INDIA. NO 3 by Stephen N. Haskell

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 6, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 18.

INDIA. NO 3.

By Stephen N. Haskell

Its Peoples.

BY ELDER S. N. HASKELL.

WHILE China became the great thoroughfare for immigration from Asia through the Bering Straits for people in North and probably South America, Central America, and the islands of the Atlantic Ocean, India became the thoroughfare for the Indian Archipelago, Australia, and the islands of the Pacific. There are many evidences among the natives of these countries and islands which show this, as well as traditions they have brought with them. Neither are facts wanting which show about the time these countries were peopled; but there are no reliable profane historical records as to how or at what particular time this took place. But this missing link, this mysterious problem, is solved, as well as the character of the first settlers, by the inspired penman in Gen. 11:1-9.

It was the impiety of Nimrod, his ambitious, proud, wicked spirit inspired by Satan, to thwart the plan of God to “replenish the earth,” that led him to make brick for stone and take slime for mortar to build “a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven,” to make them “a name lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” And it was because the people were one, having one language, and nothing would restrain them from what they imagined to do, that God said, “Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel [confusion, or Babylon], because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.” So wicked were these descendants, in order for God to have a pure seed he separated Abram from his kindred and from his father’s house, and all the nations of the earth, and promised to make of him a great nation, and said to him, “I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing; and I will bless them that bless thee; and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Gen. 12:2,3.

But how did these wicked idolaters find their way to India? Had the Himalaya Mountains extended the entire distance on the north of India from the Arabian Sea on the west through Farther India, Anam, Siam, and Burma to the China Sea, they would have formed an impassable barrier for the people to have ever reached India except by sea. But the God that “made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord,” formed two gateways to people India, around the Persian Gulf through Beloochistan and Afghanistan into India on the west, and also another on the east of this snow-capped range of mountains, the highest in the world.

How many of these different tongues that God originated in the plain of Shinar entered India through nature’s gateway, there is no record, either sacred or profane. But out of the three thousand and sixty-five distinct languages and dialects known to prevail in the world, India, including Burma, Assam, Napal, and Bootan, claims nearly one hundred and fifty of them. One writer says one hundred and forty-three, or over one-twenty-first of the whole. Many of these which now exist have been brought in by other Asiatic and European nations. But it is claimed that over one hundred and twenty, or about one-twenty-fifth of the whole, are found among the natives.

We also find that out of 874,000,000 adherents to the heathen faith, India claims, according to the estimate of 1891, about 285,000,000, over one-third. Also out of the 173,000,000 Mohammedans in the world, India contains over 50,000,000, or more than one-third of them. There are estimated to be 8,000,000 Jews in the world. India has 50,000 of them. India has become the home of the Parsees since they were oppressed and driven from their native land by the Mohammedan power in the eighth century. There are but a few thousand in Persia, but over one hundred thousand in India, principally in Bombay. This people are worthy of much consideration when we consider their history.

In the days of the Jewish captivity the Persians showed great kindness to the people of God. From the royal court went forth a decree to aid the Jews in returning to Jerusalem “with silver and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, beside the free-will offerings for the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem.” They recognized the Jews as God’s people, and to aid them was acknowledging the command of the God of heaven, who would have the Jews build him an house at Jerusalem. See Ezra 1. They were never polytheists, but were monotheists, as much so as were the Jews.

When we consider, according to the census of 1891 there are 286,666,960 people in India, of which 187,000,000 are Hindus, 3,500,000 Buddhists, who are a missionary people without Christ, 1,862,634 professed Christians, of which Roman Catholics are 963,059, leaving 899,575 Protestants, while every oriental and Asiatic religion also exists in this country, and all of these packed in an area of about 1,474,606 square miles, or two-fifths the size of the United States, and the gospel is to go to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, and there is not a portion of this country but that is accessible, and these are broken up into nearly one hundred and fifty divisions by the barrier which God introduced—it presents for the closing work one of the grandest missionary fields in the world.