Lectures on the Tinnevelly Missions

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Introductory Lecture

The possessions which have fallen to the lot of the English nation in India are the most valuable and important that any people has ever acquired beyond its own natural boundaries. India comprises nearly a million and a half of square miles, an area which is equal to the half of Europe, leaving out Russia ; and, though nearly two-thirds of the soil are uncultivated, so thickly peopled are the cultivated districts, that the population of India amounted, in 1851, to 171,859,055 (more probably to 180,000,000 at least,) a population which is twice as great as that of the corresponding area in Europe, and which constitutes nearly a quarter of the whole population of the world.

The smallness of the number of the English in India is very extraordinary, and is a fact which is full of significance. The whole of the inhabitants of India are either directly under British rule, or they are inhabitants of " native protected states," in which all proceedings of importance are controlled by a British " Resi dent ;" yet the English in India, to whom the government of 180 millions of Hindiis has been committed, do not number 60,000 souls ! The proportion subsisting between the English and the native population, in some of the older provinces of British India, is especially extraordinary. For example, in Tinnevelly and Madura, the two most southern " collectorates," or provinces, in the Madras Presidency, amongst a population of more than, three millions, the number of Europeans, including civilians and mili tary men, Missionaries and merchants, men, women, and children, is under 300, and the Europeans who are directly engaged in the work of government, or in that of coercion, in those two provinces do not number a hundred altogether ! It might almost be regarded as a miracle that so many should submit to the government of so few ; but, what renders it more remarkable is, that they have hitherto submitted to it, not reluc tantly, but peaceably and contentedly. The people of those pro vinces, as of all the old settled provinces of Southern India, are more easily governed than the inhabitants of any county in England. There is only one regiment, and that a regiment of Sepoys, officered by Englishmen, in the two provinces referred to, amongst a population greater than that of Scotland ; and the services of that one regiment have not been required for anything more serious than routine duty since 1809!

It has often been said that our rule in India rests upon military force ; but recent events have proved that it depends far less upon force than upon opinion. It rests partly on the opinion of the in vincibility, in the long run, of the English arms and policy; but in a much greater degree it rests on the opinion which the Hindus, as distinguished from the Mahometans, every where entertain, that the English Government, whatever be its faults, is the best government India has seen for many generations ; not equal, indeed, to the paternal governments of the mythical golden age, but more than equal to any government that these prosaic times have heard of. It is a mistake to suppose that the Hindus feel towards the English the soreness of a conquered people. Those of them who know anything 'of the history of their nation prefer to represent matters thus : " The English never deprived us of any power or privilege of which they found us in the possession ; they rescued us from the tyranny of our Mahommedan conquerors ; and in all their early battles we fought with theia, sMe by side, not against them. "VVe arc convinced also, that if the English were driven from the country, it would be a loss, not a gain, to us Hindus ; for the Mahommedans would again get the upper hand, and they would give us a far smaller share in the government of our own country than we now enjoy, besides treating us and our religion with a harshness and bigotry of which the English have never shown any trace." Occasionally, it is true, the Hindus indulge in the popular English practice of grumbling, and not without reason, for the pressure of taxation is in some districts extreme, and the adminis tration of justice is still very defective ; but, in so far as the latter particular is concerned, it is not the English, but their own country men, that are blamed, for the fault lies with the subordinate officials, who are in variably natives; and the remedy which Hindus themselves would propose, and which I have heard many of them propose, is not the expulsion of the Europeans, but such an increase in their number as would enable them to make their influence felt in every corner of the country. Mainly and ultimately, however, I doubt not that the rule of the English in India rests neither on force nor on human opinion, but on the will of the Most High, the Supreme Ruler of the nations, who has raised up England, and confided race after race and region after region to her care, that she might " tell it out amongst the heathen that the Lord is King." It cannot be supposed that Divine Providence has placed England in so high a position, and brought about such extraordinary results, for no other purpose than our national aggrandizement : it was surely for the benefit of India that He permitted us to become the rulers of India, it was in order that we might impart to India the benefit of our just laws, our rational liberty, and our progressive civilization, and especially that we might impart to it the know ledge of the religion of Christ that religion which alone can make any nation good, happy, or permanently great.

