ee aes a ree ee i had = mepsleae ess ea se, em ne en eee Rie sys Shae ape nr te tT Me Ne gaat Rag ne var =e : RAR OF PRINCE a. v Pa ak ee sew Corded CAL ad be ane BVieo2O0 08 OOSe LY 2D Jones, E. Stanley 1884-1973 T.he Christ of the Indian road Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/christofindianro0Ojone The Christ of the Indian Road E. Stanley Jones GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEw YorRK By arrangement with Abingdon-Cokesbury Press fa™ j b | ae § : . ‘a 7 - ~ tof a ~ Lo 7 io Copyright, 1925, by E. STANLEY JONES All rights reserved, including that of translation mto foreign languages, including the Scandinavian Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE RRMA clare anil: ¢ comin date eal) 5 PREFACE TO THE SIxTH EDITION........ 7 TRTRODUCTION TO ferns bt. cr ae ee 11 I. Toe MESSENGER AND THE M@SSAGE...... 21 II. Tue Motive anp END oF CHRISTIAN MiIs- SIONS ois Woe eae ys at Shana yesh ne eon 34 III. Tot Growrmna Morau AnD SPIRITUAL SUPREMACY OF JESUS ............000. 59 IV. Jesus Comes Turover Irrecuuar CHan- NELS—MAHATMA GANDHI’S PaRT...... 73 VY. THROUGH THE REGULAR CHANNELS—SOME TUVANGHLISTIC SBRINS.{ cf. es haa oe 87 VI. Tum Great HINDRANCE... 0. 0.650. seen. 108 Vi CHM QUESTION HOUR: 2. vices. lca ett 131 VIII. Jesus THRouGH EXPERIENCE ........... 146 LRA BATOR WHOM .«.. coe ietee ae eins 162 X. CHRIST AND THE OTHER FAITHS......... 178 A... LHe CONCRETE CHRIST. $2 55¢. os 05a ceed 191 XII. Tue Indian INTERPRETATION OF JESUS.. 199 | XIIT. THe CHRIST OF THE INDIAN Roap...... 211 oh Ae oe diet has at si : Sate venir! de CEN eet n% . Tp be ?. Ag ie ric te heh! | ; ash) LAY J PREFACE PERHAPS a few words of caution may be help- ful to the reader. To those familiar with India the title of this volume may lead the reader to expect the book to be what it is not—an Indian interpretation of Christ. It is, rather, an attempt to describe how Christ is becoming naturalized upon the Indian Road. The Indian interpre- tation of Christ must be left to later hands. To those who have no first-hand familiarity with conditions in India another word of caution may be given. The author has tried to be scrupu- lously careful not to overdraw the picture. He has let non-Christians themselves largely tell the story of the silent revolution in thought that is taking place in India. But even so, the American and English reader must be careful not always to read into the statements of the non-Christians. the full content of his own thinking. In that case unwarranted implications may be drawn from them. Christian missions have come to a crisis in India. A new and challenging situation con- fronts us. If we are to meet it, we must boldly follow the Christ into what are, to us, untried paths. In order to understand these modern 5 6 PREFACE movements one must know the past, and must keep constantly in mind the foundations that have been laid for this new day by the patient toil and sacrificial living of generations of mis- sionaries and Indian Christians. This book does not pretend to fill in that picture, though every moment the writer realizes the indebted- ness to those of that past who have toiled and looked for this day of broadening opportunity. In any case Christian missions are but in their beginnings in India. With adjusted attitude and Spirit they will be needed in the East for decades and generations to come. My thanks are due to Dr. David G. Downey, who, owing to my return to India, has graciously undertaken to read the proofs and to see the book through the press. At the request of the publishers the spoken style has been retained. THE AUTHOR. Mission House, Sitapur, U. P., India. PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION Some of my readers have observed the absence from this book of certain notes usual in mission- ary textbooks. Where, they ask, are the child- widows, the caste system with its compart- mentalized and consequently paralyzed life, the six million sadhus roaming through India find- ing little and contributing less? Is Hinduism only a philosophical system? Is there not a pop- ular side with its 330,000,000 gods and goddesses, its endless pilgrimages and rapacious priests at each stage, its worship of demons and gods of questionable character? Has the purdah system been abolished? Has the appalling illiteracy amounting to ninety-three per cent been wiped out? Have these dark lines, hitherto so common in the picture, faded out? Is it all sweetness and light? No, these things are still there. But I have left them out of the picture for three reasons. First. India is aggrieved, and I think rightly so, that Christian missionaries in order to arouse the West to missionary activity have too often emphasized the dark side of the picture. What they have said has been true, but the picture has not been a true one. This overemphasis on the