# Lectures on the Tinnevelly Missions/Chapter III

The first attempt to introduce Protestant Christianity into Tinnevelly was made, towards the close of the last century, by the venerable Swartz, who visited the province thrice, and suc ceeded in establishing a congregation of native converts in the fort of Palamcottah. The work which Swartz commenced was efficiently carried on by Jaenicke, another Missionary of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, who was sent to Tinnevelly by Swartz, and who, during the short period in which he retained his health, made Christianity widely known amongst the rural population, and succeeded in planting Christian congregations in several villages in the interior.
With a species of prophetic insight into the future, founded on his observations of the character of the people of the province, and especially of the docility and tractable temper of the con verts, Jaenicke observed, that " there was every reason to hope that at a future period Christianity would prevail in the Tinne velly country." Jaenicke was assisted in his labours by a native Catechist from Tanjore, called Satyanaden, who was ordained in the Lutheran manner by Swartz, and commissioned to carry on in Tinnevelly the promising work which Jaenicke had begun. Satyanaden's labours were eminently successful. It was by him that the members of the Sh&nar caste, who still form the bulk of the congregations in almost every part of Tinnevelly, were first reached and influenced ; by him the first Shnar congregation was formed, and the first village of Christian Shanars organized ; and it was in his time that the first of those popular movements originated, which have often since characterized the progress of Tinnevelly Christianity. Satyanaden's first Shanar converts formed themselves for mutual protection into a distinct community, and founded in the heart of the palmyra forest a new village, which they called Mudal-ur, or " First-town," a place which subse quently became a sort of metropolis of Shnar Christianity, and formed, during the dark age of the Tinnevelly Missions, a strong hold, to which the persecuted of every caste resorted for protection. Satyanaden's labours in Tinnevelly, though fraught with the promise of abundant fruit, were not long continued, and after his return to Tanjore the new Mission was lamentably neglected. It was visited once by Gericke, in the course of a long missionary tour through the greater part of the Presidency of Madras, and once by Kohlhoff, Swartz's successor in Tanjore. At KohlhofFs request, Ringeltaube, the founder of the London Missionary Society's Missions in Travancore, bestowed on the Tinnevelly Mission a general oversight for a short period. This expedient was disapproved of by the Christian Knowledge Society, and was discontinued ; but no other European Missionary was sent to occupy the important post which Jaenicke had left vacant, and it is questionable whether the " country priests," or native min isters, who were ordained in Tanjore and sent from time to time to Tinnevelly, did more good or harm, in the absence of European supervision. In 1815, Mr, Hough, then Chaplain to the East India Com pany at Palamcottah, visited the congregations formed by Jaenicke and Satyanfiden, and wrote to the parent Society an interest ing account of the Christian order, steadfastness, and prosperity by which he found them to be characterized. For several j'ears he urged upon the Society the duty of cultivating the promising field to which he had drawn their attention, and especially of sending out a Missionary ; but being disappointed in his endea vours, and a German Missionary, who had been sent out from home, being prevented by sickness from reaching his destination, he asked and obtained from the Church Missionary Society, which had recently commenced to labour in India, the means of esta blishing schools, employing native Catechists, and laying the foundation of a new Mission. Neither would the Church Mis sionary Society have considered it its duty to establish itself in Tinnevelly, nor the London Missionary Society in the adjacent province of Travancore, had it not been for the inability of the older Society, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, to cultivate efficiently those fields of labour, each of which was first offered to that Society by Divine Providence. In 1820, Rhe- nius, one of the ablest, most clear-sighted and practical, and most zealous Missionaries that India has ever seen, was sent by the Church Missionary Society to carry on the Mission which Hough had recently founded, and ere long his energetic labours produced abundant fruit. The old Mission also was placed under his general superintendence ; but the new Mission far outstripped the old ; and at the close of Rhenius's connexion with the Church Missionary Society, after sixteen years of labour, the number of souls rescued by him from heathenism (or by the various agencies set on foot by him), and enrolled under his pastoral care, amounted to more than ten thousand.
Though Rhenius was by birth and education a Lutheran, the views of Church government and worship which he adopted were in general those of the English Dissenters; in consequence of which, some years before his death, his connexion with the Church Missionary Society was dissolved, and it became necessary to reorganize the Mission he founded in some important particulars. Notwithstanding this, his system of working was, as a whole, greatly superior to that of the older Missionaries, Swartz himself not excepted ; and the Tinnevelly Missions are, in a great measure, indebted to him for the progressive element apparent in their history. He was, so far as I am aware, the first Missionary con nected with Church of England Missions in India, by whom caste was in any degree practically repressed, female education syste matically promoted, or societies established amongst native Chris tians for religious and charitable purposes. It is also remarkable that the practice of assembling the people of every Christian village morning and evening for united prayer in church a practice which universally prevails in the missionary congre gations of the Church of England in Tinnevelly, and which has now extended itself to Tanjore and other localities was first introduced by Rhenius.
It was not until after Rhenius's labours and successes had awakened general attention in England, that the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, (which had inherited the Indian Missions of the Christian Knowledge Society, and which about that time began to participate in the missionary zeal of the present century,) bethought itself of its Missions in Tinnevelly, and resolved to attempt to revive and strengthen them, if they were still found to exist. From 1792 till 1835, those Missions had remained as sheep without a shepherd. The only superintendence of any real value which they had received, had been bestowed upon them by Missionaries of other Societies or by Government Chaplains; and they had passed through seasons of great trial. In 1811, a pestilence swept away in many places a sixth of the community, and about that time many of the Shanar Christians, especially in that part of Tinnevelly which now constitutes my own district, fell back, through fear, to their ancient heathenism. Many persons would suppose that a com munity of Hindu Christians, like that which had been planted in Tinnevelly poor, undisciplined, uneducated, left to itself, sur rounded by heathen influences would soon have ceased to exist. On the contrary, in 1835, when the first Missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel reached Tinnevelly, and began to inquire about the sheep that had been left to their fate in the wilderness, more than three thousand persons were found to have steadfastly retained the profession of Christianity, and the rites of Christian worship, through an entire generation of neglect. The first two Missionaries, both Germans, who were sent into Tinnevelly by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, laboured there for a short period only j their place, however, was immediately supplied by others. Other missionary labourers followed from year to year ; for the Church at home had awoke, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel had awoke, the Madras Diocesan Committee of that Society had awoke ; and when I now look around in Tinnevelly, instead of the two districts that existed when I arrived, I am rejoiced to see seven, in addition to a new Mission in the Riimn&d country, each of which is provided not only with pastoral superintendence, but also, in a greater or less degree, with the means of extension and advancement. The Church Missionary Society also has continually been lengthening its cords and strengthening its stakes, so that it has now thirteen or fourteen missionary districts, where it only had six when I arrived, and has established besides an organized system of missionary itineration in the northern and less Christianized part of the province.
The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel has reason to be thankful that its ancient Mission in Tinnevelly was found to be capable of revival ; for the revival of an old, neglected Mission is in some respects more difficult than the establishment of a new one. Some of the evils, however, of foregone neglect have clung to the revived Mission; and another consequence is that, as the Church Missionary Society has obtained possession of the greater part of the field, the labours of the older Society are now confined within a very limited compass. When I arrived in Tinuevelly, the spheres of labour of the two Societies had not been defined by territorial boundaries; but it was felt to be desirable that each Missionary should have a district, or missionary parish, of man ageable extent to labour in, that so the possibility of collision, or of mutual interference, might be precluded, and ere long an arrangement of this nature was carried into effect. The field of labour was divided in a fair and friendly spirit, with regard to the actual progress each Society had made; but the consequence is, that the proportion of the area of the province which has fallen to the share of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and for the cultivation of which in future it alone is responsible, amounts now to less than two-fifths of the whole. Notwith standing this restriction within narrower limits, the introduction of the parochial system, with its peaceful adjustment of rights, and its definite apportionment of duties and responsibilities, has, I believe, been attended with the greatest advantages to each Society and to the common cause; and, on looking back upon the past, I attribute to this arrangement a considerable proportion of the prosperity, as well as of the harmony, by which the Missions have been characterized. In the warfare which each Missionary is appointed to carry on, he is now provided with a basis of operations a centre from which Christian influences may radiate. His labours, cares, and responsibilities, being defined by territorial boundaries, he is not so liable, as he otherwise would be, to become disheartened by the vastness of his work, and perplexed by the multiplicity of his cares. The exertions which, if scattered broadcast over the surface of a province, would probably end in failure and disappointment, are confined within moderate and practicable limits. The Missionary is able not only to preach the Gospel again and again in the same village, and to instruct the people systematically in the knowledge of God's word, but also to commend to their reception the religion he teaches by his personal influence, and to watch over and water the good seed which he has sown.
I shall here give a general idea of the results that have been accomplished in Tinnevelly, without some acquaintance with which a description of the work would be comparatively uninteresting ; and in doing so, I make use of the latest statistics that I have been able to obtain.
1. The province has been divided into twenty districts, or mis sionary parishes, each with its parochial organization, and each under pastoral care. 2. Christian congregations have been formed in 684 villages, besides a still larger number of villages that are regularly visited by Missionaries or native teachers. 3. Forty-three thousand souls have been induced to abandon their idols, or their devils, and to place themselves under Christian instruction, of whom 27,000 have been baptized. 4. The number of communicants amounts to 5,000, which gives a proportion of eighteen communicants for every hundred baptized persons. 5. Ten thousand children, of whom 7,000 are children of Chris tian parents, (nearly 4,000 of them boys, and upwards of 3,000 girls,) are receiving the benefits of a Christian education in our Mission schools.*
I should here explain that in all these statistics I have preferred to employ round numbers, as being most easily remembered ; but the exact numbers are somewhat over, not under, what I have stated.
6. Boarding Schools, Training Schools, and educational insti tutions of various kinds have also been set in operation for the training up of native schoolmasters and catechists, and eventually, it is hoped, for the raising up an indigenous ministry, and already, eleven Hindus, ten of whom are natives of the province, have been admitted by ordination to the ministry of the Church of England in Tinnevelly.
7. Progress has also been made towards self-support towards the support of the Christian institutions of the province by the zeal and liberality of the natives of the province themselves. Much, it is true, remains to be done in this direction before our native congregations stand alone without foreign aid, and possibly some things remain to be un-done; but, undoubtedly, real pro gress has been made, for if the funds which are now contributed by our native Christians to the various religious and charitable Societies that have been established amongst them, were all directed into the one channel of the sustentation of ordinary parochial institutions, they would amply suffice for the support of one native clergyman, and four native schoolmasters for each of the twenty districts into which the province has been divided.
In these results we see unquestionable proofs of progress, and have been furnished with abundant reasons both for thankfulness to God and for determining to go forward with energy, in His name and strength, in the doing of what remains to be done.
It must not be supposed that all the results that have now been stated, have been accomplished by the Society for the Pro pagation of the Gospel alone ; about two-thirds of all these results must be placed to the credit of the Church Missionary Society, which, as I have already mentioned in my introductory lecture, labours harmoniously in conjunction with the Society for the Pro pagation of the Gospel. It should also be borne in mind, that whilst the light of the Gospel burns in Tinnevelly with especial brightness, none of the adjacent provinces has been left in total darkness.
It now remains that I should give a detailed description of our missionary work in Tinnevelly ; but before entering into details, it seems desirable to give a general view of some of its characteristic features, especially such as tend to account for the results that have been accomplished.
Much of the success realized in Tinnevelly has been owing to the personal influence of the Missionaries; and I am naturally led by what I have said respecting the introduction of the pa rochial system, to mention this here, for it is only by means of the parochial system that the personal influence of the Minister of Christ can systematically cooperate with the influence of the truth.