Our duty, as a Christian Church and nation, to promote the religious welfare of India has generally been admitted ; but until our slumbers were rudely disturbed by the recent Mutiny and the dreadful proofs that were furnished by heathens and Mahome tans that bad religions are worse than none, that duty was not sufficiently recognised in this country, and certainly was not sufficiently felt, even by religious people. An encouraging amount of interest in the progress of Christianity in India has now at last been awakened, and a demand for information has been excited : it is now felt that a great door and effectual has been opened to us in India, and that the conversion of India to Christ is one of the greatest works, if not the great work, to which the Church and nation of England are called. I proceed, therefore, to give some idea of the present position of the Christian cause in India, espe cially in the Presidency of Madras.

Those who are acquainted Avith India, or who bear in mind the numerous and very peculiar difficulties with which Indian missions have to contend, will not expect me to paint a rose-coloured picture of missionary progress. Progress undoubtedly has been made, and year by year the prospects of Christianity become more encourag ing ; but the encouragements are of such a nature as will best be appreciated by those whose experience in some work similar to this has taught them not to " despise the day of small things."

Only one generation has elapsed since our Christian Govern ment systematically refused permission to Missionaries to labour in India, and openly patronised heathenism. It administered the affairs of all the more important pagodas, and compelled its ser vants to do honour to heathen festivals. I have myself seen idols that had been erected by its European servants, and wholly at its expense. As might naturally be expected in so unprincipled an age, the immoral lives of most of the English then resident in India was a scandal to the Christian name, insomuch that it became a proverbial expression that they had left their consciences at the Cape of Good Hope. We have reason to be thankful that a very different state of things now prevails. The character of the English in India has wonderfully improved, especially within the last thirty years, and the Indian Government itself has parti cipated in the improvement. Some improvements (especially that very important one, the severance of the connexion between the Government and the idolatries of the country,) were effected by a pr< i ;-sure from without; but the greater number of improvements, including all that have taken place within the last fifteen years, have originated with the Government itself, which now comprises a considerable number of right-minded Christian men. The Indian Government has always professed to observe a strict neu trality between Christianity and heathenism, and to allow every religion professed by its subjects "a fair field and no favour;" but whatever may have been its professions, for a long period the only neutrality it observed was a one-sided neutrality, which showed itself in the encouragement of heathenism, and in oppo sition to the propagation of Christianity. This unfair, unright eous course has been almost entirely abandoned ; the Government no longer actively befriends heathenism, it no longer guards against the progress of Christianity as a source of danger. It still, indeed, professes to stand in a neutral position, but this neutrality has for some time been verging (perhaps as rapidly as is compatible with the circumstances of India) into an enlightened, prudent solicitude for the peaceful diffusion of the blessings of Christian education and morals. The burning of widows and female infanticide have been put down, slavery has been abolished, in connexion with all Government business and public works, Sunday has been made a day of rest, converts to Christianity have been protected, by a special enactment, in the possession of their property and rights, the re-marriage of widows has been legalized, female education has been encouraged, a comprehensive scheme of national edu cation has been set on foot, in connexion with which the Grant- in-Aid system has been introduced, and Missionary schools are no longer excluded from the benefit of Government Grants.

The Indian Government moves forward slowly, but it keeps constantly moving it takes no step backwards and hence, notwithstanding its characteristic caution, perhaps there is no government in the world which has made greater progress, within the time specified, in moral and social reforms. Undoubtedly much remains for the Government to do before it can be admitted that it is doing its duty to God and to India ; but I hope and believe that the unparalleled trials through which it has been called upon to pass will end, not in deterring it from its duty, but in urging it forward in the course of pimrovement.

Whilst we are thankful that the Indian Government, as such, has improved so considerably, we have also much reason to be thankful for the improvement which has taken place in the lives of so many members of the Anglo-Indian community. It is true that many members of that community are far, very far, from being what they ought to be, but at the same time it will be difficult to discover anywhere more Christian piety, in proportion to the numbers of the community, than amongst the English in India. In every district, in every station, with which I am acquainted, there has been a succession of men who have distin guished themselves, not only by their gentlemanly honour and by the purity of their lives, but by their Christian benevolence and zeal ; and such persons render most important aid to the cause of Missions, not only by their sympathy and contributions, but still more by the influence of their example. Whilst the Missionary is preaching Christianity to the Hindus, many an English layman is exemplifying to the Hindus what Christianity means : without abandoning " the calling wherein he was called," or violating any principle of official propriety, he is proving to a regiment or to an entire province that the teaching of the Missionaries is true, that Christianity is only another name for a holy and useful life, that it must have come from God, because it makes men godly, and that is an argument which every man can understand and appre ciate, and which no man can gainsay. Now that teachers of Christianity have free access to every part of India, the old assertion that the conversion of the Hindus is impossible has been proved to be a fable. In many instances the impossibility has been accomplished. It is quite true that in many extensive districts the work has not yet been begun, and that in no district have all the results that have been aimed at been accom plished ; but enough has been accomplished to prove to us that the work is of God, and to encourage us to go forward in it with vigour.

