullness of time and has

54f MISSIONS from the JMODERN VIEW

begun to dissipate the darkness and error of modern popular Hinduism.

With these prehminary illustrations of what the history of Hinduism will illustrate, I now briefly state how Hinduism has come to be what it is, viz., a conglomerate or mixture of the diff*erent religious thoughts and practices of the Hindus for centuries. Without giving many explicit illustrations of the religious practices of Hindus, I shall speak briefly of those influences or ideas which have been formative, and which have been embodied in cultus, as well as in thought. Sometimes a succession of religious strata is recognizable, like geological strata on the surface of the earth. But because religion is a living thing, more often the diff*erent phase? of life which have made up Hinduism have become very much intermingled. For this reason it is not now easy to distinguish the diff*erent elements.

In general, the hill tribes and low castes of India are largely the survivors of those people of Kolarian or Dravidian origin who inhabited India before the Aryans entered that land. In the religious thought and practices of these lower classes of the community we see a large measure of the earliest formative principle of what has brought about the huge religious mass now called the Hindu religion. That first formative principle was the principle of fear. Fear is a considerable part of the religion of many, perhaps of most, men in most religions. But certainly in the thought and practice of the lower classes in India fear easily was, and still is, the original and most essential principle ; fear of the unknown, of the dark, because it includes the unknown; of dangerous places and dangerous animals ; of unexplained and strange phenomena, such as eclipses, comets, etc. ; fear of disease, of death, etc. As primitive Hindus came into contact with such phases of life they naturally wished and sought for escape from such fearful influences. And they sought to secure escape by propitiating the unknown and the terrible. Once as I was going for a tramp on a mountain range my guide said, " Before we start, let me go and make a vow to my god." I followed him, and after he had stood a moment under a sacred tree, I asked, " Wliat did you vow? " He replied, " I vowed to hang a bell in the tree, if I should see no snake on this excursion." Snakes are the objects most feared in those hills, and the reason why, without understanding the real reason, he vowed to hang a bell in the branches was, no doubt, this: Snakes are afraid of noises. Therefore, whenever the wind shakes the tree and makes the bell tinkle, a snake dislikes to stay under that tree. So it is not strange that those rude and superstitious people vaguely connect a sacred tree having bells hanging in its branches with some power which helps to drive away snakes.

The second formative principle in the development of Hinduism came from the early immigrants of Aryan stock. It was principally the influence of the more helpful phases of Nature. This fact appears in the hymns of the Rig Veda. Songs, prayers, and offerings are made to the sky, sun, moon, dawn, woods, fire, rain, etc. This fact is so well known that illustrations from Vedic hymns are hardly needed. When those earliest Aryans came in contact with the dark-skinned Dravidians who were in the land before them, then that happened which usually happens when people of different religious ideas intermingle. The religion of the earlier people absorbed something from the brighter, the more cheerful thought of their Aryan masters, while the religion of the Aryans was also affected somewhat by the darker aspects of their servants' religion. Masters cannot help being influenced by the ideas and practices of servants, even as servants cannot help being influenced by the ideas and practices of their masters. However far one advances into the labyrinth of Hinduism, he always finds superstition, devils, demons, magic, witchcraft, and uncanny things, which are the earliest element of Hinduism surviving to the present day in the religion of a great many Hindus. Yet the brighter aspect of Nature, which was the special contribution of the primitive Aryans to Hinduism, has also had its part in making Hinduism what it is to-day. The justification of this position and an illustration of the mingling of these two elements can be given from the well-known fact that the Atharva Veda, which is later than the Rig Veda, has both the hymns of the Rig Veda and the magic and charms and maledictions which came from the first element of Hinduism. Superstition lingers very, very long in man, and even those who consider themselves most cultured and most philosophical in the most privileged sections of America still have many strange and injurious superstitions influencing them in thought and life.

As life became more complex and the roving companies of Aryans settled into community life, and society became more coherent, and the interests of different communities seemed to clash, and difficulties increased, a third formative influence came into the making of the religion of India. The characteristics of strong leaders of the community became more valued and more influential than the various aspects of physical Nature. Men of strength and courage were considered worthy of more honor. They were praised not only while alive, but after their death, and the apotheosis of former heroes became a prominent principle in the thought and life of the country. In all religions hero-worship has been a prominent and formative influence. In the period succeeding Vedic times hero-worship was the principal element in literature and in religion. It certainly was so in the epic poems which have exerted so great an influence in India, and it was so even in times earlier than the great epics.