one side has often created either pity or con- v¢ 8 PREFACE tempt in the minds of the hearers. In modern jargon a superiority complex has resulted. I do not believe a superiority complex to be the proper spring for missionary activity. Eastern travelers in America, picking and choosing their facts, can make out a very dark picture of our civilization—the slums of our cities, the lynchings, divorce statistics, crime statistics unparalleled in other cities of the world, and so on. They have, in fact, done so. As Americans we have resented it as being an untrue picture. Then as Christians we should do unto others as we would that others should do unto us. Second. Indians themselves are now alive to these evils and are combating them. The impact of Christian ideals upon the situation has created a conscience in regard to these things and we can trust India to right them as she is, in fact, now doing. The fact is that racial lines are so drawn that India will probably deal more drastically with her evils if: she does it from within than if we foreigners were always insist- ing upon it. As a Turkish lawyer said to us regarding the reforms in Turkey, “The things which we have done in four years no outside power or government could have made us do. We are surprised at it ourselves.” The secret was that they did it. PREFACE 9 Third. I have tried to lay the foundations for Christian missions deeper than upon particular evils found in a particular race. Taken at their very best, pagan men and systems in Hast or West need Christ. I have said to India very frankly: “I do not make a special drive upon you because you are the neediest people of our race, but because you are a member of our race. I am convinced that the only kind of a world worth having is a world patterned after the mind and spirit of Jesus. I am therefore making a drive upon the world as it is, in behalf of the world as it ought to be, and as you are a part of that world I come to you. But I would not be here an hour if I did not know that ten others were doing in the land from which I come what I am trying to do here. We are all in the same deep need. Christ, I believe, can supply that need.” Another word should be added in regard to another seeming lack of emphasis. I have not emphasized the mass movement among the low castes because this book has been the story growing out of my own sphere of work. My work has been more connected with that mass movement in mind described in these pages than with the mass movement among the low castes. In spite of its obvious weaknesses and dangers I am deeply grateful for and rejoice in this lat- 10 PREFACE ter mass movement in which there is a turning of these dumb millions to Christ. In spite of statements to the contrary, this movement is going on with unabated force. Since my return to India a friend showed a petition signed with thumb impressions by eighteen thousand of these people who desired to come into the Chris- tian Church. But my emphasis has been upon what I knew best growing out of experience. A further word concerning the attitudes I find on my return after an absence of nearly two years from India. I find India even more open and responsive than when I left. The mass movement in mind goes on in silent but un- abated vigor. As the physical atmosphere be- comes saturated with moisture and heavy to the point of precipitation, so the spiritual atmos- phere of India is becoming saturated with Christ’s thoughts and ideals and is heavy to the point of precipitation into Christian forms and expression. As to when that will take place depends upon how much Christlikeness we can put into the situation. As the leading Arya Samajist in India recently said to the writer, “Everything depends upon the Christian Church.” It does. THE AUTHOR. Mission House, Sitapur, U. P., India. INTRODUCTION CLEARING THE ISSUES WHEN the early evangelists of the Good News were sent out on their own, they returned and told Jesus “what they had done and what they had taught.” This evangelist must add a third to what he has done and what he has taught—what he has learned. It will not be primarily an account of what has been done through him, but what has been done to him. Running through it all will be the perhaps un- conscious testimony of how, while speaking to India, I was led along to a simplification of my task and message and faith—and I trust of my life. Recently at the close of an address a friend remarked, ““He has probably done some good to India, but India has certainly done a great deal for him.” India has. In my sharing with her what has been a gift to me I found that I had less than I thought I had—and more. I thought my task was more complex than I now see it to be; not less difficult but less com- plex. When I first went to India I was trying to hold a very long line—a line that stretched clear from Genesis