We cannot expect in India or anywhere, to " reap where we have not sown, or to gather where we have not strawed :" desultory efforts in too wide a sphere cannot be expected to produce the same results as systematic persevering labours within manageable limits j but when we find, wherever we look in India, a propor tion existing between labour and the results of labour, when it is evident that there is most success where there is most labour, and least success where there is least labour, 1 think we have every reason to thank God and take courage.

A comparison of the spiritual condition of the three Indian Presidencies will illustrate the proportion existing between efforts and results. In the Presidency of Bombay least has been done : the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel has not a single missionary labourer there, and other missionary Societies have but a small handful of men; and in that Presidency I am sorry to say that there are not a thousand native Protestant Christians from Goa to the Indus. In the Presidency of Bengal the number of Missionaries is more considerable ; and there, not only are the Christian converts seventeen or eighteen times more numerous than in Bombay, but in many parts of that vast Presidency the Hindu mind has been stirred to its inmost depths by the progress of Christian education and Christian civilization.

It is in the Presidency of Madras, however, that there has been the largest amount of missionary effort. Missionaries have been labouring in several parts of that Presidency for a considerable period ; their number bears some proportion to the work which they are endeavouring to accomplish, and is such as to render it possible for them to work in combination. What progress, then, has been made in that Presidency ? Not all the progress, indeed, which we wish for and hope to see, but still an amount of progress which is very encouraging. In the Presidency of Madras there are at least 80,000 native converts from heathenism, in connexion with the different Protestant Missionary Societies at work in various parts of the field, and of that number about 58,000 are connected with the Missions of the Church of England. Doubt less, many of the native Christian converts are not what we should wish them to be ; and much, very much, remains to be done before Christianity is diffused throughout the Presidency ; but it would be most ungrateful, as well as unreasonable, to ignore the fact that much has been done already, and that we have received encouragement to attempt, and to expect to accomplish much more.

Indian Missions may be divided into two classes : viz. the educational, or those which endeavour to reach the higher classes by means of superior English schools ; and the popular, if I may use the expression, or those which endeavour to reach the com munity at large (though practically, in most instances, they reach the lower classes alone) by means of vernacular preaching and vernacular education. The great English schools, or colleges, established in Madras, Calcutta, and Bombay, by the Scotch Presbyterians, stand at the head of the former class ; at the head of the latter, which includes almost all other missionary efforts, we may safely place the Missions of the Church of England in Tinnevelly.

It cannot be doubted that the endeavour to diffuse Christianity amongst the higher classes of the Hindus is one of very great importance, for the institution of caste gives the higher classes greater influence in India than in any other country ; but from Swartz's time till very recently, nothing was done for them by any missionary Society. They could not be reached, at all events they were not reached, by any of the agencies formerly at work ; and up to the present time it is only by means of an English educa tion of so high an order as to be an attraction to them, that those classes have, in any degree, been brought within the range of Christian influences. This plan originated with Dr. Duff and the Scotch Presbyterians ; and in the great schools which have been established by them, and more recently by some other Missionary Societies in some of the principal Indian cities, not only the science and literature of the western nations, but also the truths of the Christian religion, are daily taught by men of the highest ability to thousands of the most intelligent of the Hindu youth. This educational system had only just been introduced into Madras when I arrived, in 1838, and had not yet borne fruit ; but about a hundred persons belonging to the higher ranks of Hindu society have now been brought by it into the Christian fold. It is true that this number is very small, compared with that of the converts connected with the other system of Missions ; but it is to be borne in mind that they belong to a very influential class, a class in which no other system of means has borne any fruit whatever ; and that, as the converts of this class have had to fight their way to Christ through many persecutions, many of them have risen to a peculiarly high standard of Christian excellence and devoted- ness. It is a very interesting circumstance, that through the influence and example of this class of converts, Christianity has begun to spread amongst persons belonging to the same social rank who have never been at any missionary school at all, or who have been educated at Government schools from which Christian teaching is carefully excluded ; and it would appear that in Calcutta this new cfass of converts is now more numerous than the former. It is also chiefly owing to the influence of English education that so many social reforms are now making progress amongst the higher classes of the Hindus. This educational department of missionary effort is far from being the only one which claims our sympathy, as some of its advocates appeared at one period to suppose ; but it is certainly one of very great importance ; and I may be permitted to say that it does not seem very creditable, either to the English people or to the Church of England, that the Scotch Presbyterians have been allowed almost to monopolize the Christian education of the higher classes of the Hindus. The Church of England is, un doubtedly, doing a great work in the rural districts ; and in Benares, Masulipatam, Palamcottah, and a few other places, the Church Missionary Society has established English schools for the higher classes ; but it is much to be wished that the English Church put forth more of her strength in the cities the seats of government and commerce, and contribute, what she has not yet done, her full share of effort towards the Christianization of the high-caste Hindus. The inequality at present existing is to be rectified, not by other bodies of Christians doing less, but by the Church of England doing more.