The Missionaries in Tinnevelly have not taken up their abode in large towns, and contented themselves with occasional or periodical tours in the country, as has generally been done in Northern and Western India, but have lived and laboured in the smaller villages, in the heart of the country, amongst the un sophisticated peasantry ; and a considerable proportion of their success appears to be owing to their having thus followed the leadings of Providence, sought out those who really had " ears to hear," and endeavoured to bring their teaching and influence to bear on those classes which experience has proved to be the most accessible. If the Hindus were usually or easily influenced by arguments addressed to the intellect, the large towns, abounding with an intelligent population, would afford the most promising openings for missionary labour ; but there are scarcely any people in the world so indifferent to truth in the abstract, so destitute of loyalty to conscience, so habituated to let their convictions and actions go in different directions, as the Hindus ; whilst there are scarcely any who yield more readily to the wish of superiors, the influence of friends, or the example of those whom they are accustomed to follow. This is, no doubt, a weak point in their character ; but it shows the importance of endeavouring to gain their confidence, and acquire influence over them, if we wish to do them good. Now, in large towns, the personal influence of the foreign Missionary is as nothing compared with the force of public opinion and the influence of the heads of caste. Even in Europe, there is no solitariness so intense as that of the stranger in a large city ; it is still more intense in India, where every approach to intimacy is fenced round by caste restrictions. The strength of caste is in proportion to the density of the population, and the influence of European Missionaries is in inverse pro portion to the strength of caste. In the villages and hamlets in the interior of the country, among which the Missionaries in Tiunevelly have preferred to labour, it is astonishing how much personal influence they have generally acquired, and how much they have been able to effect by means of that influence, especially in the neighbourhood of the place in which they reside. All the people within a circuit of ten miles at least, know inti mately the European Missionary and his family. They learn his views, objects, and plans; they acquire confidence in his charac ter ; they become convinced, from his manner of life and his readiness to do them all the good in his power, that the religion he teaches must be a good religion. In time, they cease to think of him as a foreigner ; they begin to value and follow his advice ; they learn to regard him as " a teacher sent from God ;" and at length, impelled by a variety of considerations, amongst which confidence in his character is one of the strongest, they place themselves formally " under Christian instruction," and under his pastoral care. Thus the Missionary's personal influence, which in large towns is so insignificant, in the smaller villages, and amongst a simpler, more primitive people, is found to be an important element of success. Whilst the threefold cord resists every effort, the cords taken separately are easily broken. In connexion with all Societies that have stations in the cities and large towns, it has been found that the usual routine of preaching and distributing tracts to casual passers-by in crowded thoroughfares, and at still more crowded festivals, and superin tending small vernacular schools taught by native schoolmasters, has been attended with very insignificant results ; and apparently for this reason, that personal influence the influence of character, station, and neighbourhood on which so much depends amongst Hindus, is in this system scarcely brought into action at all. This view is confirmed by the circumstance that in those schools and colleges of a superior order established in some of the great towns, and in which the Missionaries themselves are the teachers, the influence they have acquired over the minds of their pupils has been attended with remarkable results. I have no doubt, therefore, that much of the success realized in Tinnevelly is owing to the fact that the Missionaries have availed themselves of the facilities for influencing the agricultural classes which have been found to exist, secluded themselves from European society, buried themselves in the palmyra jungles in search of Christ's lost sheep, and made homes for themselves, not where ideas of comfort and refinement would dictate, but where their work lay, and where they have found their reward. In connexion with this topic, I should mention another im portant purpose which our parochial organization helps us to accomplish. Kegarding ourselves as pastors of the entire com munity residing within our districts, and remembering that we are commissioned to " preach the Gospel to every creature," and to " make disciples of all nations," we are accustomed to invite all within our districts to place themselves at once under our pastoral care, without distinguishing between the promising and the unpromising, or waiting till the unpromising show signs of improvement, and to form such persons at once into Christian congregations, subject to the discipline and training suitable to catechumens. We believe that the adoption of this system is involved in obedience to our Lord's command, " Preach the Gospel to every creature " " disciple, baptize all nations" We believe that if we are to disciple "all," we have no right to receive the promising, and reject the unpromising, at our own discretion that we have no right to leave to their fate any who are willing to learn the Truth, however backward they are likely to be in learning it ; and that if we would teach all, the best way the only scriptural way to proceed is, to " disciple " them, according to Christ's own injunction, that is, to form them into congregations of "disciples," under systematic instruction and pastoral care, baptizing them on their profession of faith, and " teaching them to observe all things whatsoever Christ has commanded." Of those who in this way assume the Christian name, many doubtless will cause us disappointment by their evil tempers and conduct, through whom the way of truth will be evil spoken of; but we must not, and do not, through fear of this or any other difficulties, presume to cast out any who are willing to receive instruction. In no other way than by hearing, learning, and believing the Divine Word can sinners be con verted ; in no other way can the mass be purified than by commixture with the leaven ; and the " leaven " referred to in our Lord's parable is not truth in the abstract, but " the king dom of heaven," truth embodied in the Gospel Church ; which leaven was not to be kept separate from the meal, as some now- a-days would wish it to be, but " hid in it, till the whole should be leavened." In some quarters heathens are exhorted, simply and abstractly, to repent of their sins and believe the Gospel, without being urged to join themselves at once to the Church of Christ. The Missionary will allow them to attend his congregation, as hearers ; but he does not urge them to attend, and he is reluctant to receive them under his pastoral care, even as catechumens, until their motives are thoroughly scrutinized, and he is assured that the elements of the Christian character are already developed. He is afraid of compromising the credit of his cause by "receiving sinners." It is as if a surgeon, placed in charge of a hospital, should make a selection amongst the sick, and restrict himself to the treatment of favourable cases, declining to receive under his care any whose recovery was unlikely, and should defend his adoption of the system by pleading the necessity of maintaining the credit of the institution. Wheresoever this eclectic system has been acted upon, the results have proved unsatisfactory. It cannot be expected that Christ will bless a system which pretends to be wiser and more spiritual than His own, and which, instead of discipling " all nations," aims only at discipling a select num ber of the well-disposed and promising of all nations. The Mis sionaries in Tinnevelly have not been deterred by any fear of consequences, or regard for popular prejudices, from acting up to the letter of their Lord's command, "discipling" all who are willing to place themselves under their care, instructing every one who will consent to receive instruction, forming catechumena everywhere into congregations, and teaching them that " he that believe th and is baptized shall be saved ;" and to this mode of working the success that has been realized is doubtless, in part at least, to be attributed. In whatever way other classes may be Christianized, no system but this is adapted to the conversion of the illiterate, the un thinking, the lower classes generally, the very young and the very old, all of whom, prior to their reception within the pale of Christian influences, are equally unpromising and incapable of acting for themselves. When such persons know not only what they are to think and believe, but what they are to prac tise when it is not left to their own judgment what course they should adopt, on feeling convinced of the truth of what they are told when they are informed that if they would learn the way of salvation, and walk in it, they must attach themselves to the Christian congregation of the neighbourhood, and submit themselves to the guidance and care of the Missionary of their district, whom they are to regard as one who has been appointed to watch for their souls they are relieved from perplexity, and the obligation of embracing Christianity is felt with greater practical force.
The perception of this obligation is found to be strengthened by the practice, universal in Tinnevelly, of assembling the Christian inhabitants of every village, every morning and even ing, for public prayer and catechization. There are one or two full services weekly, besides the Sunday services, in every station where a Missionary resides, when the entire service for the day is read, and a sermon preached ; but at the ordinary morning and evening prayers to which I now refer, and which are con ducted by the native teachers in the various villages of a district, we are content with an abbreviation of the prayers, such as would be read at family worship, together with the psalms, or one of the lessons, and a brief catechization t or exposition. Catechiza tion, or catechetical instruction of some kind, is never omitted, morning or evening, and forms everywhere the chief means in use for training up our people in divine knowledge. Generally, the native teacher teaches the people only one subject a week, a subject appointed by the Missionary in accordance with some general plan of instruction, and the people are examined as to their acquaintance with it on the occasion of the Missionary's next visit. This reiteration of the same lesson is found to be necessary if we wish the mass of the people to make real pro gress ; for the same persons are not present every day, and even if they were, we find we must repeat the same statement fre quently, " line upon line, and precept upon precept," and put it before their minds in different lights, before the majority of them thoroughly comprehend it. In general, the women alone attend prayers in the morning, when the men are out at work in their fields, and the men alone in the evening, after the work of the day is over, when the women are engaged in preparing the evening meal, the principal meal of the day. All children, however, attend both morning and evening, and there are a few older people here and there, who, like " Anna the prophetess," " depart not from the temple day or night."
One important advantage arising from this system is that, though the great majority of our Tinnevelly Christians are naturally dull of comprehension, they are steadily and manifestly growing in divine knowledge, and in many cases will more than bear a comparison with persons of a similar position in life in our English congregations. Another advantage is, that the Christian inhabitants of the same village, assembling together morning and evening in the same place, and being catechized together, learn to consider themselves, though perhaps of different castes, as one community, one family in the Lord. A circumstance of not less importance is, that in this way the existence and vitality of the little Christian congregation is made known to every person in the neighbourhood ; it is enabled to " hold forth the word of life," to testify its belief in unseen things, to bear its part in "condemning the world of the ungodly :" and not only does it condemn the ungodly, but it attracts the reflecting ; for the very fact of the native converts assembling together every morning and evening to worship God, is an invitation to every one who has " ears to hear," and the voice of praise and prayer ascending daily from the humble village church, says "COME!" to all the neighbourhood. The surrounding heathen too often refuse to be made acquainted with the doctrines of Christianity ; but they cannot refuse to become acquainted with the visible embodiment of those doctrines in the Christian Church. The Church's unity, her discipline, her zeal for justice and truth, her care for her poor members, her exertions in behalf of the oppressed, her unwearied instructions, her daily prayers, her solemn services, her corporate life, her progressive prosperity, her universal claims these cha racteristics of the Church render her visible in Tinnevelly, even to heathen eyes, " a city set upon a hill, which cannot be hid ;" and it is unquestionable that these signs of life attract and influ ence the Hindu mind more than abstract truth is found to do.
In sketching the characteristics of the Tinnevelly Missions, an important place should certainly be assigned to the system of daily prayer and instruction to which I have referred, and also to the moral training and religious oversight and discipline which have grown up together with it, and which would be impracti cable without it. I am persuaded that nowhere in the world whether in Missions to the heathen, or in countries long ago Christianized, and in connexion with no church or religious organization in the world is there to be found in actual opera tion at the present time a system of instruction and oversight more complete and comprehensive than that which is at work in our Tinnevelly Missions. In those Missions, at least in every village which has been under Christian training for an adequate space of time, every individual, young and old, has his weekly lesson in divine knowledge to learn, and is periodically examined as to his progress in it ; nearly every child of Christian parents, male and female, is in school ; and every offence against morals and religion, whether committed by a baptized person or by a catechumen, is formally inquired into, either by the Mis sionary or by the heads of the village, and visited by the penalties of the local Christian law. That system of " godly discipline," the want of which the Church annually laments in England, is in full operation in Tinnevelly, and its watchful eye is ever on the convert, at home as well as in church, and at his work as well as [in his disputes and amusements. Dr. Duff, who visited Tinnevelly in 1849, particularly noticed the com pleteness, fatherly strictness, and " earnest workingness " of the system of instruction and discipline he found there, and com mented upon it in terms of admiration at the Anniversary meeting of the Church Missionary Society. It would not be right, how ever, to ascribe the benefits of this system solely to the Mission aries by whom it has been introduced, though I think they have shown that they had a clear perception of their duty as the founders of a new Christian community ; still greater credit is due to the people under our care, with whose consent and con currence this system was introduced, by whose aid, in a very great degree, it has been carried into effect, and who have proved, in the majority of cases, by their obedience to the rules of the Christian municipality, and their reverence for the authority of their pastors, that they really are a docile and tractable people, who, whatever be their present condition, may be expected to rise to a better one, and to occupy an eminent position hereafter among Hindu Christians.