to Revelation, on to Western 11 12 INTRODUCTION Civilization and to the Western Christian Church. I found myself bobbing up and down that line fighting behind Moses and David and Jesus and Paul and Western Civilization and the Christian Church. I was worried. There was no well-defined issue. I found the battle almost invariably being pitched at one of these three places: the Old Testament, or Western Civ- lization, or the Christian Church. I had the ill- defined but instinctive feeling that the heart of the matter was being left out. Then I saw that I eould, and should, shorten my line, that I could take my stand at Christ and before that non- Christian world refuse to know anything save Jesus Christ and him crucified. The sheer storm and stress of things had driven me to a place that I could hold. Then I saw that there is where I should have been all the time. I saw that the gospel lies in the person of Jesus, that he himself is the Good News, that my one task was to live and to present him. My task was simplified. But it was not only simplified—it was vital- ized. I found that when I was at the place of Jesus I was every moment upon the vital. Here at this place all the questions in heaven and earth were being settled. He was the one question that settled all others. I still believed in the Old Testament as being INTRODUCTION 13 the highest revelation of God given to the world before Jesus’ coming; I would inwardly feed upon it as Jesus did. But the issue was further on. A Jain lawyer, a brilliant writer against Christianity, arose in one of my meetings and asked me a long list of questions regarding things in the Old Testament. I replied, “My brother, I think I can answer your questions, but I do not feel called on to do so. I defined Christianity as Christ. If you have any objec- tions to make against him, I am ready to hear them and answer them if I can.” He replied, “Who gave you this authority to make this dis- tinction? What church council gave you this authority?” I replied that my own Master gave it to me—that I was not following a church council, but trying to follow him, and he himself had said: “Ye have heard it said of old time,... but I say unto you,” so I was simply following his lead, for he made his own word final even in Scripture. I was bringing the battle up from that incomplete stage of Revelation to the final —to Jesus. Revelation was progressive, ° cul- minating in him. Why should I, then, pitch my battle at an imperfect stage when the perfect was here in him? My lawyer friend saw with dismay that a great many of his books written against Christianity had gone into ashes by my definition. They were beside the point. But the 14 INTRODUCTION lawyer was not to blame for missing the point. Had we not often by our writings and by our attitude led him to believe that we did make the issue there? Our confusion was Peter’s confusion which the Father’s voice and the vision of Jesus clari- fied. On the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses, representing the law, and Elijah the prophets, talked with Jesus, the New Revelation. The Jew- ish heart of Peter wanted to keep all three, and put them on the same level—he wanted to build three tabernacles for them. A voice from the - cloud spoke, “This is my beloved Son; hear him” —the law and the prophets are fulfilled in him; hear him. And when they lifted up their eyes they saw no man save Jesus only. He filled their horizon. He must fill ours. Again, have we not often in the past led India and the non-Christian world to think that our type of civilization in the West is the issue? Before the Great War was not Western greatness often preached as a reason for the East becoming Christian? This was a false trail and led us into many embarrassments, calling for endless apologies and explanations. There is little to be wondered at that India hesitates about our civilization—great and beau- tiful on certain sides and weak and ugly on others. While some of the contacts of the West INTRODUCTION 15 with the East have been in terms of beautiful self-sacrifice and loving service, some of them have been ugly and un-Christian. But that we are not more Christian in the West is under- standable when we remember in what manner much of our Christianity was propagated in Europe. Many of the evils which now afflict the West came in with it. While it is true that many of the first missionaries to the Huropean tribes were men of rare saintliness and self-sac- rifice, nevertheless Christianity was not always propagated by saintliness and self-sacrifice. Take three illustrations that may show why three great un-Christian things lie back in our civilizations. All Russia became Christian with Vladimir : the Emperor. He desired to become a Christian, but hesitated, for, as being beneath his dignity, he would not be baptized by the local