But as life became still more complex, and as knowledge and skill naturally took precedence of physical force and courage, wise men became more and more influential, and the memories of wise men gone received more and more attention and became objects of reverence in the thought of the times. In no country has knowledge come to have the preeminence that it has had in India. There knowledge is the great thing. Nothing in Indian thought and Hfe, neither money, material advantages, social prominence, nor political power, have ever been such objects of respect and desire as they are in the West. It is knowledge or wisdom which is the great thing. Even the rites and institutions of religion have been valued by the thoughtful in India not for their own sakes, but as the means of securing knowledge. And as knowledge came to have such a preeminence it grew into the belief that man's spirit is not only his chief element, is not mortal; it is a part of or is even identical with the universal and immortal. There was nothing too much to inquire into. Yet even in those times the teachers of India recognized some limitations to the understanding. In the Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad III. 6 after a pupil had over and over again pushed inquiries in ontology the teacher Yajnavalkya said, " Do not over-question lest your head fall off. In truth you are over-questioning a divinity about which further questions cannot be asked." There are two results of this kind of thinking. One result was the feeling that nothing is real: that life is not worth living. In other words, the first result was pessimism. It was just the result which came to the thinker in Ecclesiastes, " Vanity of vanities ; all is vanity." The other result was that the thinkers knew, and plain men knew, that this kind of philosophy was of no use for the masses ; and so endless rites and meaningless ceremonies were placed upon the common crowd, which came to be a yoke that pressed most sorely upon their hearts and lives.

So, while search by the intellect for a better understanding of the inward meaning of religion was an upward response to what God was trying to teach the Hindus, yet in this connection there developed one of the greatest dangers to true religion, viz., pride of intellect and contempt of common men. The thinkers sought to spin out their speculation finer and finer, but they did not consider how they could better help their less cultivated fellowmen. They sought knowledge only for itself. For the masses they formed an exoteric system of rituals and sacrifices, and for the initiated an esoteric system. While theoretically rites and sacrifices were elevated into usage only for the common people, the priests and teachers themselves fell into the practice because they could not command such practices on the masses without themselves taking a part in what they commanded. The word Yoga, meaning " union," is a principal word at this time, and Yoga as both the aim and the means of union with the divine was made to consist largely in terrible austerities. Religion became mainly a yoke of ceremonies and formulas, beginning for the individual before he was bom and continuing for two or three generations in his family after he had left this world. The object of Yoga was not to develop

62 MISSIONS frovi the MODERN VIEW

into their fullest exercise the natural powers of body and mind, and all the sweet relations of human society, but to restrict and put them away. The result was disastrous in two directions. It was disastrous for the thinkers, because it displaced simple and natural living by formal introspection. It was disastrous for the masses, because religion was thought to consist in meaningless and formal external acts. The thinker went into pantheism; not into recognition of a personal God, but of an impersonal chain of events, in which the doctrine of Karma made the whole course of life here and hereafter one of fate. Pride of intellect always injures both heart and will. It caused coldness of heart among the leaders of the Hindu religion. Instead of inspiring the leaders to instruct and uphft the masses, it made them mislead the masses with set purpose. The priests became unscrupulous, selfish, and greedy; and formalism resulted in hypocrisy, as it always must with intelligent men. Meanwhile ceaseless and meaningless rites turned the religion of the masses also into formahsm, which is the first great bane of religion. So, whereas the fuller use of the intellect should have diminished the principle of fear in the religion of the Hindus, formalism and sacerdotalism wrought the very opposite result. For now it was not only fear of the unknown in men's immediate surroundings for this world, but fear of the unknown future which became the most influential motive in the religion of the people. The common people were afraid of their religious leaders. The curse of an ascetic was supposed to cause unavoidable and irresistible injury in this world and the next. Sin was not principally unethical conduct, but the omission of ceremonials and the disregard of custom. The only possible expiation for such sin was not in true repentance and a better life, but in the heaviest mortifications, in piling up good deeds to overcome demerit. Also, because the masses could not understand nor accept pantheism pure and simple, its logical opposite, viz., polytheism, came into common acceptance. This is the nemesis which may always be expected for pride and selfishness. The Allgod, or It, could be recognized by the common people only in its partial presence in manifold forms and places. Therefore many gods in many sacred places came to be worshiped by the common people.

But despite this new misreading of God's intention, He was still working to reveal Himself to His Hindu children, and the next upward movement was one which emphasized the more spiritual truth that not knowledge, but goodness and helpfulness to brother-men, is the great thing in religion. This first great protestant reformation in India came through Siddartha, or Gautama, who became the Buddha, or " enlightened one." He was a contemporary of that Isaiah who was the most inspired and inspiring prophet in the latter part of the Babylonish captivity. As the great prophet of the captivity under the inspiration of God brought to the people of Israel in their decline a protest against formality, injustice, and unbrotherliness, and taught that God could be pleased by nothing save righteous living, so by God's help Siddartha became the enlightened one and similarly protested against formality and unbrotherliness among the Hindus. As a protestant against the burdensome religion of the Brahman priests the Buddha became an apostle of the simple and pure life. He protested against the uselessness and the harm of formality. He preached the necessity and value of kindness, gentleness, and purity. He came In " a fullness of time " ; for caste had become a tremendous burden on the social system and was Injuring both the upper and the lower classes by Increasing pride and hard feelings. The people were ripe for a more human system, and the caste system which Brahmanlsm had made so burdensome was largely modified by Buddha and his followers. The tyranny of a religion consisting of meaningless ceremonies was largely put away, and a more simple religion of kindness and purity supplanted the religion of the Brahmans. The new system gradually developed into the Buddhism which we know.