The effects of this system of religious instruction and moral training and discipline are highly beneficial in a variety of ways. The surrounding heathens, perceiving the order, intelligence, and unity of the native Christian Church, and knowing that she professes to be fighting against idolatry, under the banner of a Divine Leader, cannot but feel secretly convinced that she is destined to win the day. Being themselves split into innu merable castes and sects, and agitated by intestine feuds, without order or discipline, without any common bond of authority, or code of faith, held together only by mechanical agglutination, or the fossilizing cement of age and indolence, the Hindus cannot but feel arrested and attracted by signs of life and growth, of discipline and energy, such as they look for in vain among their own worn-out creeds. The trained intelligence, and organized coherence and strength of the Christian community, cannot but produce in their minds, at least in the minds of the observant and reflecting, a favourable impression. If they gave utterance to their impression in words, they would exclaim, with Balaam, when from the mountain tops he beheld in the plains beneath him the orderly encampment of the Israelites, " How goodly are thy tents, Jacob, and thy tabernacles, Israel ! The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them !" To give a distinct idea of the constitution and management of the Missions in Tinnevelly, it is necessary here to give some ex planation both of the Indian village system, and of our Catechist system, each of which has furnished peculiar facilities both for systematic instruction and for the exercise of discipline.
The village system of India is one of the most remarkable features of Indian civilization. Generally, the civilization of the Hindus is inferior to our own, but in some particulars it is in advance of ours ; and one of the particulars in which it claims the advantage is the fact that every Hindu village is an organized municipality. The greater number of English towns, and all English villages, are mere collections of houses, without any bond of connexion or corporate life, without rulers, without office bearers, and without any organization for the preservation or advancement of the common interests. In India, on the con trary, every village of any respectability is an incorporation. It has its council of head men, its rights of jurisdiction, its revenues, and its meetings for the transaction of public business. Gene rally, every village has its watchman, its artificers, its priests, its astrologer, appointed by the community, and paid by means of endowments or rates ; it has also a village moonsi/ (or petty unpaid magistrate), a mirdsddr or potail (a sort of mayor and revenue commissioner), and an accountant, all nominated by the community, and appointed by Government. The municipality ordinarily makes itself responsible for the settlement of disputed claims by arbitration, for the punishment of petty offences, and for the preservation of the peace ; and though courts and cut- cherries have been established in every province for the administration of justice on the European plan, nine-tenths of all the cases that arise are investigated and settled by the heads of the village under the council-tree, without any reference to Govern ment authorities ; and it is astonishing how much legal skill, how much judgment and good temper, these village punckdyets exhibit. The decisions of the heads of the village carry no legal force ; they cannot be carried into effect without the consent of the parties concerned and this is an important safeguard against abuse ; but they are almost invariably accepted and submitted to when they are believed to be just and are supported by the public opinion of the neighbourhood ; and in most instances the only appeal that is made is from the decision of one village to that of another and more distant village.
This municipal organization is so ancient and firmly established, that it may be regarded as the most permanent institution in India. Dynasties have arisen and fallen, religious sects and schools of philosophy have flourished and disappeared, but the village muni cipality retains its place undisturbed. One race of conquerors after another has swept over the country ; but as soon as the wave has passed, the municipality emerges again to view : every man returns to claim his rights, and the old landmarks are restored. In the Hindu's eyes, the nation occupies but a small place, the dynasty a still smaller one ; the institutions which he regards as all-important are his caste and his village, and it is in these that all his feelings of patriotism centre. That love of home, that attachment to the same spot, that disinclination to emigrate, that certainty we feel respecting every Hindu who has left home, that, sooner or later, he will return and spend his earnings in his native place, are to be attributed, in great part, if not altogether, to the influence of the village system of India.
The same system has contributed largely to the consolidation, if not to the extension, of Christianity in our rural Missions generally, but especially in Tinnevelly, where we have systema tically availed ourselves of its help. When a Tinnevelly village embraces Christianity, it immediately forms itself, almost as a matter of course, into a Christian municipality, and authorizes its head-men to exercise a general superintendence over the con gregation, and, in conjunction with the native teacher or Catechist, to carry into effect the Missionary's views. Even in those cases where only a portion of a village becomes Christian, and that not the most influential portion, it forms itself, not only in ecclesias tical and educational matters, but even in the greater number of social matters, into a new municipality, and generally manages to maintain its independence. The heads of a congregation, being also the heads of the community, have much more power and a much wider scope of influence than English churchwardens, and where they happen to be really good, prudent men, are immea surably more useful to the Minister. They feel themselves re sponsible for the obedience of the rest of the people to Christian rules, for their regularity in attending church and sending their children to school, for the collection of contributions for charitable and religious purposes, for carrying into effect decisions of Church discipline, as well as for the settlement of any civil and social dis putes that may arise. The head-men may be said to hold their appointment by hereditary right, or in virtue of their position in society ; for though they are chosen by the people, and appointed by the Missionary, yet in almost every instance those persons alone are appointed to whom the people have always been accus tomed to look up ; and thus the head of the village is also the elder in the congregation.
So long as Christianity has not acquired a recognized footing in a village, but is only seeking an entrance, the corporate action of the community is undoubtedly a serious obstacle to its pro gress ; for the heads of villages sometimes abuse their power, and place might before right in their dealings with the poorer mem bers of the community, and when this is the case they naturally fear, that the influence of the European Missionary, and the intro duction of an authority independent of their own, will tend to check their oppressions and restrain their power within legal limits. It is from this source that those persecutions proceed which almost invariably take place on the first entrance of Chris tianity into a village.
When once, however, a village, or any considerable portion of a village, has embraced Christianity, and the Christian head men have won for themselves a tolerably firm position, it is astonishing in how large a degree this village system furthers the establishment of Christian laws and usages, and the con solidation of a Christian congregation into a regularly organized Christian community. When anything goes wrong in a con gregation, the Missionary appeals to the elders and head-men to restore things to rights j whereupon they assemble the people, or go from house to house, and endeavour to effect a re formation. There is rarely any danger of their setting the Missionary's authority aside, and using their power in opposition to him. Practically, the only danger that exists lies in the opposite direction. The Missionary's influence in his own dis trict being much greater than that of any other person, the people of every congregation, the head-men included, are prone to refer every case to him, instead of settling it amongst them selves : a tacit conspiracy is thus entered into to make him a universal "ruler and divider ; " and if he is young and inexpe rienced, he will probably fall into the temptation, until his patience is wearied out with disputes and litigations (a large crop of which is continually ripening in a country where illiterate peasants are the proprietors of the soil, and where all property is held in hereditary coparcenery) ; whereas if he steadily makes it his aim to develop the capacity for self-government which every congregation of any size is found to possess, and to organize some central court of appeal, such as the niydya sabei, or " council of justice," which we had in Edeyenkoody, and which was composed of five householders, annually chosen by the whole people, he is set free to devote his time and strength to the spiritual work of his office, with only a general directive influence in the adminis tration of temporal affairs, and the interests of the people them selves are in the end more effectually advanced.
I must now give some explanation of our Catechist system. This system is not peculiar to Tinnevelly, but has been introduced, more or less, in all Missions to the heathen, whether they be Roman Catholic or Protestant, Episcopal or non-Episcopal. The extent, however, of our Tinnevelly Mission brings out the Catechist system into greater prominence there than elsewhere, and gives it more of the character of an essential feature of our Missionary work. When an European Missionary establishes himself in a new sphere, he generally finds it necessary to engage a few educated Christian natives to assist him in making Christianity known in the surrounding country, to go before him when he purposes visiting a village in order to invite the people to come and listen, and to follow up his address by instructing more fully, and in greater detail, those who are willing to learn. When the Missionary begins to make an impression in the neighbourhood, and Christianity has effected an entrance into village after village, the assistance of native teachers becomes still more necessary than before; for in most parts of Tinnevelly, Christianity finds the entire mass of the people unable to read and without a school, and much work requires to be done which the Missionary cannot himself overtake, and that at one and the same time, in many different and distant villages. As soon as a few families in a village have agreed to abandon their idols, and to place themselves under instruction, it is necessary that they should be formed into a con gregation, and systematically instructed in everything that a Christian should know. Accordingly, a Catechist, or native teacher, is sent to reside amongst them, to teach them their daily lessons in Scripture history and Christian doctrine, to assemble them every morning and evening for prayer and catechization, to instruct them in the habits and usages suitable to a Christian community, to teach their children to read, and, in addition to all this to endeavour to win over to Christianity those who remain in heathenism in that and neighbouring villages. In most of the smaller congregations the same person is both Catechist and Schoolmaster ; but when the congregation increases, a division of labour becomes necessary, and then the Catechist's work assumes more of the character of the work of the Ministry. The native word which we render " Catechist" means simply an " instructor," and is altogether different from that by which the ordained Minister is denoted ; besides which, the Catechist con fines himself in his ministrations to those things which are com petent to a layman ; so that, although up to a certain point his work resemhles the Clergyman's, it is not liable to be confounded with it. When the Missionary visits any congregation, in his pro gress from village to village throughout his district, he himself reads the service, preaches, catechizes, examines the school, con verses with the people, holds interviews with the heathen ; all that is to be done, he does himself then and there, with the exception, perhaps, of the administration of the Sacraments, which are ordinarily restricted to the mother church in the central station ; but during the interval that must elapse before another visit is paid, how is the Missionary's place to be supplied ? The interval may last several weeks, in some places several months ; and during that period the native teacher com municates to the people all that he has been taught by the Missionary at the weekly meeting of Catechists, and diffuses around him the influences which he has received. Without the Catechist, (until such time, at least, as a duly-qualified native ministry shall be raised up,) no systematic instruction, no sys tematic guidance would be possible ; illiterate, low-caste converts would have to be abandoned in despair ; no progress could be made, even by the most promising congregations, towards self- government, self-support, or any other sign of maturity ; and even the raw material of a native ministry could never come into existence. It is our hope, indeed, that many of our native Catechists will in time be transformed into ordained native Ministers, supported by their own native flocks ; and in our various arrangements that object is kept steadily in view, and is, or ought to be, systematically worked for ; but as only a very small number of the native teachers have as yet been ordained, or evinced such qualifications and such a style of character as would justify their ordination, and as we have not yet the means of supporting a very large number, the employment of inferior men in a subordinate capacity cannot, as yet, be dispensed with. Some time must yet elapse before the Seminaries and Training Schools send out an adequate supply of men who are duly qualified even for the subordinate posts of Schoolmaster and Catechist, and some time must also elapse before the more promising persons employed in those subordinate offices are tested, strengthened, and ripened for the superior and more sacred functions of the Ministry ; but the time will, I have no doubt, come, and is coming, for already eleven Catechists have been ordained in Tinnevelly alone, and whilst we are waiting and working for the higher good, we thankfully avail ourselves of the lower; we use the lower, indeed, as a means of rising to the higher.
Our native Catechists are carefully trained for their work, not only before they are sent out, but during the whole period of their employment. Many of those who have hitherto been in employ ment had few or no educational advantages in early youth ; for it is only of late years that our Training Seminary was established. They could read and write when they were first employed, but that was all ; but every Missionary devotes an entire day every week to the instruction and training of his Catechists in their vernacular tongue, and some of them have now made considerable progress in every department of theological knowledge ; so that if their piety, zeal, and energy were equal to their intelligence, they might be ordained at once. In addition to instructing my Catechists in various branches of necessary knowledge, it was my custom to give them every week an outline of the sermon which I intended to preach on the fol lowing Sunday ; explaining to them at length, or calling upon them to explain, how each part of the outline should be filled up. Then, not only was this sermon preached on the Sunday to each of the twenty-four congregations comprised in my district, but it was also used, throughout the following week, as the basis of catechization at morning and evening prayers ; and whenever I visited a village, I was accustomed to question the people, to see how much they had retained of the various discourses that had been addressed to them. One year all the Missionaries, by mutual agreement, instructed their Catechists, and through them the people, in Bishop Pearson's masterly book on the Creed ; and I have heard many of our people say that they had never had so clear an idea before of the symmetry and grandeur of the Chris tian system. The Seminary for training up Catechists and Schoolmasters, which was founded in Sawyerpuram by the Rev. G. U. Pope, and which is now under the care of the Rev. H. C. Hux table, has begun to furnish us with a supply of youths who have been educated in English, and, through the medium of English, in the higher departments of learning ; and from amongst the new order of Catechists thus supplied to our Mis sions, we may fairly expect a body of well-educated, useful native Ministers to be raised up.