clergy. He wanted the Patriarch of Constantinople to perform the ceremony—that would give the de- Sired dignity. But to ask him to come to do it would be receiving a bounty at the hands of an- other. He decided that the only thing consonant with his honor would be to conquer Constan- tinople and compel the Patriarch to baptize him. He would then stand as dictator and not as suppliant. That was actually carried out. Con- stantinople was captured and the Patriarch 16 INTRODUCTION forced to baptize him. Thus Russia became Christian! Is it to be wondered at that dom- ination still continues in the West in spite of Christianity? It came in with it. Another. The Saxons, a warring tribe of Europe, were practically compelled to become Christians. They consented on one condition. That condition would only be known at the time of their baptism. When these warriors were put under the water as a symbol that their old life was dead, they went under—all except their right arms. They held them out, lifted above their heads. These were their fighting arms. They were never Christianized! Is it to be wondered at that war continues in the West in spite of Christianity? It came in with it. Another. One Mayflower carried the Pilgrim Fathers to religious liberty in America; another Mayflower goes to bring a load of slaves to these same seekers after liberty. The good ship “Jesus” was in the slave trade for our fathers. Is it to be wondered at that race and color prejudice still exists in the West in spite of Christianity? It came in with it. The East feels that these things are still there. But standing amid the shadows of Western civ- ilization, India has seen a Figure who has greatly attracted her. She has hesitated in re- gard to any allegiance to him, for India has INTRODUCTION 17 thought that if she took one she would have to take both—Christ and Western civilization went together. Now it is dawning upon the mind of India that she can have one without the other— Christ without Western civilization. That dawn- ing revelation is of tremendous significance to them—and to us. “Do you mean to say,” said a Hindu lawyer in one of my meetings about seven years ago, “that you are not here to wipe out our civiliza- tion and replace it with your own? Do you mean that your message is Christ without any implications that we must accept Western Civ- ilization? JI have hated Christianity, but if Christianity is Christ, I do not see how we In- dians can hate it.” I could assure him that my message was that and only that. But this was seven years ago. That matter has now become clarified, more or less. It has become clear that we are not there to implant Western civilization. They may take as little or as much from West- ern civilization as they like—and there is much that is tremendously worth while—but we do not make it the issue. The fact is that if we do not make it the issue, they will probably take more from it than if we did. But the swift and often accurate intuitions of the Indian have gone further. He is making an amazing and remarkable discovery, namely, that 18 INTRODUCTION Christianity and Jesus are not the same—that they may have Jesus without the system that has been built up around him in the West. A prominent lecturer, who has just returned from India, says that this discovery on the part of India of the difference between Christianity and Jesus “can be called nothing less than a dis- covery of the first magnitude.” Let it be said that the suggestion as to the difference is not new, it has been said before. But the thing that is new is that a people before their acceptance of Christianity have noted the distinction and seem inclined to act upon it. It is a most significant thing for India and the world that a great people of amazing spiritual capacities is seeing, with remarkable insight, that Christ is the center of Christianity, that utter commitment to him and catching his mind and spirit, and living his life constitute a Christian. This realization has remarkable potentialities for the future religious history of the whole race. Looking upon it in the large, I cannot help wondering if there is not a Providence in the fact that India has not accepted Christianity en masse before this discovery was fixed in her mind. If she had accepted Christianity without this clarification, her Christianity would be but a pale copy of ours and would have shared its weaknesses. But with this discovery taking place INTRODUCTION 19 before acceptance it may mean that at this period of our racial history the most potentially spirit- ual race of the world may accept Christ as Chris- tianity, may put that emphasis upon it, may restore the lost radiance of the early days when he was the center, and may give us a new burst of spiritual power. For in all the history of Christianity whenever there has been a new emphasis upon Jesus