A LARGE amount of consecrated missionary effort has been given to India since Wm. Carey's coming. Still it needs light, more light. Said the Calcutta Indian Witness (Methodist) the other day:—
“When one sits down in sober thought to consider the condition of affairs in India, it is utterly discouraging to find that after a century of evangelical missionary work there is not a solitary self-governing, self-sustaining native mission, conference, or community, in the whole land, and the prospect of having one in the near future is by no means as bright as one could wish.”
No human organization of missionary effort can do the work. There is need of the Word that builds up and bears fruit and works effectually. India needs more of the Word. If so desperate is the need of evangelized India, what of the millions of Hindu idolaters and Mohammedans? Hideous images express the cruel character of the divinities worshiped. Small wonder that human nature sinks always lower as it deifies its own iniquities. In more than one of the unholy places of Hinduism, as in Babylon of old, in the very precincts of the temples, virtue and womanhood are systematically sacrificed as a part of the degraded religion.
Not only native India, but Europeans and mixed classes as well, need the message for this time, telling where we are in the world's history, and revealing the Gospel as actually the power of God for the life of righteousness. One of Kipling's soldiers talks of the regions—
". . . east of Suez,
Where there ain't no Ten Commandments, and a man can raise a thirst."
There are many in all parts letting their light shine and waiting for more light, but nominal religion does not flourish amid heathen darkness, and human nature away from the restraints of society proves its innate paganism. And, strange to say, in the face of the lawlessness of heathenism there are pulpits here ready to oppose the preaching of the perfect law of God's righteousness. Only the other day a leading Calcutta pastor declared the Bible to be full of errors. Yes, in the face of idolatry, and feebleness, and apostasy, India to-day, as never before, needs the message of more abundant life by the living Word. Who will have a part in the glorious work?