The Socidi/for the Propagation of the Gospel was a" few years ago, led by such considerations to establish a Mission for the higher classes in Delhi a Mission which has for the present been quenched in blood, but which, I trust, will ere long be revived. More re cently still the Society resolved, at the representation of the pre sent excellent Principal of Bishop's College, Calcutta, to make that institution useful, not only for the training up for the ministry of those who are already Christians, but for the still more necessary work of converting educated heathens to Christianity. In the Presidency of Madras it has not yet done anything in this direction, though it has three institutions for the training up of catechists, schoolmasters, and native ministers ; but T trust it will not be much longer the only great Missionary Society in that Pre sidency which leaves to their fate the higher classes of the heathen youth. The Vepery Mission Grammar Scfrool, an institution established by this Society for the education of the Indo-British youth, did much for the improvement of that class, at a time when no other Society did anything. That school has fulfilled its mission, and has now ceased to exist ; but I hope that something will be established in its room, more directly tending to the diffu sion of Christianity amongst the heathen. A few years ago I would have pleaded for the establishment in the same buildings of a thoroughly good English school, for the benefit of the Hindu youth, to be taught, not by ordinary schoolmasters, but by thoroughly qualified, devoted English Missionaries ; but at present what appears to be more urgently required, what appears, indeed, to be the great want of all the Presidential cities at present, is an organized system of means for bringing Christian influences to bear upon the minds of those Hindus who have received a superior English education already, either in Missionary or in Government schools, but who still continue heathens. This class of persons may be numbered by thousands ; and every mem- fcer of the class can be reached through the medium of the English tongue. Here is a promising door of usefulness standing open, an extensive and rich field of labour lying vacant : which Society will have the honour of first entering in 1

The other class of Missions, the popular or parochial, as distin- guished from the purely educational, expend much money and effort on education, especially on the education of the children of the poorer classes in the vernacular languages ; but they may properly be regarded as acting on a different system, inasmuch as they labour for the benefit, not of the young only, but of the people at large ; and the schools which they establish are con nected with, and subordinated to, Christian congregations. With the exception of a few hundred at most, the entire body of native Christians may be claimed as the fruit of this system, which has been much more productive than the other of present, visible results.

In the city of Madras itself, there are about 2,600 converts of this class in connexion with the various Protestant Missions ; but when we leave the Presidency and travel southwards, we shall find a much greater number in almost every province.

In the rich and populous province of Tanjore, in connexion with the Missions of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel which were founded by the venerable Swartz, there is a native Christian community, comprising about 5,000 souls ; and about half that number are connected with the revived Lutheran (Leipsic) Mission of Tranquebar. In those old Missions, Christian life and missionary zeal had sunk to a low point, in consequence of the retention of caste distinctions ; but within the last fifteen years the Gospel Propagation Society's Mission in Tanjore has been greatly purified and invigorated. The parochial system has been introduced, and the native congregations brought under efficient superintendence ; education has made rapid progress ; one of the best training seminaries in the country has been brought into operation : caste, the source of so many mischiefs, has been repressed ; and though, in consequence of these refor mations, especially in consequence of the systematic discourage ment of caste, the numbers of the Christian community have been diminished, the gain to the Christian cause has been more than equivalent.