there has been a fresh outburst of spiritual vitality and virility. As Bossuet says, “Whenever Christianity has struck out a new path in her journey it has been because the personality of Jesus has again become living, and a ray from his being has once more illuminated the world.” Out of a subject race came this gospel in the beginning, and it may be that out of another sub- ject race may come its clarification and revivifi- cation. Some of us feel that the next great - spiritual impact upon the soul of the race is due to come by way of India. UE rca ie 4) hy Ae , te : , i a al CHAPTER I THE MESSENGER AND THE MESSAGE I HAVE been asked to tell in this book of my evangelistic experiences in the East. I have found that all real evangelistic work begins in the evangelist. Around the world the problem of Christian work is the problem of the Christian worker. As family training cannot rise above family character, so Christian service cannot rise above the Christian servant. I, therefore, cannot begin it in any better way than to tell of a bit of personal experience— apart from which I question whether I would have had the courage to undertake it. After over eight years continuously in India in various types of missionary work, ranging from pastor of an English church, head of a publishing house, missionary to the villages, district superinten- dent of large areas, I felt strangely drawn to work among the educated high castes, the intel- ligentsia. As a mission we were doing very little indeed among them. We had taken the line of least resistance and nearly all our work was among the low castes. Along with my regular work I had started a 21 22 THE CHRIST OF THE INDIAN ROAD Bible class and study group at an Indian club house where leading Hindus and Mohammedans gathered. After tennis in the evenings we would sit together until darkness fell and study the New Testament and discuss spiritual matters. One day one of the leading government officials, a Hindu, remarked, ‘How long has this mission been in this city?” I told him about fifty years. He asked very pointedly: “Then why have you gone only to the low castes? Why haven’t you come to us?” I replied that I supposed it was because we thought they did not want us. He replied: “It is a mistake. We want you if you will come in the right way.” We want you if you will come in the right way! Almost every moment since then I have been in eager quest for that right way. I have come to the con- clusion that the right way was just to be a Chris- tian with all the fearless implications of that term. But who was sufficient for these things? For it meant standing down amid the currents of thought and national movements sweeping over India and interpreting Christ to the situation. I was painfully conscious that I was not intel- lectually prepared for it. I was the more pain- fully conscious that I was not Christian enough to do what the situation demanded. And most depressing of all, I was physically broken. THE MESSENGER AND MESSAGE 23 The eight years of strain had brought on a! nervous exhaustion and brain fatigue so that there were several collapses in India before I left for furlough. On board ship while speaking in a Sunday morning service there was another collapse. I took a year’s furlough in America. On my way back to India I was holding evan- gelistic meetings among the university students of the Philippine Islands at Manila. Several hundreds of these Roman Catholic students pro- = fessed conversion. But in the midst of the strain ——~ of the meetings my old trouble came back. There were several collapses. I went on to India with a deepening cloud upon me. Here I was begin- ning a new term of service in this trying climate and beginning it—broken. I went straight to the hills upon arrival and took a complete rest for several months. I came down to the plains to try it out and found that I was just as badly off as ever. I went to the hills again. When I came down the second time I saw that I could go no further, I was at the end of my resources, my health was shattered. Here I was facing this call and task and yet utterly unprepared for it in every possible way. I saw that unless I got help from somewhere I would have to give up my missionary career, go back to America and go to work on a farm to try to regain my health. It was one of my 24 THE CHRIST OF THE INDIAN ROAD darkest hours. At that time I was in a meeting at Lucknow. While in prayer, not particularly thinking about myself, a Voice seemed to say, “Are you yourself ready for this work to which I have called you?” I replied: “No, Lord, I am done for. I have reached the end of my re- sources.” The Voice replied, “If you will turn that over to me and not worry about it, I will take care of it.” I quickly answered, “Lord, I close the bargain right here.” A great peace settled into my heart and