The employment of native teachers would not be practicable to such an extent as it is, were it not for the social and economic facilities which India affords. So great is the value of money in Tinnevelly, and so few openings are there for the skilled labour of educated young men belonging to the middle and lower classes, that the services of almost any number of persons, respectably connected and possessed of the rudiments of education, can be obtained for any purpose for which they are required, for the insignificant sum of from 51. to Wl. per annum. There is often a difficulty in obtaining for the office of Catechist a person of adequate piety, steadiness of character, and energy ; but the difficulty is a moral one, not also, as it would be in this country, a pecuniary one.
It may possibly be supposed by some persons that the employ ment of laymen in such duties as I have described is uneccle- siastical. It should be remembered, however, that we should be most happy to supersede native Catechists by native Ministers, if men of the proper qualifications could be supplied to us in suffi cient numbers, and if we could raise the large additional funds that would be required for their support ; for SQL per annum is the lowest stipend which has yet been paid to any native Min ister, and this averages five times as much as the salary of a Catechist, and five times as much as there is any prospect of the majority of our hamlet congregations being able to raise. It should, therefore, be remembered that, in the great majority of cases, the choice lies not between lay Catechists and an or dained Ministry, but between lay Catechists and no ministry at all. The people who have become Christians are poor, generally un able to read, residing in small scattered villages and hamlets, and exposed to much petty persecution from their heathen neighbours. They were brought up in idolatry or demonolatry, deeply imbued with heathen notions and habits, profoundly ignorant of the most rudimental facts in history and morals, and but recently converted to Christianity. Under these circumstances, an occa sional visit from an ordained Missionary, whether European or native, (and nothing beyond an occasional visit is practicable at present,) would not meet the necessities of the case. If they are ever to become Christians worthy of the name, they must be trained, guided, and systematically taught, and this can be done at present only by a resident Catechist. This being the case, so far from the employment of laymen being unecclesiastical, it would, I think, be unecclesiastical as well as unscriptural to hesitate for a moment to employ them ; for all ecclesiastical pre cedents from the brethren in Apostolic times who " went every where preaching the word," and the brotherhoods and sisterhoods of the mediaeval period, down to the Scripture-readers and paro chial schoolmasters of our own times prove this, that the Church's " feet have been set in a large room ;" and the only exceptions to this are such as prove the rule, by proving for our warning how much has been irretrievably lost to our own branch of the Church by morbid scrupulosity about the employment of laymen in subordinate offices and the adaptation of means to varying circumstances and times.
In many poor, populous country parishes in England, I have noticed the existence of hamlets situated at a considerable distance from the parish church ; and I have too often found on inquiry either that Christianity had no visible, corporate existence in those outlying hamlets at all, and that the people were destitute of accessible means of grace, or that the only Christianity they had was nourished by a little Methodist chapel. It was impossible to avoid contrasting this state of things with the arrangement which would have been made in similar circumstances in Tinnevelly. There the hamlet would be an affiliated out-station of the parish church. A layman, a man of the people, (perhaps a small farmer, or a small shopkeeper, trained and guided by the Minister of the parish, and perhaps partially supported by parochial funds), would be acting as the Clergyman's representative, collecting the people daily in the little oratory of the hamlet a separatist chapel no longer for prayer and praise and spiritual instruction, preaching to them every Sunday the Clergyman's sermon, and accompanying them on special occasions, as at Christmas and Easter, to the parish church. I need not stop to inquire whether some still better arrangement than this might not be discovered ; but surejy~, in comparing even this with the arrangement, or rather the no-arrangement, which one generally finds in England, it is not without reason that I maintain that our Tinnevelly plan is of the two decidedly to be preferred.
I have mentioned some circumstances which have contributed to the reception of Christianity by various classes of people in Tinnevelly, and some which have contributed to the consolidation and growth of the new Christian community. My sketch would be far from being perfect, and the impression I produce would be far from being accurate, if I said nothing respecting the motives which have induced many of the people to place themselves under our care. Wherever we have gone, we have preached to the people the Gospel of Christ, in accordance with Christ's own command; we have known nothing amongst them save Christ, and Him crucified, and it is unquestionable that the Gospel, without the help of any extraneous influences, has again and again proved itself " mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds." Still, it is equally true, that in the greater number of instances the conversions that have taken place have been the result, not of spiritual motives alone, but of a combination of motives, partly spiritual and partly secular, the spiritual motives predominating in some instances over the secular, in others the secular predominating over the spiritual : and this holds true, not only with respect to Tinnevelly and the Missions of the Clrnrch of England, but with respect to every rural Mission in India, with whatever Society it may be connected, and whatever may be the idea of its condition which is commonly entertained. May I not add that this has held good of every conversion of tribes and peoples, as distinguished from the conversion of isolated individuals, which the history of the Church has recorded 1
When T admit (the word " admit " is scarcely a correct one, it would seem to show that we have ordinarily put the case in a dif ferent light, whereas we have never done so,) when I avow that secular motives have contributed to the results realized in Tinne- velly, I wish to preclude misapprehension in a very material point. I do not include in those motives the sordid desire of pecuniary gain. The motives to which I refer, though secular, are not sordid. Our Tinnevelly converts receive from us no pecuniary assistance whatever, and on their becoming Christians they are expected not to ask, but to give; and they do give, and that largely, to various religious and benevolent objects, and entirely support their own poor. In promoting the welfare of our converts we have never aimed at alluring heathens, by the prospect of temporal benefits, to connect themselves with our Missions, or to accept our teaching; and when individuals or villages have wished to bargain with us, as they have sometimes wished, that they will become Christians on such and such terms, we have invariably refused to have anything to do with such venal con versions. The desire of direct pecuniary benefits cannot, there fore, be the motive by which our people have been influenced.
The secular advantages obtained by our converts are such as naturally and necessarily flow from Christianity, or are of such a nature that the expectation of obtaining them would be quite consistent with the persuasion that Christianity is from God, and with the wish to be guided by its principles. The expectation of receiving from the Missionary of the district advice in per plexity, sympathy in adversity, and help in sickness, and of being at all times kindly inquired after and spoken to ; the desire of being connected with a rising, united body, which is guided by European intelligence, and governed by principles of Christian justice ; the expectation of being protected in some measure from the petty tyranny and caste pride of their wealthy neighbours ; the fact that the native Christians appear after a few years to acquire a higher standing in society, and to enjoy more peace and prosperity than fell to their lot when they were heathens; the desire of advancement on the part of the lower castes, who find that we consider them as capable of advancement, and teach them to feel that they are men, these feelings and desires, arising from the perception of the indirect benefits conferred by Chris tianity, have had more influence in the minds of the people than the expectation of receiving any direct worldly advantages ; and such feelings, though secular in their origin, are obviously quite consistent with sincere Christian faith.
Similar feelings are found to produce similar results in a greater or less degree in all Missions. For example, the offer of a superior English and scientific education, sufficient to qualify those who receive it for Government situations, is found to allure the sons of the more wealthy inhabitants of the great Indian cities within the sphere of Christian teaching and influence. The offer of medical advice brings another class within the reach of the Missionaries. In one particular, however, the manner in which the principle is acted upon in Tinnevelly appears less open to objection than in those cases. The secular advantages which are enjoyed by the converts in Tinnevelly are such only as naturally and neces sarily flow from the reception of Christianity, and are not held out beforehand to any class of persons as an inducement to them to submit to Christian teaching.
In giving our people, when oppressed, advice and assistance to the best of our ability, we have sometimes been blamed on the supposition that we have steppe ,1 out of ^ur proper sphere. It has been held apparently that when the flock is oppressed, it is the duty of the shepherd to stand by silent and unconcerned, and to leave the result to chance or to the tender mercies of official wolves. I repudiate, however, this interpretation of our duty as Christian Pastors. With few and rare exceptions, in taking an interest in the oppressions to which our people were exposed, we have simply done that which it was our duty to do towards those to whom we stood in the relation of pastors and friends, that which no man of Christian feeling and benevolence could help doing. We could not help advising the perplexed, sympathising with the injured, encouraging the degraded to arise, "rejoicing with them that rejoiced, and weeping with them that wept." "We could not help saying with the apostle, " Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?" Christianity has " the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come," and they whose office it is to introduce Christianity amongst a heathen people, and to lay the foundations of a Chris tian community, cannot properly be blamed for exhibiting the truth of each part of this promise, and proving that the religion they teach is man's best friend.
To return, however, to the motives by which persons have been induced to abandon heathenism. I repeat that it is undeniable that the temporal and social advantage of the Christian religion have made a deep impression on the minds of many ; and it is obvious that such advantages will appear to persons who are still in heathenism, and who have been accustomed to act on worldly principles alone in a more attractive light, and to carry greater weight, than any purely spiritual benefits. Accordingly, many persons have undoubtedly placed themselves under the pastoral care of the Missionaries, not so much through the desire of ob taining Christian instruction or salvation from sin, as through their desire for protection and sympathy, or through the influence of secular motives generally.
It is desirable to mention here, that what I have said respecting the influence of secular motives, refers exclusively to the reception of persons, in the first instance, under Chris tian instruction as catechumens, not to their subsequent re ception by baptism into the Christian Church. If a person wished to receive baptism, and it were certainly known that he was influenced by secular motives, I would never consent to desecrate the sign and seal of regeneration, by administering it to a person who was so obviously unfit to receive the spiritual blessing. In such cases our rule should be that which was ex pressed by Philip to the Ethiopian eunuch, " If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest." Even as respects the re ception of persons in the first instance under Christian instruction, it is a fact of great importance to the right understanding of this subject, that there are thousands upon thousands of heathens in Tinnevelly, whom all secular motives combined have failed to draw within the region of light. Consequently, where persons more or less influenced by such motives, have become Christians, it is not only possible but probable, that there has also been some secret operation of God's Holy Spirit in their minds, and some special arrangement of circumstances in His providential dealings with them, predisposing them to accept the offer of the Gospel. Rather we acknowledge with gratitude that this is in accordance with the good purpose of His goodness in every age.
There is another circumstance which it is equally important to remember. Whatever be the motives by which those who have placed themselves under instruction have been induced to listen and learn, whether because they had " seen the miracles," and approved of the teaching, or " because they had eaten," or ex pected to eat, "of the loaves," or, as often happens, through both sets of motives together, it is the Gospel of Christ's saving love, the message of reconciliation to God through the blood of Christ, and that only, which we have preached to them and taught them ; it is by the Gospel that we have reached their consciences, and gained their hearts ; and it is through the efficacy of the Gospel that they have been enlightened, washed from the impurities of idolatry, and raised to their present condition. Whatever in fluences may have brought any of them into connexion with us in the first instance, all the benefits they have derived from that connexion, and all that gratifies the mind, and awakens hope in our progress from station to station throughout the Province, are direct results of the preaching of Christ's Gospel, and the ad ministration of the ordinances and discipline of Christ's Church. We have not thought it necessary to prepare heathens for Christian teaching by any civilizing or educational system, or to make a distinction amongst them by any discriminative process. In the state in which we found them, in many respects a very unsatisfac tory state, and without preparation or p^lu^e, save that of learning their language, we have preached to them the words of life. "We have said, as we were commanded, " Thus saith the Lord, believe and ye shall live ;" and the results have proved the propriety of the course pursued. Of the persons who have embraced Christianity from mixed motives, partly religious, partly secular, such as those I have described, the majority are found to adhere to it after all excite ment from without has passed away, and learn to value Christ ianity for higher reasons. From time to time, also, we discover amongst them a few pure-minded, truth -loving persons, whom Providence had been preparing even in heathenism for the re ception of the truth, and for bringing forth the fruits of right eousness. The congregation, consisting perhaps of the inhabitants of an entire village, was brought in, as it were, by the tide, and yet after a time we discover amongst the sand and sea-weed not a few pearls of great price, fitted to shine hereafter in a kingly crown.
