The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1913-10-23
An Interested Missionary Treats of
the Indian Church Problem

IMPRESS
slons which have become deeply i'm
pressed on his mind during this pc
riOd.
1t is hard to exaggerate the lone
InesS and isolation of a great num-
Der, perhaps the majority, of Indian
Christians. They have by their own
or their parents conversion been cut
Off irretrievably from their relations
and friends who have remained with
in the pale of Hinduism or of Islam.
Their only familiar associations can
be with the ether members of the
Christian community; yet these are
often drawn from medley of differ
ent castles, whose distinctions are far
more marked than are the various
social grades at home. Moreover the
Christian Church is hopelessly dis
united; there are more than q humid
red different Protestant denomina-
lions alone in India, some of them
distinguished by the most ridiculous
details, yet all separate and many of
them more or less antagOniStic.
Again the Church is foreign, financed
from abroad, directed by foreigners,
and according in the main only the
meanest shreds of self-government to
the Indian.
The educated Indian Christian
feels these things with bitterness
which it is hard for prosiac and hard
headed Westerners to appreciate. In
the majority of instances he has been
born into the Church; he has expe-
rienced preht ps little Of the flood of
spiritual regeneration which led his
father or his grandfather to give up
all to follow Christ; he feels himself
by no choice of his own to be an out
cast from his relations, his ances-
trail form Of livelihood and even from
the national life of his mOtherland;
in return for all this sacrifice he
finds himself dependent upon foreign
ers and yOked to community with
out cohesion and too often composed
of uncOngenial, uneducated material.
Add to these considerations the char
acteristic Indian constituencies and de-
pendence upon the opinions and sup
port of others, and some estimate
may perhaps be formed of what is
often position of lifelong bitter
loneliness.
We may perhaps feel inclined to
blame the Church for not possessing
within itself a sufficient fire of spiri-
tual life to overcome all these diff
culties and to assimilate successfully
all it's diverse constituent parts. But
the unfairness of such blame must
be apparent when we remember the
lack of life and the disunion in many
of our home churches, and compare
with their difficulties the infinitely
greater difficulties of the Indian
Church.
There are signs, however, that the
Indian Church is itself setting to
work to remedy these difficulties and
to furnish itself with the cohesion
which it lacks so sOrely. Faced with
the compact array of the Hindu
castles it is coming to realise that it's
only hope of forming itself into an
aggressive force, indeed it's only hope
Of maintaining its own independent
existence and Of fitting itself to be-
come an indigenous movement, is to
organize itself into society en-
bOdying the valuable features of
caste-Org aniZatiOn which do not con-
fiict with Christian teaching. An In
dian leader of the Methodist EpisCO-
pal Church in the United Provinces
told me recently that his ideal for the
Church was, that it should definitely
become new caste, but with this
difference from other castles, that it
should welcome members Of all other
castles to join it's ranks, and that it
should be organized on a spiritual
basis. Undoubtedly the trend of In
dian Christian thought, in SO far as
have come across it, has been in fa-