pervaded me. I knew it was done! Life—abundant Life—had taken pos- session of me. I was so lifted up that I scarcely touched the road as I quietly walked home that night. Every inch was holy ground. For days after that I hardly knew I had a body. I went through the days, working all day and far into the night, and came down to bedtime wondering why in the world I should ever go to bed at all, for there was not the slightest trace of tiredness of any kind. I seemed possessed by Life and Peace and Rest—by Christ himself. The question came as to whether I should tell this. I shrank from it, but felt I should—and did. After that it was sink or swim before every- body. But nine of the most strenuous years of my life have gone by since then, and the old trouble has never returned, and I have never had such health. But it was more than a physical THE MESSENGER AND MESSAGE 25 Touch. I seemed to have tapped new Life for body, mind, and spirit. Life was on a perma- nently higher level. And I had done nothing but take it! I suppose that this experience can be picked to pieces psychologically and explained. It does not matter. Life is bigger than processes and overflows them. Christ to me had become Life. Apart from this Touch I question if I would have had the courage to answer the call to work among these leaders of India’s thought and life. It was too big and too exacting. But here I saw my Resources. And they have not failed. Now a word as to that right method of ap- proach. There were two or three methods of approach then current: (1) The old method of attacking the weaknesses of other religions and then trying to establish your own on the ruins of the other. (2) The method of Doctor Far- quhar, which was to show how Christianity ful- fills the ancient faiths—a vast improvement on the old method. (8) The method of starting with a general subject of interest to all, and then ending up with a Christian message and appeal. I felt instinctively that there should be a bet- » ter approach than any of these three. I see now how I was feeling after it. I have before me a note written eight years ago laying down some principles I thought we should follow. (1) Be 26 THE CHRIST OF THE INDIAN ROAD absolutely frank—there should be no camouflage in hiding one’s meaning or purpose by noncom- mittal subjects. The audience must know ex- actly what it is coming to hear. (2) Announce beforehand that there is to be no attack upon anyone’s religion. If there is any attack in it, it must be by the positive presentation of Christ. He himself must be the attack. That would mean that that kind of an attack may turn in two di- rections—upon us as well as upon them. He would judge both of us. This would tend to save us from feelings and attitudes of superiority, so ruinous to Christian work. (3) Allow them to ask questions at the close—face everything and dodge no difficulties. (4) Get the leading non- Christians of the city where the meetings are held to become chairmen of our meetings. (5) Christianity must be defined as Christ, not the Old Testament, not Western civilization, not even the system built around him in the West, but Christ himself and to be a Christian is to follow him. (6) Christ must be interpreted in terms of Christian experience rather than through mere argument. That was written eight years ago. As I look back I find that we have been led forward in two most important steps since then: (1) I have dropped out the term “Christianity” from my announcements (it isn’t found in the Scrip- THE MESSENGER AND MESSAGE 27 tures, is it?), for it had connotations that con- fused, and instead I have used the name of Christ in subjects announced and in the address itself. The other way I had to keep explaining that I meant Christ by Christianity. (2) Christ must be in an Indian setting. It must be the Christ of the Indian Road. I saw that no movement would succeed in India that cuts across the grow- ing national consciousness of India, that Chris- tianity did seem to be cutting across that na- tional consciousness, it was therefore not suc- ceeding—at least among the nationally conscious classes. A leading Nationalist said to me, “I am not afraid of Christianity as such, but I am afraid of what is happening. Everyone who be- comes a Christian is lost to our national cause.” No wonder he suspected it. Christianity to suc- ceed must stand, not with Cesar, nor depend upon government backing and help, but must stand with the people. It must work with the national grain and not against it. Christ must not seem a Western Partisan of White Rule, but a Brother of Men. We would welcome to our fellowship the modern equivalent of the Zealot, the nationalist, even as our Master did. As to the manner and spirit of the presenta- tion of that message, we should consider it of the highest importance that the penetrating statement of