I now proceed to furnish some particulars respecting the interior economy of a Tinnevelly district. As there is little difference, even in details, and no essential difference, between one district and another, and as I am necessarily best acquainted with my own district, and most interested in it, it is the work of my own dis trict that I am about to describe ; but that will serve, I think, more or less to illustrate Tinnevelly missionary work in general. It was towards the end of the year 1841 that I arrived in Tin nevelly, and took up my abode at Edeyenkoody, which became from that time the nucleus of a new missionary district. Although the Missions of both the Church Societies, particularly those of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, were then in a much less flourishing condition than they are now, I was even then delighted with the signs of progress which I witnessed. I had already had nearly four years' missionary experience in connexion with the London Missionary Society, during which period I had been labouring in the city of Madras ; but, before my arrival in Tinnevelly, I had seen few signs of missionary progress. In Madras and the neighbourhood the native Christians connected with the various Missions were isolated individuals, not communi ties, and all taken together were not equal in number to the Christian inhabitants of a single Tinnevelly district. In the province of Tanjore, on my way to the South, I saw communities of native Christians, villages entirely inhabited by Christians ; but, at that time at least, they exhibited few appearances of reli gious vitality. In Tinnevelly, however, I not only found large communities of Christians, entire districts of country more or less Christianized, but I also found those communities characterized by ever-increasing energy, and by unequalled docility and liberality. I was so much delighted by what I then saw, though many things were still evidently unshapen and rudimental, that on preaching my first sermon in Tianevelly, in the Mission Church at Nazareth, I took for my text these words, (contained in the Epistle for the day,) " The night is far spent, the day is at hand." My impression that the day was about to dawn has not been fully realized it is not day yet the darkness is still sorely reluctant to give place to the light ; for, though 43,000 souls have " come to the light," and are learning, with more or less singleness of purpose, to " walk in the light," more than 1,200,000 souls, in that province alone, remain in wilful darkness still ; nevertheless, on comparing what now exists in Tinnevelly with what I found in it, I cannot but perceive reasons both for thankfulness for the progress already made, and for hoping that the dawn, though long deferred, will soon arrive. When I arrived in Tinnevelly there were but two districts in connexion with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, viz. Nazareth and Moodaloor, each of which was under the care of a Missionary ; but it had been determined that I should endeavour to form a third, which should comprise an outlying portion of the Moodaloor district, together with an extensive, more distant, and hitherto almost unknown tract of country. The field of labour on which I thus entered, lies along the southern shore of Tinnevelly, being about twenty miles in length, and, on an average, five miles in breadth, with a population of about 20,000 souls. It com mences about twenty miles from Cape Comorin, the hills above which are distinctly visible from my house. Christianity had been introduced, in the early period of Satyanadan's labours, into the eastern part of this district, or that part which is included in the great palmyra forest, and chiefly inhabited by Shanars ; but this neighbourhood was afterwards more wofully neglected than any other part of the old Tinnevelly Mission, and the great majority of those who had embraced Christianity, including, in many instances, entire villages, fell away from it, in the absence of pastoral care during the pestilence which ranged so violently all over the southern provinces about thirty years before my arrival.
After our Missions in Tinnevelly had been recommenced, and a Missionary had been located in Moodaloor, the few scattered con- gregations that remained were occasionally visited by a Missionary, and Christianity again began to extend towards the western part of the district. For several years before my arrival my district was periodically visited from Moodaloor, but no Missionary had statedly and continuously laboured in the district before my arrival, no Missionary had resided in it, and almost everything pertaining to parochial organization had to be built up in it from the foundation by myself. The district derives the name by which it is known amongst Christians from Edeyenkoody, the name of the village where I took up my abode, and where there is now the principal Christian congregation in the district. The meaning of the name " Edeyen koody," or properly, Ideiyan-kudi, is, " the shepherd's habitation." This was the name of the place before I went there, and before Christianity was known there ; it was not given to it, therefore, by me, as might have been supposed : still, I always thought it a very appropriate name for the residence of a Missionary-Pastor, and very suggestive of the duties which I was sent there to dis charge ; for I went there as " a shepherd," as a servant of that " good," that divine " Shepherd, who gave his life for the sheep ;"
and the purpose I had in view in going there was to endeavour to gather into Christ's fold the sheep for which He died. I wish I could add that the object I aimed at has been accomplished ; but whilst some have listened to the Good Shepherd's voice, the majority have preferred the dangers of the wilderness to the pasture and protection provided for them in the fold of Christ. There, as everywhere else, it has been found that " many are called, but few are chosen." Still there, as elsewhere, " God's Word has not returned unto Him void, but has accom plished that which He pleased, and prospered in the thing whereto He sent it." In the district committed to me I made it my business to become acquainted with every village and hamlet, arid, if possible, with every family, and endeavoured, by myself, and with the help of my native assistants, to make known to " every creature " the message of reconciliation to God through the blood of the Cross. There were two truths which I found by experience every one, however rude, could comprehend, and which every one, however hardened, could appreciate, and those truths I always took care to teach and enforce. The first was that the burden of guilt which every man feels that he carries about with him, and which false religions leave untouched, is removed by Christ, " the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world," and by Him alone ; the second, that in the conflict with evil which every man must wage, if he would be saved, and in which false religions leave him to his own resources, the religion of Christ supplies him with the help he needs, inasmuch as it brings him into contact with God, and opens to him a channel of sanctifying grace in the supply of the Spirit of Jesus. In these truths is the substance of the Gospel, and I have found them everywhere, not only intelligible, but fitted to produce serious thought. Proofs of the folly of idolatry leave the heart and character unchanged, but virtue goes forth from these truths respecting Christ, to heal every one that believeth.
Whilst I endeavoured, in journeying from village to village, to preach the Gospel to every creature, it was also my endeavour to plant in every village the nucleus of a Christian congregation. As the Gospel is a revelation from God, so the Church is an institution of God, and neither should the Church be substituted for the Gospel, nor should it be supposed that the Gospel ignores the Church. Accordingly, wherever two or three agreed to accept the message of mercy, I formed them into a new congre gation, and commenced to "teach them all things whatsoever Christ had commanded."
Though it was not my privilege to gather into the Christian fold all for whose conversion I longed and laboured, I have reason to be thankful that I was not called, as some more earnest, more faithful labourers have been, in other parts of the field of the world, to labour in vain, and " spend my strength for nought, and in vain." On leaving my district for a season, about three years ago, on account of failing health, it was my privilege to make over to a younger Missionary, to tend and keep in my absence, a Christian flock of 2,672 souls persons who were not merely occasional hearers of the Gospel, but who had formally placed themselves under Christian instruction, and under my pastoral care, and whose names were in our church books as baptized persons or catechumens. On my arrival in the district thirteen years before, I found about 1,200 persons under my charge, some of whom had been transferred to iny care by the Church Missionary Society. The average number of accessions from heathenism during the period of my labours was, therefore* over a hundred a year. There were times in which there was no visible progress, and times of trial when new comers were sifted, and their numbers diminished ; but taking the entire period, and in the main, there was a visible ascent and progress, and during the last two years alone, the accessions amounted to 640. When we stand on the sea-shore, and look at the rising and falling waves, we may sometimes be in doubt for a time whether the tide is ebbing or flowing, but if we fix our eye upon a mark, and wait patiently for a while, our doubts will soon be removed ; just so, I may have felt doubtful for a particular year or half- year, whether the Christian cause was advancing or receding, but on looking back upon the whole period, and observing how the wave of Christian influences reached and passed over village after .village, I cannot now doubt that the tide was rising.
All the native Christians who were under my care when I left, did not reside in the same place, or form a single congregation : they were all inhabitants of the same district, but they resided in twenty-four different villages, scattered over a considerable extent of country j and though the greater number of them occasionally assembled in the mother-church in Edeyenkoody, on an average once in three months, as one fold under one shepherd, yet, properly speaking, they formed twenty-four different congrega tions, under the instruction of nearly as many native teachers. The largest congregation in the district is that of Edeyenkoody, where the mother-church is situated, where we have central, superior schools, where I resided, and from whence I visited the other villages in the district in succession. That congregation numbered upwards of 600, and I endeavoured to make it a model congregation, and the village itself, in all its arrangements, material as well as moral, a model village to the rest of the district. The next congregation, in point of numbers, was that of East Tavurey, which contained upwards of three hundred souls. The rest were small, some of them very small, congrega tions, averaging about eighty souls each, and differing one from another very widely in condition and prospects some of them centres of Christian light, and exercising an important influ ence in the neighbourhood, others unsatisfactory, and a source of anxiety.
Wherever there is a congregation, however small, our local Church Building Society, a society which depends for support entirely upon our native Christians, and receives no aid from Missionary Societies, or from Europeans, has erected in the village a little place of Christian worship, in some instances a church, more generally a church-school a little edifice, how ever plain and primitive, which may be used as a school during the day, and in which, not only on Sundays, but every morning and evening throughout the Aveek, old and young, men, women, and children may be assembled together to hear God's word, and to join in His worship. Most of those little edifices are very rude and mean, compared with the churches of Christian England, being generally built of sun-dried bricks, in the old Egyptian or Babylonian style, and thatched with palmyra leaves. I might almost be ashamed to call them " churches," were it not that each of these little edifices is, as its Tamil name, " Kovil," signifies, " God's house," inasmuch as they who assemble there meet in the name of God their Saviour, and as He has promised to be with them : I trust, therefore, it may be said of each of them, as of Zion, that " the Lord will recount, when he writeth up the people, that this man and that was born there." It is also deserving of mention, that the village church is invariably the best built, cleanest, airiest building in the village ; and if this rule continues to be adhered to hereafter if as civilization progresses, and the people learn to build better houses for themselves, church archi tecture continues to keep ahead of domestic architecture, the churches of Christian India may at length rival, as the heathen temples do already, the churches of Europe. Similar hopes may, I trust, be entertained respecting the progress of a more important species of ecclesiastical architecture the architecture of the spiritual church of India, the church of living stones.
In the village of Edeyenkoody itself, the building now used as a church, though spacious, and somewhat church-like, is only of a temporary order; but a permanent stone church, capable of accom modating 1,200 persons, is in progress; I am sorry to say, how ever, that for want of funds the progress it makes is far from being as rapid as I could wish. The plan of the church was kindly fur nished me by the Secretary of an English Church Building Society ; and though the style is simple, yet, as it is to be a permanent, stone-built church, and a specimen of good church architecture to the rest of the district, as it is to accommodate 1,200 persons, and as building in stone is more expensive in that remote neigh bourhood, than in some other places in India, the entire cost of the church will not be less, and may be more, than 8001. About 300. have already been expended, and the building has advanced only as far as the windows, so that I reckon that about 5001. more will be required.
I hope to obtain a certain proportion of this sum from time to time from our native Christians ; but although they are very liberal in proportion to their means, as will be shown in a subsequent lecture, yet, I have generally preferred directing all the contributions that they were able to give for church-building purposes into the channel of our local Church Building Society, a Society which has built and kept in repair about thirty small churches and schools in various parts of the district. I trust therefore, that some Christian friends in this country will have the kindness to help me to finish, in an appropriate style, a church which is so much required, and which is to be the mother-church and the model of a large circle of Mission churches. I should add, that it is a fixed rule of the Society for the Pro pagation of the Gospel not to make any grants for church building.
Some persons will, doubtless, wonder how one Missionary could tend and guide twenty-four different congregations. The task is certainly a difficult one, and would have been quite impossible, but for the help of our native Catechists. Any one who knows what is involved in the care of a single congregation, however small, in this old Christian country, where all preliminary diffi culties were overcome centuries ago, may form some conjecture, though still but a very inadequate one, of the work and care, the pressure of anxiety, the ceaseless succession of hopes and fears, of successes and disappointments, connected with so large a number of newly formed congregations, each consisting of con verts from idolatry or demonolatry, or of the children of converts, and each surrounded by a darkness which comprehends it not, but is desirous of extinguishing it. For the first five or six years I had few native teachers of any kind to assist me, and such as I had were persons who had had no educational advantages in their youth. By and by, however, I obtained the help of youths whom I selected from the most promising pupils in the village schools, or who had already entered upon the employments of life, and those I instructed and trained, in a sort of local training- school, as well as my other engagements would admit. A Training-School was subsequently established at Sawyerpuram for the training up of schoolmasters and Catechists for the benefit of all our districts in common ; and before I left Tinnevelly it had begun to supply us with native helpers of a superior class. During the whole of my residence in Tinnevelly, as mentioned already, I was accustomed to devote an entire day every week to the instruction and improvement of my Catechists, on which occasions I communicated to them all I wanted them to com municate to the people. I was thus enabled to multiply myself, as it were, and to discharge many of the duties of the pastoral office in some twenty-four different places at once.'
