SELF-SUPPORT IN NATIVE CHURCHES.
By J. E. Scott
Missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Muttra. In these hard times it more than ever is an uppermost topic and a great problem among missionaries in India how to get the native Christian people to giving toward the support of their pastors. The people are, indeed, very poor, but it seems feasible—if they will all give—to gather something that will amount to something. Recently I have had a great object lesson on the subject, which is worth telling to the readers of The Independent. About a year ago, at the session of the Northwest India Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which met in Muttra, a meeting was held to consider the subject of self-support. There was much enthusiasm. Surely, it was thought, the 35,000 Christians within the bounds of the conference might support some of their pastors. So twenty-two of the workers were selected from the seven districts into which the conference is divided, and it was resolved to try to support these from the contributions of the people. After conference adjourned, the leaders of the church set to work to push self-support. The president of the society is a pure native, the Rev. Charles Luke, the presiding elder of the Bulandshahr district. I have just come from attending his annual self-support meeting. It was a grand success. Such enthusiasm I never saw. There were about four hundred people present, filling a large tent which had been erected. A brass band had been secured for the occasion. And, amid the shouts and songs of the people, the twelve circuits which made up the district brought into the tent and deposited the offerings of the year. They amounted to nearly seven hundred rupees—much more than enough to support the number of men who had been assigned to that district to be supported from the fund. So they took on two more, amid great rejoicing. These contributions were all from natives, and were from the poor people. Among other offerings there were numerous bags of12grain, and piles of fragments of bread, which would be sold again to feed animals, and scores of domestic fowls, and dozens of eggs. One man brought a horse, and another a cow, and a third a buffalo. There were a number of sucking pigs, and six pigeons, and bags of shells, which are used for money by the very poor. So that these were really the contributions of the people. I never saw such rejoicing. They really felt that they were doing something that amounted to something. And it does. It means everything in our work. It puts new life into it. It gives the people something to work for. It helps our depleted treasury. It gives all hope and courage. This is the greatest movement that has ever taken place in our work. We expect to come up at the end of the year with not only the twenty-two workers paid in full by the people, but with a number of others, also, who were taken on where the amount raised was in excess of the requirements. In these days, when the home church has such difficulty in raising the money needed, it will be cheering to know that the foreign churches are beginning to support themselves. And the above is a bright example of what is being done among us.—The Independent.