Tagore should be kept in mind that aa 28 THE CHRIST OF THE INDIAN ROAD “when missionaries bring their truth to a strange land, unless they bring it in the form of homage it is not accepted and should not be. The man- ner of offering it to you must not be at all dis- cordant with your own national thought and your self-respect.” I felt that we who come from a foreign land should have the inward feeling, if not the outward signs, of being adopted sons of India, and we should offer our message ask a homage to our adopted land; respect should characterize our very attitude; India should be home, her future our future, and we her serv- ants for Jesus’ sake. We have come, then, this far in our thinking: that the Christ of the Indian Road, with all the fullness of meaning that we can put into those words, should be our message to India. That this centering of everything in Jesus is the right lead is remarkably corroborated by Doctor Gilkey, the Barrows lecturer, who has just returned from a great hearing in India. After consultation with a great many, of whom I was honored to be one, he chose as the subject for the lectures, “The Personality of Jesus.” To choose such a subject was in itself an adventure. A leading Christian college president in India said to Doctor Gilkey: “If you had chosen that subject as recently as five years ago, or even three, you would have had no hearing. I am as THE MESSENGER AND MESSAGE 29 much amazed as you are at this burst of interest and these crowds.” The leading Hindu social thinker of India, commenting in his paper, re- marked, “The Barrows lecturer could not have chosen a subject of more vital interest in India to-day than the subject, ‘The Personality of Jesus.” It was good to find my own experience corroborated in the experience of another. Hitherto it has been exceedingly difficult to get non-Christians to come to a Christian ad- dress of any kind. But in the most prom- inent Hindu, a Mohammedan judge, and a Chris- tian missionary signed the notices that went out calling the meetings. To me at that time it was a new experience to have them do it. An expe- rienced missionary said to me after one of the meetings, “If you had told me a week ago that the leading men of this city would sit night after night listening to the straightest gospel one could present and ask for more, I would not have be- lieved it, and yet they are doing it.” I have found that they will listen when that gospel is Christ and are drawn when he is lifted up. It may be that we will yet discover that good Christianity is good tactics, that the straight- forward, open proclamation of Jesus is the best method. Paul believed this, for he says, “I dis- own those practices which very shame conceals from view; I do not go at it craftily, I do not 30 THE CHRIST OF THE INDIAN ROAD falsify the word of God; I state the truth openly and so commend myself to every man’s con- science in the sight of God. . . . It is Christ Jesus as Lord, not myself, that I proclaim” (2 Cor. 4. 2-5, Moffatt). He let Jesus commend himself to every man’s conscience, for he knew that Jesus appeals to the soul as light appeals to the eye, as truth fits the conscience, as beauty speaks to the esthetic nature. For Christ and the soul are made for one another, and when they are brought together deep speaks to deep and wounds answer wounds. That this approach is probably sound is seen by the statement of the non-Christian chairman who rebuked a Christian speaker because he had tried to come at it gradually: ““We can speak of God ourselves, we expect to hear from you about Christ.” We often quote Paul’s speech at Athens as a model of missionary approach and yet it was one of Paul’s biggest failures. He did not succeed in founding a church there. Mackintosh analyzes his failure thus: “The Christian propa- ganda failed or prospered in proportion as the fresh data for religion present in Jesus were studiously concealed or openly proclaimed. Take Paul’s address at Athens: says some fine things, God’s spirituality, a God not afar off—one in whom we live and move, creation instead of THE MESSENGER AND MESSAGE 31 chaos. Providence instead of chance, men of one blood instead of proud distinction between Greek and Barbarian. But.at no point is publicity given to the distinctive Christian message. In this studied omission of the cross is the secret of his comparative failure at Athens and his subse- quent change at Corinth. He writes penitently, ‘I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified.’ The gospel had lost its savour when it was merged in Jewish commonplace” (The Originality of the Christian Message, Mackintosh). But the Hindu insists, and rightly so, that it must not be “an incrusted Christ,” to use the words of the student representative before the World’s Student Conference at Peking. It must not be a Christ bound with the grave clothes of : long-buried doctrinal controversy, but a Christ as fresh and living and as untrammeled as the one that greeted Mary at the empty tomb on that first Easter morning. A Hindu puts the matter thus: “We have been unwilling to receive Christ into our hearts, but we alone are not responsible for this. Christian missionaries have held out a Christ completely covered by their Christianity. Up to now their special effort has been to defeat our religious doc- trines, and therefore we have been prepared to fight in order to self-defense. Men cannot judge 32 THE CHRIST OF THE INDIAN ROAD when they are in a state of war. In the excite ment of that intoxication while intending to strike the Christians we have struck Christ” (The Goal of India, Holland). But we too must acknowledge our part in the mistake and see to it that in the future India has a chance to respond to an untrammeled Christ. A friend of mine was talking to a Brahman gentleman when the Brahman turned to him and said, “I don’t like the Christ of your creeds and the Christ of your churches.” My friend quietly replied, “Then how would you like the Christ of the Indian Road?” The Brahman thought a moment, mentally picturing the Christ of the Indian Road—he saw him dressed in Sadhus’ garments, seated by the wayside with the crowds about him, healing blind men who felt their way to him, putting his hands upon the heads of poor, unclean lepers who fell at his feet, announcing the good tidings of the Kingdom to stricken folks, staggering up a lone hill with a broken heart and dying upon a wayside cross for men, but rising triumphantly and walking on that road again. He suddenly turned to the friend and earnestly said, “I could love and follow the Christ of the Indian Road.” How differs this Christ of the Indian Road from the Christ of the Galilean Road? Not at all. THE MESSENGER AND MESSAGE 33 Christ is becoming a familiar Figure upon the Indian Road. He is becoming naturalized there. Upon the road of India’s thinking you meet with him again and again, on the highways of India’s affection you feel his gracious Presence, on the ways of her decisions and actions he is becoming regal and authoritative. And the voice of India is beginning to say with Whittier: “The healing of the seamless dress Is by our beds of pain; We touch him in life’s throng and press, And we are whole again.” CHAPTER II THE MOTIVE AND END OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS THERE is a good deal of misunderstanding as to why we are undertaking Christian missions and as to what we are really trying to do. A very Severe criticism is beating upon this whole ques- tion of missions from many angles and sources. Personally I welcome it. If what we are doing is real it will shine all the more. If it isn’t real, the sooner we find it out the better. We have been called international meddlers, creed mongers to the East, feverish ecclesiastics compassing land and sea to gain another prose- lyte. From the other side comes the criticism that we satisfy a racial superiority complex when we go on helpful service to other nations; that we are the kindly side of imperialism—we go ahead and touch the situation in terms of schools and hospitals and human helpfulness, then imperialism comes along and gathers up the situation in the name of empire; or that capitalism takes over and exploits the situation as intrepid missionaries open it up. Again it is said that it is a bit of spiritual impertinence to come to a nation that can produce a Gandhi or 34 THE MOTIVE AND END 35 a Tagore. Finally we are told that the whole missionary movement is a mistake, since, as non- Christian investigators tell us, the last command of Jesus to go into the world and preach the gos- pel is an interpolation, hence the whole is founded upon a mistaken idea. These are serious criticisms and must be met fairly and squarely. If this whole question of missions is to hold the affections of the church in the future, we must be sure that we are about a business that commends itself to the mind as well, for what does not hold the mind will soon not hold the heart. Besides, let it be noted that if Christianity isn’t worth exporting it isn’t worth keeping. If we cannot share it, we cannot keep it. Some of the motives that were valid in the past are not holding good to-day. In the days when I volunteered to be a missionary the prevailing thought was that here is a cataract of human souls pouring over into perdition and that we were to rescue aS many as possible. Rightly or wrongly, this idea is no longer prevailing as a motive for foreign missions. Then at the close of the Great War there was the feeling that democ- racy was the panacea for the world’s ills, and that America, being the embodiment of the democratic ideal, should loose democracy, permeated with Christianity, upon the world.