The catechetical mode of preaching which is adopted in Tinne velly is particularly well fitted to the present condition of things in our congregations. Let my reader accompany me for a moment to Edeyenkoody, and see for himself what our plan is, and how it works. It is Sunday morning, shortly after sunrise ; the peal of four gongs has rung out, and the people are assembled in church ; we enter and look around. No white face is visible save those of the Missionary and his family, no English word falls upon the ear ; but the order of the service is the same as our own, and the few points of difference that are apparent are such as explain themselves. The people are seated, not in pews or on benches, but cross-legged on the floor, some on mats, some without. The men sit on one side of the church, the women on the other ; the "readers," or educated portion of each sex, in front, the un educated behind j and there are two transepts, fully commanded by the preacher's eye, in one of which are seated the boys, in the other the girls. The chief peculiarities we notice in the course of the service are, that the responses are made by the whole mass of the people, perhaps in rather too loud a tone for English ears, and that during prayer the whole congregation, with the excep tion of a few old people and women with children, kneel on the hard floor, without hassocks and without support. I read out my text, and before I proceed farther, make sure that every one has heard it, by asking a few of the children, and of the people who cannot read, to repeat it to me aloud. When I divide the dis course into heads, or mention any particulars which I wish to impress upon the attention, or endeavour to clear up a difficulty, or enforce a truth by some familiar local illustration, I ascertain for myself, by questioning each class of people in succession, whether they understand, and are likely to carry home, the lessons they have been taught. Sometimes I question a particular indi vidual by name, more commonly a class ; and if the question I asked is not answered by those to whom it is put, I put it to class after class till it is answered, beginning, perhaps, with the school children, then asking the uneducated adults, and finally ques tioning the educated young people. Sometimes, if an erroneous answer is given, it leads to a clearer view of the truth itself, for, in that case, I not only tell the people that the answer is wrong, but point out to them in what respect it is wrong, and this is sometimes the most instructive part of the discourse.
In addition to all this catechizing, and whilst it is going on, you may hear a peculiar scratching sound arising from various parts of the church ; this proceeds from persons who are writing out notes of the sermon with the iron style on slips of palmyra leaf. I never knew any male member of our congregations remain silent when asked a question, if he were able to answer it; and sometimes, if the question is a very easy one, the answer will proceed from twenty different persons at once. The women, as is natural, are not so ready to reply as the men ; yet I do not think it advisable to let them escape altogether, but ask them a question now and then to keep their attention alive ; and in the smaller congregations, especially at the ordinary morning prayers, where there are few men present, they answer as freely as I could wish. This system would probably be found impracticable in this country. Many English people feel an unconquerable repugnance to allow their voices to be heard in public ; and even when they understand a thing, they get so confused and abashed, when ques tioned about it in a promiscuous assembly, that they would be unable, even if they were willing, to reply. The structure of the Hindu mind is very different. The Hindus are much less ex citable, and less apt to get nervous than we are ; so that if a Hindu only understands a thing, he is not liable to be put out by being asked to explain it. I fear few English congregations will ever bear to be publicly catechized ; and yet, on looking round upon an English congregation, I have often seen and felt deficiencies which nothing but catechization could supply, and have longed to ascertain, in our Indian method, before passing on to a new subject, whether what was said previously was understood.
Another excellent arrangement for the instruction of our people consists in our adult Sunday-schools. The majority of our Tinnevelly Christians were converted, not merely from idolatry, but from the gloomiest demonolatry ; they belonged, with few exceptions, to a poor, rude, and illiterate class of society ; and few of them were able even to read before their conversion. In con sequence of all this, their mental condition was dark and uncul tivated, and they stood in peculiar need of systematic instruction, not only in the principles, but in the details of Christianity and morality. This instruction is supplied by the adult Sunday- schools, which I have established wherever I could. The children are not forgotten on Sundays ; but as they are carefully instructed every day in the week, our chief attention on Sundays is claimed by, and given to, the adults.
In Edeyenkoody our Sunday morning service is held shortly after sunrise ; the afternoon service closes a little before sunset ; and the middle of the day, which is too hot and uncomfortable for Divine service, being left unoccupied, it is appropriated to the adult Sunday-school. It is noon, and the gong has rung for school ; we re-enter the large temporary church, where the school is held, and again look around. We find as large an attendance, both of men and women, as at Divine Service in the morning ; say from 100 to 120 adults, out of a population of 600 souls. They are all seated, as before, on the floor of the Church, not in rows, however, as at Service, but in ten or twelve separate semi circles, each of which forms a class. The " readers " formed only one class at first, but they have now increased to four, viz. two of men ; and two of women ; and the members of these classes read, and are questioned upon, some book of Scripture, chapter by chapter, besides repeating some portion from memory. Those who are unable to read once the great majority, now a minority are arranged into classes according to the amount of their knowledge, and are taught portions of the Catechism, or Scrip ture texts arranged in a series, or a summary of important facts and doctrines. In this country, Sunday-school pupils are almost invariably children, and their teachers almost invariably grown persons. In Edeyenkoody we see exactly the reverse ; the pupils are the adult inhabitants of the village, farmers, traders, and labourers, including the " head-men " themselves, and the teachers are their children or grand-children, in some instances boys and girls who have not yet left school. After setting all the classes to work, my wife and I go from class to class, guiding the teachers or examining the pupils, as circumstances may require, or sit down with one of the classes of readers, explaining to them the word of God more perfectly. It is wonderful to see how patiently and good-humouredly the older people submit to be taught by their juvenile teachers. Though they look to the teacher for the words of the lesson, and repeat them patiently again and again, until they know them by heart, it sometimes happens that they have a clearer insight than their teacher into the meaning of the lesson. The teacher depends, perhaps exclusively, upon his lesson-notes, whilst per haps the pupil has had the meaning written in his heart by the Great Teacher himself. We endeavour to teach words as well as things ; for there are many " forms of sound words," in Scripture and out of it, which every person ought to know ; nevertheless, it often happens that the older people find it difficult to retain words in their memory, whilst they have succeeded in grasping the idea, in which the substance of truth resides. I was once examining a very old man, who wished to be baptized, and, according to custom, I asked him, amongst other things, if he could repeat the Belief, which I knew he had been taught. He made the attempt, but after a few incoherent sentences, gave it up in despair. At length he raised his hand, and said, " I'll tell you, sir, the meaning of it. We are all sinners, and the Lord Christ undertook for us all, and if we believe in Him we shall be saved ; I know that, and that is all I know." In this instance the poor man had really learned much in learning a little; for the substance of saving truth, the kernel of the Gospel, was contained in his reply. Such of the members of the congregation as are able to read are expected to attend also a Bible class, which is held on a week-day. On Wednesday at noon, about the time when all work ceases in Hindu villages, on account of the extreme heat, and when every one seeks the shade for a couple of hours, we are accustomed to assemble the people in church for the Litany and a short sermon, when the attendance averages about half that of the Sunday. After the service is over, the readers remain for about half-an-hour, and then I give them a general idea of the meaning and connexion of the chapter which they are to prepare for next Sunday's class ; so that if I am to be out " in the villages " on Sunday, my absence may not be seri ously felt.
We have another service, with a sermon, every Friday ; but as Friday is the market-day in the neighbourhood, the village is nearly deserted the greater part of the day, and a noon-tide ser vice is impracticable. The service is therefore held in the evening, between sunset and the native hour of dinner ; and, on this occasion, though I invariably preside during the service, and take some part in it myself, the prayers are read, and a sermon is delivered, by one of the native Catechists. Friday, as I have mentioned already, is the day I spend with the Catechists, and the sermon to be preached on Friday evening by each Catechist in succession, on a subject given him by myself, is a part, and not, I think, the least important part of the course of training by which our native teachers are fitted for their duties. There are, of course, great differences in the character of the sermons that are then delivered some flimsy and weak, some high-flown, some solid and instructive ; but in this, as in everything else, I have noticed a great improvement ; and I have rarely heard better sermons anywhere than those which were delivered in his turn by Gnana-moottoo, a Catechist of mine who has just been ordained. It may be regarded as a matter of surprise, and looking at things from this distance, I feel surprised myself, that people who are not in any way dependent on the Missionary should submit, as our people out there do, to all the teaching and training, the church-going and school-going that I have here described ; and yet it is a fact, that they not only submit to it, but generally enter into the spirit of it, and co-operate in carrying it on with more or less heartiness and zeal.
The feeling of the community is so strongly in its favour, when it has not been prematurely forced upon them, when it is ad ministered in a kindly, considerate spirit, and when their honour as a community or as a caste has not been infringed, that even the most indolent and irregular members of the congregation feel themselves obliged to yield to rules. One of our rules is, that if any person remains away from church or from Sunday- school so long as to attract attention, it is my duty to send for him, that I may have the opportunity of giving him the reproof or warning that he needs. In this country I might send for an absentee, but would he come when he was sent for'? possibly he would regard my sending for him as a sufficient reason for never coming to church again. In Tinnevelly, however, when we send for a man, he comes ; and as some cases of negligence or irre gularity will always occur in a large village, I had a particular hour every week appropriated to this department of discipline, and on that occasion it was the duty of the " head men" of the village to be present, that their influence and authority might strengthen mine. Occasionally, but very rarely, some person who was more obstinate than usual, would refuse to come when he was sent for, but this was considered by all his neighbours as so highly improper a procedure, that he generally yielded before long to the current of public opinion, without rendering it necessary for the village authorities to "sit upon him" under the council-tree.
Wherever this system of catechetical instruction and congre gational discipline has been acted upon for any length of time, the best effects have been apparent. I feel confident that most of our Shanar and Pariar Christians in Tinnevelly, notwith standing their natural dulness, will be found to have a better knowledge of God's word, and of divine things generally, than the majority of persons belonging to classes and conditions con siderably superior to theirs, in connexion with English congre gations. As respects knowledge and order, docility, and liberality, " the preparation of the heart, and the answer of the tongue," they undoubtedly occupy a high position amongst Christians.
I am far, however, from undervaluing the indirect results of the transmitted Christianity of Europe results, of which the value is apparent, even in the rural districts, and amongst the labouring classes of this country j for when divine grace takes possession of an English peasant or of an English artizan, and his heart is touched by the constraining love of Christ, he rises at once, and almost without an effort, to a higher, more manly, more con scientious, more emotional, more enlightened style of piety than even Hindu converts of a superior order generally reach.
Whilst we have devoted much attention and effort to the instruction of the adult members of our Tinnevelly congre gations, we have not been forgetful of the still greater importance of the Christian education of the young. The rising generation is everywhere the hope of the Church, but especially so in a heathen country, in a recently-formed Christian community. I do not regard any portion of God's creatures as hopelessly degraded, but in a country where every moral principle has been contaminated and warped by a hundred generations of heathenism, where the very atmosphere seems to be tainted with impurity and deceit, there is certainly more hope of the young, whose minds are still tender and impressible, than of those who have grown old in sin, and who have been converted from the evil of their ways late in life.
With this conviction in their minds, the Missionaries have laboured hard for the benefit of the rising generation, and undoubtedly Christian education has made much progress in Tinnevelly progress very much greater than might have been expected amongst a class of people who had been content, in most instances, from the beginning of their history, to live in the grossest ignorance, and who, when we first became acquainted with them, neither desired nor appreciated any sort of education. Though, however, they were scarcely in a condition to appreciate the advantages of education, they were willing to believe that the Missionaries knew better than they what was good for themselves and their children ; they were willing to be guided and ruled j and the result has been, not only that the children of Christian parents have grown up an educated generation, but that edu cation is now generally appreciated by the parents themselves.
In many of the more important Christian villages in Tinnevelly, the proportion of the population in school amounts to one in four, or twenty-five per cent., a proportion which has not been, and indeed cannot be, exceeded in any country in the world. This proportion has not, indeed, generally been reached, and the educational condition of our smaller, poorer, outlying villages, is necessarily inferior to that of villages that are more populous and more prosperous ; yet the general average, in all our dis tricts taken together, reaches sixteen per cent., and the number of children, male and female, Christian and heathen, in the school-lists in the various Christian schools in the province, amounts to 10,000. In my own village, Edeyenkoody, the proportion of the population ;in school was fully one in four; and even when I took all the villages in the district, promising and unpromising, into the average, the proportion fell very little short of that. When I left the district, the number of native Christians of all ages under my care was 2,672 : at the same period the number of children of Christian parents in the various schools that had been established throughout the district was
(300 boys and 275 girls) ; and in addition to this band of Christian children, 295 children of heathen parents were receiving as many of the advantages of a Christian education as they were willing to receive.
