NORTH INDIA by T. J. Scott

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 23, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 17.

NORTH INDIA.

By T. J. Scott

BY REV. T. J. SCOTT, D. D.

The great movement among the poorer castes of North India holds on unabated. From fifteen to twenty thousand annually are added to the Methodist mission alone. The United Presbyterian mission of the Punjab is also having a large ingathering. In some cases in the Methodist mission, deputations have come in from a long distance asking for teachers to come and teach them Christianity, and open schools for their children. In several directions thousands of inquirers are asking for baptism. One pastor in three months had baptized 400, and was expecting to add at least 1,000 to his Christian community during the year. The great demand is for native pastors and evangelists to conserve and carry forward the work. The theological seminary at Bareilly is taxed to the utmost to meet the want. The score or more trained men turned out annually is far below the need. It is much to be regretted that friends in America do not at once furnish the $40,000 called for to put this seminary on a larger basis at once. Instead of 80 at least 200 students should be on the roll under training, to push and conserve this great work.

This is no sudden movement. For more than a third of a century the Gospel has been faithfully preached in these regions, and many copies of the Scriptures circulated among the people. They have had the truth held up. The sense of sin has been awakened, and the true way of salvation has been before them. So the baptisms are not “hasty” in the sense of some critics. Preachers, European and native, have been sounding out the Gospel for years, and multitudes have been thinking. Thus the present harvest, amounting to perhaps 85,000 of a Christian community among the Methodists, is not a sudden thing, without ample plowing and sowing and watering. True, the harvest has been largely gathered in more recent years. Some 65,000 have been added within 4 years, and the number will soon run up to 100,000, and more, if a pastorate to care for the multitudes gathered in can be raised up.

This is no superficial work. It is, to be sure, not matter for surprise if tares are found among the wheat in so large a harvest. A mass movement like this must carry along with it, and catch up, a good deal that is not altogether good, and in this it differs in nothing from large revival movements in the home land. But will any one say such revivals are failures? The weak are strengthened, and the utterly worthless are eliminated. So the missionaries deal with this movement, which has its critics in the field, particularly among less successful missions. Those who know the work realize that a strong, substantial church is being raised up, served by a native ministry, and that effective self-support is being developed. Tried by the tests of self-support, spiritual life, endurance of persecution, and martyrdom, a true church is being founded. Rev. P. M. Buck, in a recent letter written in the midst of this work, says:—

These converts manifest a very encouraging willingness to do what they can to support the work among them. Persecution has been common and persistent. In the region where the greatest number of baptisms has occurred, the leading men of a large number of villages assembled in council, where it is said several hundred were present, and they bound themselves under a curse to suppress Christianity and prevent its further spread. Petitions were made for assistance to native government officers. Money was freely offered to bribe for the same purpose, and one of our workers was asked to name a sum he would be willing to take and retire from the field. Our people have been beaten, and were for a time deprived of pasturage for their cattle, and of fuel for cooking their food. One was imprisoned under false charge, and from one village a company of recently baptized converts have been expelled, and the case awaits settlement in the court. In the face of all this opposition, resulting in various other petty annoyances as well, I have heard of but one man who has lapsed from Christianity, and he, a little later, when we held a meeting in the neighborhood, came with his offering for the collection made, which, however, his brethren refused, telling him he had gone over to the enemy in the time of trial.

—Missionary Review.