Further south, in the adjacent province of Madura, a province peculiarly rich in historical associations, the American Board of Missions, a Presbyterian and Congregationalist Society, has occu pied the field in great force. I remember the commencement of that Mission, and happened some years after to travel through the province. At that time not a single convert had been made. On returning to this country three years ago, on my way from Tinnevelly to Madras, I again passed through the district occupied by the American Mission, and found that the number of native converts had increased in the intervening period from nil to between 4,000 and .5,000. The interesting and hopeful move ment which is going forward in that province appears to have originated in the influence of Tinnevelly Christianity. This was admitted by the American Missionaries themselves, and two of their number were deputed a few years ago to visit Tinnevelly, and go from station to station, for the purpose of making them selves acquainted with the details of our Missionary system. In the same province there are several old congregations connected with the Gospel Propagation Society, and an interesting offshoot from that Mission has recently been established amongst the Poliars of the Pulney Hills, a poor, long- oppressed, simple- minded race, to whom the reception of the Gospel has been as life from the dead.

On the western side of the Ghauts, the great mountain-range of Southern India, Christianity is also making progress. The Missionaries of the Basle Missionary Society have been labouring for the last twenty years in the provinces of Malabar and Canara, on the Malabar coast, and when I last heard of their progress, their converts from heathenism amounted to 2,000. Further south, on the same coast, there are the interesting Missions of the Church Missionary Society in the native states of Travancore and Cochin. I have not been long enough in India to remember the commencement of those Missions, but I have twice visited their principal stations, and on the occasion of my second visit, after an interval of nine years, I found both the number of Missionaries and the number of the native Christians under their care nearly doubled. It was particularly gratifying to find that the new converts who had been gathered in were not like the first converts, proselytes from the Syrian Church an old and interesting, though corrupted, Christian communion, but were direct acces sions from heathenism, especially from classes of heathens that had never before been reached. Amongst those newly-reached classes are the "Hill-kings," a race of rude, aboriginal moun taineers, living mostly in trees, and rarely before seen by any European eye. The Church Missionary Society's Missions in those districts comprise nearly 6,000 converts, who have to con tend with greater difficulties than any other native Christians in southern India, in consequence of the heathenism of the Malayala people being the most intense and fanatical with which I am acquainted, and the government of the country being heathen.

Further south still, in the Tamil portion of the Travancore country, are the Missions of the London Missionary Society, the most important and successful Missions of that Society in India, and which in the list of Indian rural Missions rank next to those of the Church of England in Tinnevelly. In connexion with those Missions there are upwards of 18.000 converts to Christianity, nearly all of whom speak the same language as our own converts in Tinnevelly, belong to the same castes and classes, and may be regarded as the same people ; and though in point of numbers they are considerably behind our Tinnevelly Christians, yet in education, public spirit, missionary zeal, and liberality in contributions to charitable objects, they have made, in proportion to their numbers, at least equal progress.

I now come, last of all, to Tinnevelly, the province in which it was my own privilege to labour during the greater part of my Indian life. Tinnevelly is the most southern province on the Coromandel coast) lying immediately to the south of Madura, and though a peculiarly hot, sandy, and unattractive region, it claims to be regarded by the Christian with pecxiliar interest ; for there the eye and heart wearied elsewhere with proofs of the power and prevalence of heathenism are gladdened by the sight of the largest, the most thriving, and the most progressive Christian community in India. The only Missions anywhere in the East which are said to be equally or more progressive, are those of the American Baptists amongst the Karens in Burmah ; but as I am not personally acquainted with those Missions, I am unable to say whether this representation is correct. In the subsequent Lectures I hope to describe more fully the Missions in Tinnevelly; it will suffice at present to say, that in that province alone, through the united instrumentality of the Church Missionary Society and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 20 missionary dis tricts have been formed, and 43,000 persons men, women, and children rescued from heathenism and brought under Christian instruction ; and that now, amongst other signs of approaching maturity, considerable progress is being made by the native Church towards the support of its own institutions without foreign aid. It is true that much remains to be done before our Christian community in Tinnevelly is in all respects worthy of the Christian name, and that there, as elsewhere, Christian pro fession and public spirit are not always accompanied by personal piety ; but it is necessary, and very consolatory, to bear in mind that in what has already been accomplished there is much reason for thankfulness, and that the degree in which old things have already passed away is an encouragement to us to hope that in due time all things will become new.