It is evident that in the education of a goodly band of children, a most important door of usefulness has been opened to the Missionary. Whatever opinion may be entertained of the older converts, and how unpromising soever the condition of some of them may be supposed to be, we have their children, at all events, in school, to bring up from the first in " the nurture and admonition of the Lord ;" and as the parents are uniler Christian instruction and pastoral oversight no less than the children, we have reason for hoping that the lessons of truth which are taught in the schoolroom during the day, will not be obliterated at night, when the children return home, as too often happens when the parents are heathen.
All the schools established in the district of Edeyenkoody, with the exception of a superior girls' school, of which I shall mention some particulars presently, are vernacular day-schools. There is much demand for an English education in the great towns of India, and since the Government grant-in-aid system was introduced, the demand has begun to spread even in the rural districts ; but, up to the time I left, a solid education in the vernacular language was all that seemed to be required by the people of my own district, and all that I endeavoured to provide for. I do not expect, indeed, that English will ever be much studied by that class of children that chiefly attended my schools. It is difficult in every country to induce the children of small farmers and farm-labourers to remain in school long enough to learn even their own tongue thoroughly ; and as English is in Tinnevelly a foreign tongue, and the study of it rather a scholarly accomplishment than a necessity, it will always be found, not only difficult, but impossible for the great majority of Shanar children to learn English. It is a consolation, however, that they are provided with a good supply of intellectual food in their own language. We had the Bible in Tamil three translations of the greater portion of it the Prayer-book, a printing press in every province, and an increasing and improving Christian literature. Our people are able to read in their own tongue God's " wonderful works," and His wonderful mercy ; and we find no difficulty in getting access, by means of that tongue, to their minds and hearts.
The education we give in our village schools, though in the vernacular language, is tolerably substantial : it comprises read ing, writing, mental arithmetic, catechisms of Scripture history and doctrine, a little geography, and a little High-Tamil poetry ; and if the children could only remain long enough in school to receive all the advantages which we are prepared to give them, we should not have much room left for regret.
Many things connected with the interior economy of our schools are of so primitive a character, that a stranger might be led to bestow upon us more pity than we require. When you enter any of our schools, you see most of the children very scantily clothed many of the little boys, indeed, with the smallest apology for clothing that an ingenious economy can invent. You find them also seated, not on forms, but cross-legged on the floor, learning to write, not with pen, ink, and paper, but first on fine sand spread out before them on the ground, and afterwards with the iron pen or graver on the palmyra leaf. The first books they use also are oleis, or written leaves of the palmyra ; and their arithmetical exercises are worked out, not on slates, but either on the olei, or in their heads. Notwithstanding these peculiarities, the children have the means of acquiring as solid and useful an education as the majority of children be longing to the same class of society in more highly favoured countries. I have always endeavoured, not merely to teach the mechanical art of reading, but to teach the children to think, to supply them with right principles of action, and teach them to act from right motives to pour the light of truth into their minds to win them to Christ to train them up for usefulness on earth, and for happiness in heaven ; and though, doubtless, it has sometimes happened that I have not been duly seconded in such endeavours by the native schoolmasters, and that even when all favouring circumstances concurred to inspire me with hope, the result has been sorrow, not joy, and I have appeared to have been labouring in vain ; yet, on the other hand, the good seed has not, in every instance, fallen upon a bad soil. Some who have been taught the way they should go, have not departed from it when they grew up ; the second generation of native Christians is, on the whole, superior to the first ; and the whole of our school children the promising and the unpromising alike have derived this advantage, at least, from the education they have received, that they have become more intelligent hearers of the Word of God, and more capable of receiving religious impressions, than they would otherwise have been.
I was accustomed to devote four days in succession every month to the examination of the schools. The children be longing to a particular class in each school were all assembled at once in Edeyenkoody ; a day was devoted to the examination of each class ; and as a portion of every school in the district was present, and the comparative efficiency of each school was brought out in the course of the examination, not only the children, but also the schoolmasters themselves were examined, and stimulated to exertion.
My own ^special contribution to the education of the youth of the district was the instruction of a particular class every morning. This class comprised all the children that could read with ease in the boys' and girls' day-schools and the boarding- schools in Edeyenkoody. Morning prayers were over about half- past six ; and at seven o'clock my class, generally numbering about thirty pupils, assembled. The children then read before me a chapter, or a portion of a chapter, of Scripture in order, and were questioned and instructed in its meaning. Sometimes one day was devoted to a chapter, sometimes four or five days, according to the amount of difficulty contained in it, or the de sirableness of a thorough comprehension of it; and in this manner, slowly and carefully, with successive generations of pupils, I went four times through the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, twice through the historical portions of the Old Testament, and twice through the Epistle to the Romans. Once a month a day was devoted to the examination of the children by written questions and answers ; and whenever I was absent as when it was my duty to visit the out-villages I appointed the most intelligent catechist or schoolmaster to take my place. Some heathen children who attended our Edeyenkoody day- schools were members of this class for several years ; and two of them, of their own accord, and through the force of real con viction of the truth, abandoned the heathenism of their families, and boldly put on Christ.
It would be needless to point out the advantages which our children must have obtained from this opportunity of being instructed so systematically in the Word of Life. For the advantages of the system to myself, also, I have no less reason to be thankful. I have often felt and said, that I learned far more Divinity in teaching my class of Tamil children every morning in Edeyenkoody, than ever I did in College when studying expressly for the Ministry. The class was over at about half-past eight or nine; and then, after taking a refreshing swim, and breakfasting, I was ready for the ordinary work of the day. My day's work varied very much in character with the varying circumstances of the time. It is the popular notion that Europeans in India go to sleep for a couple of hours in the heat of the day : this may have been the practice formerly, but the siesta is now almost unknown. The old East is at last waking up, and the handful of Englishmen that are in India, and on whom all hope for the improvement of India depend?, have too much to do to sleep in the day-time. " They that sleep" must content themselves with sleeping in the night." We cannot safely walk about in the day-time in the open sun, but we can, and do apply ourselves as closely to in-door work, and even, in certain emergencies nnd with certain pre cautions, to out-door work, as we should do in England.
Correspondence, or the examination of candidates for the sacra ments, the settlement of disputes, or inquiry into cases of discipline, brick-and-mortar work, or accounts, visiting the sick, or the administration of medicine, a service, or study, used ordinarily to occupy my time every day till the afternoon, when I was accustomed to set out to visit some village in the neighbourhood. In visiting the more distant villages I was generally out several days at a time, including two Sundays a month ; and when thus out on a tour, I always visited two villages a day. The nearer villages I visited in the evenings from Edeyenkoody ; and in thus visiting a village, it was my custom not only to assemble the Christians in church for a service and sermon, with catechization, and afterwards to enter into conversation with them, and advise and encourage them, as might be required, but also to endeavour to see and converse with the heathen of the neighbourhood, espe cially such of them as were supposed to have "ears to hear."
The Female Boarding School at Edeyenkoody seems to call for special notice, inasmuch as there was no department of missionary work carried on in the district which was more interesting or useful. This school, which was under Mrs. Caldwell's care, was partly intended as a training school for native schoolmistresses, and there are several young women usefully employed as school mistresses in various districts in Tinnevelly who were trained up in this school ; but the principal object we had in view was that of training up a certain number of the more promising daughters of our native Christians to be specimens and patterns to the rest of the people of what Christian women ought to be, and, thus, of raising the character of the female portion of the community. The pupils are admitted into the school at a very early age, be fore their habits are fully formed ; they are isolated to a great extent from native society, brought up under our own eye, under our own influence, and not only instructed in useful knowledge, but trained up in the habits and proprieties of the Christian life. We have had, at various times, in the school from thirty-five to fifty pupils, all of whom have been boarded, lodged, and clothed, as well as educated ; and they have been supported partly by the contributions of Christian friends, partly by grants from Societies, and partly by the sale of lace made by the pupils themselves. We have endeavoured to give the school, as far as possible, the cha racter of an " Industrial School," not only as a help towards making it support itself, but as a benefit to the pupils in after life ; but, notwithstanding this, its support is chiefly derived from charitable sources, and though living is peculiarly cheap in Tinnevelly, and a school of this kind may be maintained there at less expense, perhaps, than in any other part of the world, yet it must be admitted that, at the cheapest, it is an expensive species of education, and we should certainly not have established and carried on a school on so expensive a plan, had it not been for our conviction of its absolute necessity.
It had been found by other Missionaries before us, and we also found, on putting it to the test, that day-schools for girls did not fully meet the peculiar circumstances of India, and that if we wished female education to make any real progress, for one or two genera tions at least, we must rely chiefly on female boarding schools. This necessity arises out of the peculiar position of women in India, and they who have not been in India themselves will be enabled in some degree to realize this necessity, when I. explain to them familiarly what the position of Hindu women is.
A fair estimate may be formed of the civilization of a people from the treatment which their women receive. Amongst savages the women do all the hard work, and the men, when they are not fighting or hunting, are smoking, drinking, or sleeping; on the other hand, amongst the christianized, civilized nations of Europe, the highest social honours are conceded to women. The position of women in India, like the position of India in the scale of civilization, lies midway between those extreme points.
It is a mistake to suppose that Hindu women are treated like slaves, if hard work is regarded as an essential feature of slavery ; for, perhaps, in no country in the world have women less work to do than in India. They live an easy, shady life, with little to do and less to think about ; they are well fed, better clothed than the men, well hung out with jewels, rarely beaten when they don't deserve it, and generally treated like household pets. In their own opinion, they have nothing to lament as a class, but are as well treated as women could wish to be, and are perfectly content. On the other hand, if slavery means social degradation, Hindu women must be regarded as slaves ; for not only are they denied equal rights with the men, but they are regarded as having no claim to any rights or feelings at all.
The Hindu wife is not allowed to eat with her own husband ; her duty is to wait upon her husband whilst he is eating, and to eat what he has left. If they have any children, the boys eat with their father, and, after they have done, the girls eat with their mother. Nor is this the custom among the lower classes only; it is the custom amongst every class of Hindus, in every part of India where I have been. When they are assembled together on any festive occasion, you never see the women seated on the same level with the men : if there is a dais or any elevated place, the men occupy the elevation, which is the place of honour, and the women squat cross-legged on the ground, or stand. If a party are going any-where on a visit, the men always walk first, the women humbly follow ; the wife never so far forgets her place as to walk side by side with her husband, much less arm in arm. The husband, it is true, is not forgetful of his wife's comfort ; if they can afford it, a conveyance is pro vided for the female portion of the party, and the men are content to walk. Still, they generally take care to preserve their dignity by walking on in front, and the conveyance must keep behind. In the Telugu language, the language of fourteen millions of people in southern India, the relative position of the women is illustrated by the pronouns of the third person. There is no feminine pronoun no word signifying "she" in the ordinary spoken dialect ! The only pronouns of the third person com monly used are vddii, " he," and adi, c: it." " He" of course denotes the lords of the creation," and to whom or what does "it" apply ? to women and cattle and irrational things in general. Worse than all this is the circumstance that Hindu women are unable to read, and are not allowed to learn. The dancing girls connected with the greater temples, a small and very dis reputable class, are taught to read, and within the last few years, through the influence of European Christianity, female education has become more or less fashionable in such places as Calcutta and Madras ; but with these exceptions, if exceptions they are, the heathen women of India are totally uneducated. I never myself met with a heathen -woman who could read, and in thai district in the South where I laboured, and where I was well acquainted with the condition of the people, no woman, I suppose, had learned to read from the beginning of the world, till Christ ianity was introduced, and our Christian schools established. The consequence of this ignorance is, that Hindu women are exceedingly superstitious and exceedingly silly ; but instead of the men being ashamed of this silliness, they think it the normal condition of the female mind. For instance, one of their poets, in describing the excellences of various classes of people, says
" To be a simpleton is the ornament of a woman."
Nor did the poet, in uttering this sentiment, mean to be sarcastic or to excite a laugh. He uttered it in all seriousness, and thought he was saying something to which every one would assent.
What is more extraordinary still, is, that though the arts of civilized life have made much progress in India, I never met with, and never heard of, a heathen woman in India who could sew. Excellent sewing is done in India ; muslins and silks are beauti fully embroidered ; but everything of that sort is done by men. Men are the dressmakers and milliners, men are the washerwomen, men milk the cows ; in short, nearly all the work that is done by women in this country is done by men in India. What then, it may be asked, do the women do 1 They have to attend to their household affairs, they have to attend to the comfort of their families, they have to go through a good deal of religious and social ceremonial ; and this, with few exceptions, is regarded as the sum-total of their duty. The women belonging to the very lowest class in society, the class of agricultural slaves, work nearly as hard as their husbands in the fields and in the open sun ; the women belonging to the classes immediately above add a few pence a month to the family income by spinning cotton ; a few \romen also are bazaar keepers, or hawkers of cakes ; but the women belonging to the more comfortable classes and the higher classes have no occupation whatever for their spare time. The whole of their time is not occupied by the preparation of the family meal and their simple household duties ; after all this is over, much time remains at their own disposal, and as they cannot read, and cannot sew, and cannot do any sort of "work," their time hangs very heavily on their hands, and they are driven to spend a large portion of it in ceremonies or in sleep, in gossip or in scandal. We may be sure that the devil will find plenty of occupation for those idle hands and those idle tongues !
After this description of Hindu manners, the women of England will scarcely be inclined to envy the women of India. But, it may be asked, Why do women occupy in this country so different a position ] It is wholly owing to the Christian religion. It is Christianity which has taught the husband to love his wife, "as Christ also loved the Church," and to give her honour as " the weaker vessel." It is to Christianity that the Christian wife is indebted for her social position ; and therefore all who value that position should be thankful to God for their Christianity, and anxious to diffuse its purifying influences throughout the earth. The condition of Hindu women generally being such as I have described, every one must at once see the necessity of special and earnest endeavours for the promotion of female education ; and at the same time, when it is borne in mind that the more ignorant any class of people are, they are the more contented with their ignorance, and that in every department of life custom is the supreme rule by which Hindu society is governed, we shall be able to form some estimate of the difficulties with which female education was found to be beset.
Even when the people had become Christians, the difficulty of inducing parents to allow their daughters to learn to read seemed for a time insuperable. " Of what use can reading be to women 1 ? it is contrary to the custom of the country, it is disreputable ; surely you don't want our daughters to resemble dancing-girls ? It is necessary, of course, that they should become Christians, and learn by heart various texts and prayers, but that is all the learning our women require. Do the women of your country learn all the sciences that men do ?" Such was the line of opposition generally taken ; and hence, if we wanted female education to make any real progress, we found it necessary to make it popular to sweeten it to the taste of the ignorant by linking to it advantages which they could appreciate to board and clothe a number of pupils, in addition to instructing them : and fortunately this very arrangement has enabled us to give the pupils a thoroughly good education such an education of mind and character, together with instruction in useful knowledge and useful employments, as should enable them to commend to their neighbours the edu cation they had received, and dissipate prejudice by the influence of their example. This is a result which the female boarding- school certainly has accomplished ; so much so, indeed, that it is retained now chiefly on account of its intrinsic usefulness, for the prejudice of our native Christians against female education has disappeared, and even in our day-schools the number of the girls bears now the natural proportion to the number of the boys.
We found it all the more necessary to labour for the promotion of female education, when we found that Hindu women, notwith standing their ignorance, are very influential in their families. It is commonly supposed, even by Europeans who have some ac quaintance with India, that Hindu women are destitute of influence ; but this is a mistake. After residing amongst them for some years, and acquiring an intimate acquaintance with their social and domestic life, we found that the majority of the married women of India are quite as influential in their families as women anywhere are. Indeed, it is inevitable that this should be the case, for whatever be their education or their intelligence, mothers have necessarily more influence than any other persons in the bringing up of their children and an influence at least equal to that of other relations in all moral and social matters affecting the interests of the family. Children are brought up in the atmosphere of their mother's influence, and though they may surpass their mother in intelligence, they are seldom able to rise above her in manners, morals, and tone of mind. Hindu women have much more influence with their husbands, also, than is com monly supposed.
Looking at the studied way in which they are assigned the lowest place in society, one would not have expected to find this to be. the case; but the fact is so, and I can only account for it on the supposition that nature is too strong for arti ficial rules. I have frequently met with Hindus who have can didly alleged as a reason for their not becoming Christians, the refusal of their wives to give their consent. In one instance a respectable farmer, who had long been kept back by his wife, determined to become a Christian without her : accordingly one day he came to church ; but his Christianity lasted one day only, for " his wife cried all night," as the native teacher of the village told me, and the poor man came to church no more. Even after people have become Christians, and promised to submit to our pastoral care, we have often found that no progress could be made in moral reforms, and little progress of any kind, if the women were not heartily on our side. Hence it will be seen how desirable it was that we should have a female boarding-school, in addition to our day-schools, and that some at least of the future wives and mothers of the district should be so taught and brought up that there might be a reasonable hope of their using their influence in their families for good.
The result has not only justified, but exceeded our expectations. It cannot be said, indeed, that every girl brought up in the school has turned out exactly what we could have wished, but the result has proved satisfactory in so large a number of instances the boarding-school has evidently been the centre and focus of so many of the reforming, purifying influences which have been at work in the district of so many of the pupils it can be said that they are the best behaved, most Christian-minded, most European-like women in the villages in which they live con sistent communicants and useful members of society that there is no department of missionary labour pursued in the district which has more amply justified the expenditure incurred in its behalf.
The expense of conducting the school has been much smaller, indeed, than might have been supposed. A school of this kind would be very expensive in England ; but money goes so far in Tinnevelly, owing to the extreme cheapness of the necessaries of life, that we have found ourselves able to educate and maintain a pupil for the small sum of 21. 10s. per annum. Out of this sum, which amounts to a little less than a shilling a week, we can board and lodge, and clothe, and educate a pupil, from her child hood till her fifteenth or sixteenth, year, by which time her friends get her settled in life ; and we are generally able to lay by a little, even out of this small sum, to meet contingencies. One sees from, this how far a shilling will go, and how much good a shilling may do, in the Mission field of Tinnevelly.
"Whilst the school has chiefly been supported by contributions from Christian friends, and grants from Societies, it has always been our endeavour to give it the character of an Industrial School, partly in order to enable it as far as practicable to support itself, and partly to meet the want of some means of employment suitable for women, which appeared to be one of the most crying wants of the neighbourhood. Accordingly, Mrs. Caldwell set about teaching the first pupils of our Edeyenkoody boarding-school to make lace ; and the experiment has succeeded so well that lace- making has already become in Edeyenkoody a flourishing branch of manufacture, and a source of considerable and increasing profit to the school. The lace has an excellent sale the demand far exceeds the supply and, although lace-making is far from being a profitable employment in this country, our native Christian women in Tinnevelly find it very remunerative ten times more remunerative, indeed, than any other sort of employment which was open to them before, besides being a clean, becoming employ ment, peculiarly suited to the habits and capabilities of Hindu women. The quality of the lace may be judged of from this, that specimens of it were sent by the East India Company, at its expense, to the Paris Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations f and subsequently to the Art-Treasures Exhibition in Manchester, and that a medal was awarded for it to the Edeyenkoody School, as well as another to that of Nagercoil, (in which this branch of industry originated,) by the Council of the Madras Exhibition.
One important result of all this is, that the condition of the edu cated Christian young women of the neighbourhood has been very much improved. Formerly the women were totally ignorant, and generally as helpless as they were ignorant entirely dependent for their support upon their relations : now, it not unfrequently happens that a young woman is not only better educated, but actually able to earn more than her husband, or her brother; and although this is not likely to be the case universally or always, nor is it our object to bring it about, yet undoubtedly it has had a good effect in the neighbourhood, in proving to the men, that women really can learn when they are taught, that they really can turn their learning at times to some profitable account, and that female education is far from being either the chimerical or the dangerous thing they had supposed it to be. When we first began to teach girls to read and sew, and do similar unheard-of exploits, some of the men would ask us sarcastically, " Are you going to teach the cows next 1" but the tables have now been turned upon those Avho said so, and they confess that women are so like men, after all, that we were right in teaching them as we did.
Another excellent result of the success of this portion of our work is, that it has proved to the people of the neighbourhood that Christianity has " the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come," it has proved that if Christianity finds any class of the community degraded, it does not leave them as it found them, but sets about rescuing them from their de graded condition ; and this is a very important lesson for heathens and newly-converted Christians to learn.
I have mentioned that the school was partly supported by grants from Societies, viz., by grants made by the Society or Promoting Christian Knowledge, and the Madras Diocesan Com mittee of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The grants of the former Society for all such objects have ceased, and those of the Madras Committee of the latter Society through the financial difficulties with which it has had to contend for some time) have been reduced one-half ; yet, notwithstanding this curtailment of income, I am anxious not to diminish, but to increase, the number of pupils in the school, and also to establish a somewhat similar Industrial Boarding Schocl for Boys, for the purpose of endeavouring to raise the tone of mind and character amongst the rising generation of young men. We are, therefore, under the necessity of depending more than ever upon the help of friends who are interested in the improvement of India and in the Christian education of the Hindus. The amount required for the support and education of a pupil is, as I have said, 21. 10s. per annum, and already some kind friends have sent me contributions towards this purpose. In every case in which funds are supplied for the support of a pupil, I undertake to send annually to the donor's address a special report of the condition and prospects of the school.*
There are many other details of our Tinnevelly work, besides those I have now given, which my limits will not allow me to describe. I have accomplished that which I intended if I have given a tolerably distinct idea of the general features of the interesting and important work which is being carried on. Our work in Tinnerelly is indeed a very interesting as well as a very important one, but it would be an error to suppose every portion of it to be of as cheering and encouraging a description as some of the particulars that have been mentioned. The whole picture will not bear to be painted in rose-coloured hues. Much of our work is of a very up-hill character, requiring in those who are
It may be desirable to mention here, for the information of friends -who may be so kind as to undertake to support a pupil in our Boarding School, and who wish to know how to send future contributions for this purpose, that the best way will be to remit them, from year to year, amongst the other contributions of their parish or neighbourhood, through the local Treasurer, taking care to have it stated in the accounts sent up to the Society, that it is a " Special Contribution for Edeyenkoody Boarding School.
engaged in it, much patience and love, as well as much energy. It is no easy task to induce hereditary idolaters and demonolaters to abandon their national superstitions, and to embrace a religion which is generally regarded by their fellow-countrymen with jealous}' as a foreign religion, and with dislike as a holy religion ; and even after they have been induced to embrace it after the entire inhabitants of a village, for example, have abandoned their idols and placed themselves under Christian instruction, instead of all difficulty being at an end, as some persons might too hastily suppose, the greatest difficulty of all is that which then meets our view the difficulty of training up the new Christian com munity in accordance with " the mind that was in Christ," so as to render it really worthy of the Christian name. That is a difficulty indeed ! The whole community has to be moulded into a new shape ; not only has much to be learnt, but much also has to be unlearnt. The people must be taught new habits, manners, associations, ideas, feelings the whole framework of society must be modelled anew, and in this process of re modelling, many disappointments occur many a vessel is " marred upon the wheel," and must be thrown aside as " unfit for the master's use," and it is well if the bulk of the community does not draw back to its former position. Few people but Mis sionaries know what the remodelling of a community means, or how many difficulties are involved in the process. Still, every Missionary who has been engaged in it has found all difficulties overcome in time by gentle firmness and resolute patience, by " prayer and pains." If he can but convince the people that he loves them, and that the God who sent him loves them, success is certain in the end ; and in the meantime, whilst " the care of all the churches " in his district fills his mind, whilst he is struggling with difficulties at twenty points at once, he finds in this holy war a noble, delightful excitement, a joy in battle, which is his present reward.